by all Confessions and by the frequent Declarations of the Law why have our Kings disposed oftener of the Residentiaries places than of the Canonries at large without Residence Why should any man dispute against his Kings being his Founder Can he pretend to have a better Or will he pretend to have none at all 'T is true that Osmund was a Secondary and Subordinate Founder of many Prebends But His Founder and Royal Master was worthily reckoned as the Supreme with which Distinction it is as true the Dean and Chapter have a Right to choose their Bishops as well as Residents But both in a subserviency and subordination to the Supreme wherewith their own must stand or fall The Reverend Arch-Deacon Fulwood hath enough whereby to clear the King's Patronage of the whole English Church and he cites Archbishop Bramhall producing several Laws for it The Assize of Clarendon the Statute of Carlile the Statute of Provisors All asserting the Power and Patronage to be de jure in the King which was de facto in the Pope and by Usurpation The Parliament told the King plainly That the Right of the Crown is such and the Law of the Land too that the King is bound to make Remedies and Laws against Incroachment on his Prerogative Sect. 6. Lastly I must in my Narrative in imitation of the most Learned and most Judicious Bishop Sanderson assert the Bishops Right as well as the Chapter 's and mine Own both as jointly with them and as Separate from them upon what I think the surest and safest Ground Only I could not find in my heart to take down that Scaffold or to invalidate those stairs unto which we all owe our own Advancement I was really afraid to betray the Church by asserting the Churchmen's Right with an Exclusion of the Kings as I am sorry some do to the endangering of the whole Body For 't is to Expose her as an Orphan to a very unkind world sadly stripped of the Patronage and so the Protection of the King who is her Guardian and Nursing Father to whom the Church owes her Safety if not her Being and without whose Royal Patronage she cannot comfortably subsist The Church in our Laws being evermore a Minor ever a Pupil under Age as utterly destitute of help as ever any Expositious and Forsaken Child was without that Guardianship and Patronage that Royal Right and Prerogative which some who live by it have lately attempted to Undermine In this my Sentiment if I have erred it is with the Great Man I just now mentioned as my Exemplar in that Book which he composed by the special Command of King Charles the First of Glorious Memory proving Episcopacy in England not at all Prejudicial to Regal Power which some would make Destructive of it by the same way of arguing which I have used The shortest Accompt which I can render of it is this All Episcopal Power is either of Order or Iurisdiction hereof the latter is either Internal or External and this last is either Directive or Coercive the first is from God the Second wholly from the King as is declared by our Laws and acknowledged by the whole Loyal Clergy Yea that Power which is from God as that of Preaching Ordaining Absolving and the like is so subject to be Inhibited Limited and otherwise Regulated in the outward Exercise of that Power by the Customs of the Land as that the whole Execution of that Power does still depend upon the Regal Now All Iurisdiction being Confessedly from the King it seem's to follow that all Prebends as well as Residentiaries places of the Old Foundation which have a Iurisdiction belonging to them as those of Sarum are known to have are disposable by the King when and as often as His Majesty sees Good Pope Nicholas could not deny it and therefore Granted it very cunningly to Edward the Confessor with a Vobis Posteris committimus Advocationem c. We commit the Advowson of all the Churches of England to you and your Successors Kings of England So that if the Popes Grants are of any value before the Statutes of Provisors and Praemunire by which the Composition in it self Evil was made much worse as having been when those Statutes had made it Criminal for the Subjects of England to petition a Bishop of Rome for a Confirmation the Regal Right I plead for has a double Title and is not questionable by the Papalins much less by the men of the Church of England Now whereas I did distinguish with the Judicious Bishop Sanderson between an Original and Derivative Power of Jurisdiction wherewith I have been twitted in derogation to the Kings Honour to whom it seems I ascribed more than Malignity will allow tho' no more than Bishop Sanderson whose Loyal performance justifies mine And after shewed the Great Extent with the greater Intensiveness of my Derivative Jurisdiction as Dean of Sarum which had been a most Extravagant and Unaccountable Iurisdiction if the first Deans of Sarum had not been Deans of the Kings Free Chappel before the Cathedral Church was built and before Bishop Herman was the first Bishop of it as well as during all his time which I shall prove to be as clear as the Sun at Noon in a fair day I will justify my self in my so magnifying my Office out of mere Gratitude to the King and to show his Royal Bounty as well as Power in the words of the said meek and most Learned Prelate The more a Derived Power is extended and inlarged in the Exercise thereof so as to be Regular the more it serveth to set forth the Honour and Greatness of that Original Power which granted it Since the vertue of the Efficient Cause is best known by the Greatness of it's Effect For Propter quod unumquodque est Tale Illud ipsum est magis Tale as the warmth of the Room doth not lessen the Heat of the fire upon the Hearth but is a sign of it's Greatness c. From all which it follows that the Dean who does as modestly as he does thankfully distinguish between his own but derivative and Subordinate Rights and the Rights of the King which are Original and Supreme cannot magnify his Office or defend his Jurisdiction according to his Oath and bounden Duty with too much Zeal whilst they who hate that Distinction as by me it hath been used and will have the Sole Right to dispose of this or That Exclusively of the Kings are neither so modest nor so thankful as I sincerely wish they were They maligning their Maker's Power whereby they are what they are I will add ex abundanti what may conduce to Their Conviction in this great Article of our Religion who would be thought of the Church of England It is a Principle in Law that of every Land there is a Fee simple in some body But the Fee simple of the Land of a Prebend cannot be in the Bishop
which might excuse his Sin a Tanto Much more might they have done whilst the Dean was yet Living if such an Incroachment had been attempted Besides it was against the Imperial Crown of this Realm by being against the Decanal Jurisdiction which is for ever and inseparably thereto annexed and granted unto the Dean under the Great Seal of England § II. Next it was against the Common and Statute Law of the Land Against the first because the King's Prerogative is Law and the Principal part of the Common Law as that from which our Statute Laws are derived and 't is a Principle with my Lord Coke The Common Law disallows Acts done to the prejudice of any Subject of this Realm much more of the Sovereign by any Foreign Power out of the Realm as things not Authentick Such was the Power of Boniface the Ninth meerly Foreign and Prohibited as such by several Statutes then in force and ever since Against the second because there were ab Antiquo before the Petition made to the Pope by the then Bishop Dean and Chapter for the Papal Confirmation of the Conspiracy aforesaid Acts of Parliament in force against Appealing to or Petitioning the Bishop of Rome or any other foreign Power either for Grants or Confirmations of any Acts or Combinations or Associations whatsoever within these Realms and therefore one Abbot Moris in the 46 of Ed. 3. incurr'd the Pain of Praemunire for sending to Rome to be confirmed by the Pope in his Election to his Abby which the Pope forsooth gave him of his Spiritual Grace and at the Request of the King of England as he fictitiously pretended The Bull was considered of in Council before all the Judges of England and by them All it was resolved that this Bull of the Pope was against the Laws of England and that the Abbot for obtaining it was faln into the King's Mercy whereupon All his Possessions were seiz'd into the King's Hands The same Penalty was deserved by them who made the Composition we are upon and petitioned the Pope for his Confirmation And though 't is pretended to have been done at Rich. 2. his Intercession yet it is but pretended according to the Usual Trick the Practise and Policy of the Popes to feign Requests from the Kings of England who scorned to make them as they did often pretend to Give what they could not deny or durst not offer to withold and knew they had not either a Right to confer or a Power to hinder Choice Examples of which are given by the Learned and Reverend Archdeacon Fullwood in his Subversion of the Romanists Pleas for the Pope's Supremacy in England and though Rich. 2. was so incomparably careless of his every thing that was his even to his Kingdom Crown and Dignity which brought upon him his Deposition as Historians are wont to call it And although such an Act of Intercession to the Pope as is pretended had had an absolute Nullity in it self had it been True yet hardly any man can believe it who shall consider the Statute made in the same Kings Time against all Papal Usurpations which to own and to use as things of Right is to incur a Praemunire Besides that Rich. 2. had acted against other Parliaments also as well as against his own and against his Declaration in case he had done as is pretended But that the Trick I now mentioned was often used by the Popes we cannot prove by a better Testimony than that of the most Learned and most sincere Padre Paul who speaking of the Times of Paul the Fourth in giving that to Queen Mary which was her own long before and inherited from her Father King Hen. 8. concludes with this signal Observation Cosi spesso i Papi hanno donato quello che non hanno potuto levare a possessori questi per suggire le contentioni parte hanno ricevuto le Cose proprie in dono parte hanno dissimulate di saper ' il dono la pretensione del Donatore Add to all this that the said Conspiracy was expresly against Magna Charta by which the Deans and Chapters Liberties Exemptions and Jurisdictions were confirmed and secured and that by no fewer than 32 Acts of Parliament And Magna Charta is not only a Statute Law as old as since the 17th year of King Iohn though made more full and with more Solemnity in the 9th Year of Hen. 3. But moreover by the Act of 25 Ed. 1. 't was adjudged in Parliament to be taken and held as The Common Law They are the Words of Chief Iustice Coke in the Preface to his Comment on Magna Charta In a word The Application made to the Pope at that Time against the Laws of this Realm was a strong proof of its Corruption For 't was the Observation of the most wise Padre Paolo that None went to Rome out of Devotion but only out of some Design against the Canons and Customs of the Church which being unable to get approved in their own Country they fled to Rome where Dispensations were vendible for every thing and the Avarice or Ambition covered over with an Apostolical Dispensation or Confirmation So he in his Treatise of the Almes of the Faithful in the Primitive Church § III. Thirdly The foresaid Composition was even knowingly and professedly against The great Fundamental Statute commonly called in our Books Magna Charta Osmundi of the Subordinate Founder Osmund and by a Consequence unavoidable against the Sovereign Founder also whose Royal Seal alone was affixed to it That 't was against the said Charter and Fundamental Statute and against the Exemption of the Dean and Canons and all Inferior Members also belonging to the Kings Free Chappel which any man may deny whose Tongue is his own but no Man living can disprove hath already been evinced and shall be further as Occasion shall be offered But that 't was knowingly and professedly against the same is moreover to be proved from the Conclusion of the Conspiracy For as there is a Contradiction to the Fundamental Statute and Charter both Legal and Episcopal fol. 76. so in the next page of that Leaf there are these bold and unexcusable Words Non obstante Statuto Chartapraedicta The King himself in Parliament could not have spoken in a more Imperial strain Archbishop Boniface on the contrary A. D. 1262. had most tenderly provided for the Liberties of all in the Church of Sarum according to the Tenor of Osmund's Statute though he was in all his time the most assuming Archbishop of Canterbury even from that to this day Whereas in the Conspiracy of the aforesaid Pope Boniface with the then Bishop Dean and Chapters there is this aggravation of the astonishing design against the King that it hath a special Salvo for the Popes and his Cardinals and the Dean of Sarums Rights but none at all for the Kings Yea as if that were not enough to
Reside in the Close and the Cathedral Thirteen weeks every Year They must and yet they may not perform the Will of the Founder confessed by Bishop Iewel to be expresly the Subordinate Founder's Will and by consequence the Will of the Sovereign Founders Will. 1. and Will 2. whose Seals were set to Osmund's Charter Men are punishable for That for which they ought to be rewarded Not permitted to keep a Residence to which by Statute they are compelled and compelled to pay money for Not doing That which they must not do The work is incumbent on 52 Canons or Prebendaries but Six of their Number ingross the Wages unto themselves This Absurdity is so great that hardly any can be greater unless it be That which follows For N. IV. In flat contradiction to the Fundamental Statute and Oath of Residence and to the late repeated Statute of Bishop Iewel with the then Chapter the present Bishop and the then Chapter made a New Statute Octob. 3. 1672 Sethi Anno sexto to this effect That if they who have taken the Oath of continual Residence keep not so much as Three Months Residence they shall pay Five Pounds for each Months Non-Residence or 15 l. for the Non-Residence of the Year so that for 15 l. per annum they may be Residents good enough without Residing and save 100 l. per annum which any mans Residence will cost him by paying only Fifteen Pounds So as the Residentiaries are tempted not to keep but to violate their Oath of Residence if such a Titulary Statute can have any force in it by Compounding or Commuting for breach of Oath the Price of which Sin is but Fifteen Pounds I do not know if Men are Taxed for the Sins by them committed at so favourable a Rate in the Court of Rome Now considering that the Residents were shrunk and reduced long before from 52 or 53 for the Prebendary of Pottern was bound to Residence at first to the Dean and 12 and after that to the Dean and 6 and now at last by this last Statute so called to None at all if each of the Residents will redeem himself from that Duty or buy out his Residence for the said Sum of 15l as some have done and all may do here seems to be a way made to the very Dissolution of the whole College if not in Time of the whole Cathedral Church of Sarum notwithstanding his Majesties Ecclesiastical Laws which do oblige unto the Residence of 90 Days or 3 Months And all Local Statutes have a Nullity in the making which are repugnant to the Prerogative of the King to the Law of the Land or the Word of God N. V. Another Statute has been made since his Majesties Restauration enjoyning Prebendaries to bring their Leases to be Confirmed by the Common Seal of the Dean and Chapter to which they cannot be compelled unless by the King or an Act of Parliament Of whieh the aforesaid Bishop Henchman in his Letter to the said Dean did write these words And I must add That since Prebendaries and their Tenants have understood that Leases Demised by Sole Corporations according to the Statutes of the Realm receive no strength by Capitular Confirmation you shall do well to perswade and invite the Members of your Church to observe the good Rules lately made concerning Leases but be not hasty to compel by Censures or Penalties c. A little after touching the Statute enjoyning Prebendal Contributions by way of Tax towards the Repairing of the Church the Reverend Bishop adds thus Take the best and surest course you can to have the Help of the Prebendaries but take heed you adventure not to compel them lest you meet with Consequences which may to a good degree frustrate a Work of so high Importance N. VI. All the Oaths which have been Administred much more those which have been imposed by Bishop Dean and Chapter upon Prebendaries or Vicars in any Matter not belonging to their Spiritual Jurisdictions or not in a way of Administring Justice have been against Law and the King's Prerogative The power to give and impose Oaths being so peculiar to the Prerogative Royal that 't is punishable to do it without or beyond the bounds of the King's Commission by way of Indictment or Information as an high Misdemeanor Nor can any Custom legitimate such an invented Oath unless it had a Lawful and just beginning The House of Commons are so sensible of the want of this Power not only to impose but administer Oaths to Witnesses who being voluntary are as ready to Swear as to appear that they often accept of Evidence upon bare Averments Nor can the Voluntary Submission of the Prebendaries or Vicars create unlawful Power in the Bishop Dean and Chapter conjoyned which otherwise by Law they have not either to impose or to administer an Oath nor excuse them in so doing For however such Oaths so administred and taken not to lett a Lease upon such or such Terms as the Law allows as for Example for Three Lives without License do bind the Takers of them in Conscience yet in Law they are illegal null and void And so 't was declared by the late Lord Chancellor upon occasion of a Suit in that Court depending N. VII By a Statute or a Decree of the Bishop Dean and Chapter of Sarum made in October 1671. no Lease is to be Lett by any Prebendary however he is singly a Corporation without three Conditions by Law allowed but prohibited by them and all Three under the pain of Excommunication which yet 't is well known cannot lawfully be inflicted for any matter or crime which is not made to be so punishable by some Statute of the Land Nor can any thing less than the King or Parliament de novo create or make a thing criminal And though the breach of such Conditions in the letting of a Lease which Conditions are wholsom be supposed to be a Crime in such as have consented to them yet the Matter being Temporal it is not punishable in Law by an Excommunication Yet this is another of the sore Mischiefs whereof the aforesaid Composition hath been the Occasion of the Cause N. VIII But there are other effects of it whereby Simony seems plainly not only to be allowed but even established by a Law such as a Bishop and the Chapter can make de facto by the aforesaid Composition which owes its chief force to Pope Boniface the Ninth whilst men are made to pay dearly for their Places of Preferment which by the King are freely granted For no sooner have the Residents in the Church of Sarum taken their Oaths That they neither have given nor will give any Sum or Sums for those Places unto which they are admitted but presently by the Statute of Pope Eugenius the Fourth even after he was deposed by the Council of Basil when for Money he would do any thing there is besides all other payments by way of customary
made so bold with my Master's Enemies and mine own as to be dutifully Loyal without their Leave I was loth to ask of them by whom I was sure to be denied And did Presume I might as pardonably assert the King's and the Churches Rights now that the King is on His Throne and the Church less Militant as I did safely and with Success before the Great Year of their Restauration Sect. 1. First I was of an Opinion before I had it from a most excellent and most Noble Lord Commissioner That 't is the Duty of every Subject and especially of the King's Chaplains to discover all they know of His Majesties Prerogative tho' not Commanded by Authority as I had been Which saying of a Judicious and a most Honourable Lord in the Council Chamber and elsewhere is agreeable to another of two Lord Chancellors in their times whereof the first was the Lord Bacon from whom 't was borrowed by the Second who used it in his Speech to Sir Edward Thurland when made a Baron of the Exchequer To wit That the Subjects of England in General as well as the Iudges in particular and particularly the Judges of Ecclesiastical Courts such as is the Dean of Sarum are bound to maintain the Prerogative and not distinguish it from the Law The King's Prerogative being Law and in the words of Chief Justice Coke The Principal part of the Common Law as That from which all other Laws are derived and on which they do depend With these I compared that famous Saying of a full Parliament which I found cited by my Lord Coke too That no King or Kingdom can be safe but where the King has Three Abilities 1. To live of his own and defend his Kingdom 2. To assist his Confederates and 3 To reward his deserving Subjects From whence I thought it would follow that to take from the great Number of Ecclesiastical Promotions in the Kings Gift is to act against the safety of King and Kingdom 'T is reckoned one of those things which even a King cannot do Lawfully and which a Parliament cannot consent to Besides I thought it most unworthy that he who had not been afraid in the worst of Times and without a Warrant and under none but God's Protection to defend the King 's Rights and the whole Church of England by many Arguments in Print when some New Royalists durst not join in a Petition for the Kings wished Return for fear as they then said of setting their Hands to their own Ruine as having reason to suspect the Restauration would be General that All Usurpers must be Ejected and all Ejected for their Loyalty would have their own which passed with some for an heavy Iudgement should now descend unto the Meanness of hiding himself behind Another and behind such another as he knew to be Unqualified for such service as I was irrationally suspected and most maliciously reported to have engaged Another in No the Pretenders to that Suspicion and the Inventers of that Report did only design by such Baseness to lessen the merit of my Obedience to the Lords Commissioners Injunction and of my Dutiful Regard to the King himself towards whose Service it was my fault as 't is my Apology and Excuse with a sort of men that I did not go till I was sent nor mend my Pace till I was driven Sect. 2. Next I had learned by my perusal of Keble's Statutes at large and of Chief Justice Coke's Institutes to name no more in this Place That the Gift of all Bishopricks and Nomination of Bishops did ever belong to our Monarchs both before and since the Conquest as in Right of the Crown My Lord Coke gives the Reason from this trite Maxime in the Law That all our Archbishopricks and Bishopricks were and are of the King's Foundation That at first they were therefore all meerly Donative meerly by the Delivery of a Staff and a Ring Never Elective till King Iohn who Reigned not without the Murdering of Arthur of Britain the Rightful Heir That it was again taken away by Hen. 8. and Ed. 6. in whose Reigns all the Bishops were required to take out New Commissions for their Bishopricks and so to hold them onely as Delegates in the King's Name and not for Life Absolute but During Pleasure And Archbishop Cranmer gave an Example to the Rest. That Elections by Deans and Chapters are declared by Law to be No Elections but by a writ of Conge d' Eslire have only Colours and Shadows or Pretenses of Elections serving to no Purpose and seeming derogatory and Prejudicial to the King's Prerogative Royal c. That Bishop Bonner declared under his hand He held his Bishoprick of London of the King's Bounty alone during the King's Pleasure only and that he would again deliver it up when it should please the King to call for it That all the Temporalities of Archbishopricks and Bishopricks in all Uacancies which our Kings made when it pleased them ever came to the King as Founder He being Patronus and Protector Ecclesiae in so high a Prerogative incident to his Crown that he cannot part with it no Subject can have claim to it either by Grant or by Prescription That the Lands of the Church were all at first given by gracious Princes as may appear from the first Book of Iustinian's Code where Laws are recorded for the conferring and also for the Conserving of them Which is also the Affirmation of the most excellent Paulus Sarpius That if the King and a Common Person have joyned in a Foundation the King is the Founder because it is an Entire Thing For the Truth of which Maxime that renowed Judge cited 44 Ed. 3. c. 24. from when I inferred within myself that King Hen. 8. rather than Wolsey was Founder of Christ Church in Oxford tho' its well enough known that Wolsey was a Co-Founder Or Founder Subordinate to the Supreme So William the Conqueror rather than Osmund was the Supreme and Sovereign Founder of the Cathedral Church of Old Sarum tho' by the King's Bounty as well as Leave St. Osmund built and greatly indow'd it with such Revenues as he held of his Lord and Master during Pleasure and by Knights Service For the Conqueror's Soldiers whereof Osmund of Say was one held all the Lands which he gave them under military Service not as properly Freeholders but as Lords in Trust only and according to the King's Pleasure thereby hoping to engage them to a close Dependance upon the Crown as the learned Selden relates of Matthew Paris and his learned Annotator does give the Reason I do not say our Monarchs have had the same Power ever since but the same Right by Law which ever any King had Nor do I say they have a Right to any Saecular Possessions whereof the Subject hath a Feesimple But a Right to confer on Ecclesiastical Persons such Ecclesiastical Dignities and Revenues as
are in Law of the King's Foundation Which all are affirmed to be by Keble referring to the Statute of 25 Ed. 3. p. 121. Where the Holy Church of England is said to have been Founded by Ed. 1. and his Progenitors c. as the Lords and Advowers of it And then by vertue of that other Maxime in my Lord Coke who was never more an Oracle than when he spake for the King's Prerogative to which he had never a Partiality That Successors are included under the Name of King 'T is plain that what Right soever was in William the First and his next immediate Successors especially Hen. 1. and Hen. 3. from whom the Church of Sarum had vast Additions of Endowment Our King hath now Hence it is that All our Kings have been not only owned as the Founders but as Patrons of our Cathedral For which I cited the Address of the Dean and Chapter to Hen. 7. in whom the two contending Houses were united wherein they called him their Founder seven times at least Their Numerical Expressions in their Prayer to God for him to whom they could not intend to lye was Fundator Ecclesiae Sarum And Hen. 8. was so stiled by the famously Learned and Prudent Longland after Bishop of Lincoln and Lord Chancellor of the University of Oxford for which I might cite the Exact Register of Harward the Authenticalness of which was never questioned So 't is Notorious that all Members of Christ-Church in Oxford in their Prayers before their Sermons do Commemorate Hen. 8. not naming Wolsey as their Founder From whence it is that the Dean of Christ-Church is the Sole Governour of that Cathedral and the Bishop of Oxford not As the Dean of Westminster had the Sole Jurisdiction within the Precincts of that Cathedral when there was Created a Bishop of it And the Dean there hath more than Episcopal Jurisdiction Archiepiscopal saith Dr. Heylin within all the Liberties as the Abbots had heretofore Ever since Sebert King of Essex Kings and Queens have been Successively and in the Eye of the Law the Founders of the Church and of all within it As it is now a Collegiate Church Queen Elizabeth was the Foundress and our King at this day whom God preserve is in Law the Founder of it As for all the same Reasons He is the Founder of our Colledge and Church of Sarum as well by several Acts of Parliament as in our own Books Our Norman Kings did say of it as Will. 1. of Battle Abby Libera sit sicut mea Basilica Capella and as that was exempted from the Power and Visitation of the Bishops of Chichester so was ours from the Bishops of Sarum as shall be shewn in its proper Place I end this Section with that Old Distich in Spondanus of our Salisbury Cathedral and with a Verse made in those very times Rex largitur opes fert Praesul opem Lapicidae Dant operam tribus his est opus ut stet opus Regis enim Virtus Templo spectabitur isto Sect. 3. Thirdly Altho' I do not say with that incomparable Civilian Sir Thomas Ridley That the King himself is instead of the whole Law yea he is the Law it self and the only Interpreter thereof in as much as all those who govern under him govern by him and for him Yet I will and do say with our Acts of Parliament That the Kingdom of England is an Empire and the King Supreme Head of it and his Crown an Imperial Crown He is not a Precarious but an Absolute Monarch saith the Learned Camden in his Britannia Supremam Potestatem merum Imperium habet apud nos Rex And his Sovereign Dominion over all Ecclesiastical Persons and in all Causes without exception is confessed to be de Iure by All our Clergy Men in their Pulpits as well as by All in England who pay him Firsts-fruits and Tenths Not excepting those very Persons who cannot yet Pardon my most necessary Distinction on which doth lye the whole stress of Ours and all Other Cathedrals between an Original and Derivative Right a Right Supreme and one Suburdinate thereunto Our Proprietaries in the Chief of the Church of Saerum and so it is with the strictest Propriety of speaking that in all their Royal Mandates they use that Stile Our Church of Sarum For as Proprietaries in Chief bonae fidei Possessores and Founders of the Bishoprick as well as of All belonging to it I find and can prove against the naked and cheap Denials of such as can easily deny what they cannot Disprove by any Artifices or Strengths that our Monarchs have Acted as Despotically in and over the Church of Sarum as in any their Mansion Houses Who but our Monarchs did take away the Fourteen Prebends I reckon'd up in my Collections and the Archdeaconry of Dorset and all the Dorsetshire Iurisdiction from the Bishops of Sarum not so much as One Parish remaining there unto the Bishop though about Forty to the Dean and conferred them upon others according to their Wills and Pleasures To begin with the first Times were to write a Volume Let it suffice that Hen. 8. gave Four of them at once to the Dean and Chapter of Windsor as that of Okeborn St. Andrew that of Okeborn St. George that of Hungerford and that of Sherbourn but did not take from the Dean of Sarum the Episcopal Iurisdiction in any one of them Nor in that which was given by Hen. 8. or Ed. 6. to the Earls of Pembroke to wit the Great Prebend of Axford supposed to have been given by Q. Elizabeth to her Secretary of State Sir Francis Walsingham from whom I know it came by Purchase to Sir Francis Pyle's Grandfather the like to which he has also in the Prebend of Sherbourn in Dorset which hath been variously disposed of to and fro by our several Monarchs for about Five Hundred Years together from King Stephen to King Iames. And tho' Sherbourn was the Seat of so vast a Bishoprick that no fewer than Four Bishopricks were taken out of it yet the whole Jurisdiction of That and many round about it have still been saved intirely by All our Monarchs since the Conquest to Him who was then and ever since the Dean of their Majesties free Chappel and Church of Sarum Then Formaliter and ever since Virtualiter in Respect of the Franchises belonging to him Indeed in the Prebend of Bedwin given away by Ed. 6. to the Earl of Hertford and his Heirs the Dean of Sarum has but Episcopal Iurisdiction and a Triennial Visitation the like to which he has in the Prebend of Faringdon which is now in Sir Robert Pye to whom it descended from his Father by whom it was bought of the Lady Umpton and given for ever from the Bishop and Church of Sarum by Ed. 6. to Wm. Hening Esq. A. D. 1550. The Three good Prebends of Uphaven Loders and Horton were Alienated from us I
clear Title to the Right of the Regale in all the Bishopricks of his Kingdom That a General Council cannot lessen it much less a Pope That no Present King can be deprived of what a former King had That the King 's Collating to Prebends is such an Act of Supremacy so the Historian does infer as shews the King to be Lord in Fee and by the Code made in the Time of Hen. 4. If a Chapter refuse to Install a Regalist Letters are to go out to compel them to it or else their Revenues are to be Seized on Briefly 't was confessed by the Bishop of Pamiees the stoutest Assertor of the Pope's Ecclesiastical Supremacy that The Foundation of Churches does prove the King 's Right of Patronage All which and much more may be Collected out of Dr. Burnet's elaborate History of the Rights of Princes c. And if the French Kings Prerogative is such who does not own an Ecclesiastical Supremacy in all Causes and over all Persons as our King does How much greater is the Regale of our Kings here in England ever since the Reformation I will conclude this Comparison of the King of France with the French King in the words of this King's Procurator General in Parliament to wit That the King can no more renounce the Right of the Regale in Ecclesiasticis either in whole or in part than he can destroy the Salick Law or quit the Sovereignty of any Provinces in France And further adds They would all quit their Employments rather than consent to the least Diminution of that Right There are some among Us who do not speak in that Strain though others do Sect. 4. Fourthly I observed a Maxim of Law in my Lord Coke which did Confirm me in my Distinction between a Supream and Subordinate Right The Maxim is that If the Title of the King and of a common Person concurr the King's Title shall be Preferred For the Law saith he respecteth Honour and Order Therefore if the King makes one Man a Resident whilst the Dean and Chapter is choosing and have a desire to Choose another the Dean and Chapter will prefer the King's Clerk and not dispute with his Majesty de jure Patronatus Several Instances may be given in several Churches Those of Sarum and Wells in especial manner So if the King presents One to a Prebend without Residence and the Bishop Another the Dean and Chapter will Install and Admit the King's Man because by express Statute-Law The King is the Advower Paramount immediate of all Churches and Prebends And accordingly our Kings the Last and Present in particular do not only Recommend but pro Imperio plane Despotico do expresly Command Obedience to and Compliance with them and that sometimes in the very same Line sometimes two or three Lines lower sometimes again in the Conclusion Yes and in variety of Despotical Expressions as great as any can be invented in Law to be Imperial Such as are for instance We will We command We will and require Willing and requiring you Our pleasure is Our express will and pleasure is This We will have done Any Use Custome Prescription or any other Matter or Thing to the contrary in any wise notwithstanding Again We Will and Our Pleasure is that You cause these our Letters to be entred in your Register to the end they may be produced when Occasion requires What French King did ever Write in a more Decretory Despotical and Masterly Stile than Le Roy le veult Car tel est son plaisir This was as far as Heaven from Hell from Expresly Disclaiming a Royal Patronage and Right and Iurisdiction I will add but one more which was both ways Despotical to wit by a signal Inhibition and by a Peremptory Command For having said that He had given unto his Chaplain Dr. Drake the Dignity and Office of Chancellor in that his Cathedral Church of Sarum with the Prebend thereto annexed His Majesty added these signal words We hereby Will and Require that no Other Person be Admitted or Elected into any Residentiaries Place now vacant or that shall be vacant until He the said Dr. Drake be received into the Rights and Profits of Residence And for so doing This shall be your Warrant Much more might be said of the King's Mandate for Dr. Whitby which yet I forbear till occasion serves Only of this I am assured by as Eminent a Lawyer as perhaps ever was That a false Suggestion in a Petition to the King does void the King 's Grant of the thing Petitioned for It being a Maxim in My Lord Coke The Grant is void where the King is deceived in his Grant Besides all this I sadly considered with my self how often Bishops Temporalities have been Resumed by our Kings upon light Displeasures How often Will. 2. did Resume his own Grants And how he at once took all the Profits of the Bishopricks of Canterbury Winchester and Sarum And how all Bishops were threaten'd by Hen. 3. With a Seizure of all they had if they presumed to intermeddle in any thing to the Prejudice of the Crown Lastly How all our Kings and Parliaments excepting one even from Hen. 3. until the 6. of Hen. 8. have used Acts of Resumption whereby to Repair the low Estate of the Crown The just and frequent way to do it said the learned Sir Robert Cotton in his Speech to the House of Commons 1 Car. 1. The Dean of Sarum as much as any Man is for the Bishop of Sarum's Rights though not exclusively of the Kings and would have it stand safely by standing for ever upon a Rock to wit The Prerogative of our Monarchs who in Law can never dye They tend to the Ruin of the Prelacy and all Cathedrals who labour to make their King Despotical in the Sence of the Greek Proverb only 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Be a Family never so Great there is but one Servant in it and that is the Master of the House But the Learned Dr. Burnet affirms the King to be Despotical in a much better Sense For premising an Observation how frequently Christian Monarchs made Paenal Laws for Church-men the Pains of which were Suspension or Deprivation whereof the Instances are many both in the old Roman Laws and in the Capitulars He Infers the King's Mastership and gives a very sound Reason for it Indeed the Bishops of Rome for several Centuries of Years even in all their Publick Bulls and till the Death of Charles the Great did own the Emperors of their Times as their Lords and Masters And Richard Poor Bishop of Sarum did own King Iohn as his Master with greater Reason however that King de facto made himself the Pope's Vassal Postulans ab Eo tanquam a Domino suo manus adjutrices All agree the Monarchs of England have power to Suspend or Deprive a Bishop as Ours has done an Arch-Bishop and that for a lesser degree
of Guilt than that of opposing the King's Prerogative as Q. Mary and Elizabeth did and of our Kings not a few So 't is on all hands confessed That their Royal Visitations either of All the Churches of England as Hen. 8. Ed. 6. and Q. Eliz. by their Commissioners may Abolish Old Statutes and Order New ones to be made and this for One if they please That No Prebend shall be conferred without the King 's express Mandate or Permission and Consent in a Conge d'Eslire This would be at once Despotical and yet according to Law however some in the World are willing to make them Inconsistent And every Statute would begin with a Statuimus Ordinamus or Volumus Mandamus Which being supposed I would ask What hurt would there be in it Or What Ill Consequence could therebe of it Is the King fit to be intrusted with All the greatest Promotions All the Bishopricks and Deaneries And is he not fit to bestow the Least It is convenient and of good Use and according to Law that he should make a Bishop of Sarum as well as the Dean and All the Residentiaries as at this Day and in Antecessum for Days and Years yet to come And is it Illegal or of Ill Consequence that he should sometimes tho' seldom bestow some Few of his own Prebends even on Men of great Learning and Holy Life and in full holy Orders and that for Term of Life only when his Progenitors gave so many even to mere Lay-men and their Heirs for ever The World takes Notice and 't is to be Written with a Sun-beam that generally speaking and taking one with another no Preferments are so well given as by the King and by the Lord-Keeper of the Great Seal and by the advice of the Lords Commissioners whom His Majesty hath appointed for Ecclesiastical Promotions 'T is certain the Bishops and the Deans and others whose Preferments are in the King 's sole Disposal not only in his Supream for which certain Bishops have a Subordinate Right derived are all exactly of this Opinion This I say is as certain as it is certain they have a competent good Opinion of themselves and their own Deservings They would not else have accepted much less would many of them have sought what many others had deserved as well as they And if 't is true that Neither the Bishop nor the Church of Sarum did suffer any prejudice at all by King Iames his giving a Prebend unto a mere Lay-man and to his Successors for ever at which saying of a Great Churchman many good Secular Men have wondered How much less can his Lordship think it any Prejudice at all to the Bishop of Sarum or to the Church or to the whole Order of Church-men if another Monarch of England shall confer another Prebend I do not say upon a Lay-man and his Successors for ever but upon One in Holy Orders and without a Nepotismo of Holy Life and of excellent Learning and for term of Life only or so long as he is seen and Notoriously known to continue to deserve the Enjoyment of it 'T is very well known what was the Judgment of Hen. 8. upon his Death-bed and of all his Executors after his Death whereof three were Eminent Church-men to wit Arch-Bishop Cranmer Tonstal Bishop of Durham and Dr. Wotton the famous Embassador who was at once Dean of Canterbury and York and humbly refused the Arch-Bishoprick of the great Province and also of All the Privy Counsellors of Ed. 6. when they decreed to the Earl of Hartford Six of the best Prebends at once and Three Hundred pounds per annum out of the Lands of the next Bishoprick which should fall to the King's Disposal After which 't was granted also at the said Earl's Suit that his Lordship should have a Deanery and a Treasurership in lieu of Two of the said six Prebends But very far was the Dean of Sarum from defending the Alienations of Ecclesiastical Endowments to Saecular Men as the Lord Bishop of Sarum does He was not so little verst in Logick as to argue a Facto ad Ius For when he related matters of Fact and what our Monarchs had done in the Church of Sarum he added Quo jure I humbly leave to the Judgment of my Superiors He only demonstrated that our Monarchs had acted as Founders and Proprietors which indisputably our Monarchs All are and have a strict Right as well as Power to bestow all our Prebends as well as Bishopricks upon God's proper Usu-Fructuaries deserving Church-men for term of Life But whosoever shall consider what Powers were given to the Lord Cromwel by Commission as Vicar General to Hen. 8. and also shall consider those famous Parliaments composed of the clearest and deepest Heads of those Times both Spiritual and Temporal who made the known Statutes of 27 Hen. 8. cap. 4. and 13. and 27. 28. and 1 Ed. 6. cap. 14. will at least excuse and pardon any Man living who now believes and with a much Greater force of Reason that our King hath a Supream and Sovereign Right from which and under which some of our Bishops as well as Deans have one Subordinate and Derived to dispose of Vacant Prebends now and then when they please in their own Cathedrals And as well may he dispose of All our Residentiaries Places as his now-Sacred-Majesty and his Royal Progenitors have done yes and return them if he thinks fit from six to seven from seven to twelve and from twelve to fifty-two and bind them to Residences in their Courses thirteen every Quarter according to our several Statutes both Old and Modern Sect. 5. Besides all this I find it said to the Lords Commissioners First by my Brethren of the Chapter That His Majesties Power within the Church of Sarum appears to us to be the same and no other than it is in All other Cathedral Churches in England Next by the King's Attorney General I cannot find that His Majesty hath any other Right in That Church than in any other Cathedral Churches These Assertions but especially the First because of its important Monosyllable All do seem at least to me to imply a Grant That His Majesty hath the same both Power and Right in the Cathedral Church of Sarum which he hath and ever had in the Churches of Worcester Norwich Rochester Bristol Gloucester Oxford Peterborough Westminster Windsor c. In All which Churches as well Cathedral as Collegiate Every one of the Prebends is in the King 's Sole not only Sovereign Disposal by Himself or Lord-Keeper and not one in any Bishop or Bishops whatsoever Yea even in the Arch-Bishop's Metropolitical Church of Cnanterbury the King has the Sole Disposal of Nine of the Twelve Prebends and the Arch-Bishop of but Three Tho' the Primate of all England and Metropolitan should have as much Power and Right a man would think within the Cathedral of his own Diocess as any one Inferiour Bishop both within his
Grace's Corrections also such as the Bishop of Sarum is And I do sometimes ask my self what Inconvenience could there be if the Bishop of Sarum or any other who is Subordinate to the Archbishop as the Archbishop to the King had no more Prebends to dispose of than the Archbishop hath Or if His Majesty now and then although but rarely only Fourteen or Fifteen in above 500 years should give a Prebend at large of Sarum to a Priest every way qualified with Want and Worth as well as he gives All the Prebends in All the Churches recited without Exception The Church and State might stand firmly as now they do and Christian Souls might be as salvable as now they are tho' the King's Power and Right were as much owned by All as it is by me The Bishops of London and of Lincoln and several others have a most undoubted Right to dispose of Prebends such at least as the Bishop of Sarum hath and that Right the more unquestionable by being held of the Supream and derived from it and Subordinate thereunto A Sole and Sovereign Right wholly exclusive of the King 's which is all I contend against and which my Lord Bishop of Sarum seems to aim at and effect or else his Lordship and I agree I am verily perswaded none of those Bishops will pretend to It cannot be said with any Truth that All the Bishopricks I have named wherein the King gives All the Prebends the Bishops none are not of Old but New Foundation For Worcester and Norwich are very Old Canterbury and Rochester two of the Oldest we have in England Besides that the King's Power and Right in the Church of Sarum is greater than in many others not only because of his Old Free Chappel which I shall prove in the next Chapter and cannot be disproved by some Negatives from some Interested and Passionate Opposers of the Prerogative but also because the Kings of England were the Co-Founders of that Cathedral in a Literal Sence as well as Founders in the Sence of our Common and Statute Law The Co-Founders at least because Osmund had his All from the Bounty of Will 1. and held his All of that King's Favour under Knights Service during Pleasure for which I cited Mr. Selden and Matth. Paris in the first Sect. of this Chapter King Hen. 1 in one day gave 20 Churches to that of Sarum besides the Tithes of New Forrest if the Record which was read by Sir Tho. Ridley said true which he mentions in his View of the Civil Law And passing by the lesser Bounties of Steph. and K. Hen. 2. it is confessed that Hen. 3. gave no fewer than 20 or 21 Prebends and other things even All the Tithes of all the Kings Forrests within Three Counties Wilts Berks and Dorset and the Removal of the Cathedral from Old to New Sarum is owned by Bishop Spondanus as well as others to have been at the King 's cost chiefly Next our Kings were Sole Founders in the Eye and Sence of the Law according to the Maxim cited before from Iudge Coke Instit. Cart 2. Chap. 33. upon Magna Charta p. 68. 44 Ed. 3 cap. 24. And our King at this day according to that other Maxim in Coke 2 Inst. in Statute of Employments p. 742. Whatever Right our Former Kings had our King hath now It seemeth strange to most men who have considered the matter throughly that the King who gets the Right of giving every Ecclesiastical Possession in England not only where Church men but where Saecular men are Patrons by promoting an Incumbent unto a Bishoprick should immediately loose All even in That very Church where he makes the Bishop Or that the King who hath All in his own Disposal during the Vacancy of All the Bishopricks in England should have nothing to dispose of without the Bishop's good leave as soon as the Vacancies are filled tho' filled up freely by himself They are Betrayers of the Churches Rights who go about to undermine and betray the King's And they tempt the King and his Royal Successors to let their Bishopricks lye void as Q. Eliz. and her Ancestors thought fit to do even as far as for 20 or 30 yea for 40 years together Signal Instances of which in the most of our Churches if not in All 't were too easy for me to give if it would not occasion too great a Length Alas we may judge of the King's Regale within the Cathedral Church of Sarum supposing there had been never a Royal Chappel in the Old Castle which yet I shall shortly make apparent by the Exercises of it in other Churches They having in their Pleasures and Displeasures Created some Bishopricks and Supprest them soon after whereof Westminster is an Example Dissolved and Restored whereof Durham is an Example United two into one and again Divided into Two an Instance of which we have in Worcester and Gloucester Taken three out of one as Hen. 1. took Ely out of Lincoln Hen. 8. Oxford and Peterborough out of the same Tho' the Diocess of Lincoln is still the greatest ' its Parishes being no fewer than 1255. Ordered one Bishoprick to be held with Another in Commendam as that of Bristol with that of Gloucester for 23 years together Gave the Bishoprick of Hexam in Augmentation to the Archbishoprick of York from which it was taken again in the 37. of Hen. 8. Converted Canons Saecular into Regular vice versa made the Prior and Convent of Westminster a distinct Corporation from the Abbot Conferred the Patronage of a Bishoprick upon a Subject as Hen. 4. that of Man upon the Family of the Stanleys Gave Temporalities and Reassumed them as in 14 Ed. 3. cap. 3. deprived Bishops for very small Failings Examples of which are elsewhere given Subjected them to the Statute of Praemunire and to the Judgments of Saecular Men As All at once to the Lord Cromwel and Sir Io. Tregonwel to that of Sarum Made Inferiour Clergymen to be the Judges of their Superiors as the Dean of St. Pauls over Bonner Bishop of London Translated Bishops in Displeasure from the Greater Bishopricks to the lesser As Nevil from York to St. Andrews in Scotland and Iohn Buckingham from Lincoln to Litchfield which was not then half so good Made a Saecular Man a Dean as the Lord Cromwel Dean of Wells In a word the same Authority which took four Bishopricks out of Sherburn and added Sherburn with about 40 Parishes about it to the Dean of Sarum's Iurisdiction And gave away the Jurisdiction of the Rest of all Dorsetshire from the Bishop of Sarum to that of Bristol but never gave away one from the Dean of Sarum can give a Prebend of Sarum or a Residentiaries Place to any man in full Orders and that de Iure for to a Lay-man and de facto it has frequently been done And if the Corporation of Dean and Chapter is not of the King's Foundation when the Bishoprick is