of his love and goodnesse Which so prevailed that the Duke of Norfolk is sent to treat with her upon certain Instructions so neâ—essary to the knowledge of her affairs in this Conjuncture that they deserve a place here and are these that follow Certain Articles and Injunctions given by the King's Highness to his right Trusty and right entirely beloved Cousen and Counsellor the Duke of Norfolk whom with certain others in his company His Majesty sendeth to the Lady Mary his Daughter for the Purposes ensuing FIrst whereas the said Lady Mary hath sundry ways with long continuance shewed her self so obstinate towards the King's Majâ—sty her Soveraign Lord and Father and so disobedient to his Laws conceived and â—ade upon most just vertuâ—â—s and godly grounds that as the wilfull disobedience thereof seemeth a monster in Nature so unlesse the mercy of his Highnesse had been most abundantly extended unto hâ—r by the course of his Grace's Laws and the force of his Justice shâ— endâ—â—gâ—red her self so far that it was greatly tâ— his Highnesse's regret and hearty sorrow to see and perceive how little 〈◊〉 esteâ—meth the same extending to the losse of his favour the losse of her honour the losse of her life and undoubâ—edly to the indignation of Almighty God For that she neither obeyeth her Father and Soveraign nor his just and vertuous Laws aforesaid And that of late neverthelesse calling to remembrance her transgressions and offences in this pâ—rt towards God her Father and Soveraign Lord the King's Highnesse she hath writtâ—n to the same three suâ—dâ—y Letters containing a declaration of her repentance conceived for the Premises with such an humble and simple submission as she appeareth not onely to submit hâ—r sâ—lfwholly and without exception especially by the last Letter to the Laws but also for her state and condition to put her self onely to his Grace's mercy nothing desiring but mercy and forgivenesse for her offences with a reconciliation to his Grace's favour Albeit his Majesty hath been so ingrately handled and used by her as is aforâ— declared that the like would enforce any private person tâ— abâ—ndon for ever such an unkind and inobedient child from their grace and favour yet such is his Majesties gracious and divine nature such is his clemency and pitty such his mercifull inclination and Princely heart that as he hath been ever ready to take pitty and compâ—ssiâ—n of all offenders repentantly calling and crying for the same So in case he may throughly parceive the same to be in the said Lady Mary's heart which she hath put in pen and writing his Highnesse considering the imbecillity of her sex being the same is frail inconstant and easie to he perswaded by simple counsell can be right well contented to remit unto her part of his said displeasure And therefore hath 〈◊〉 this time for the certain knowledge of her heart and stomack sâ—â—t unto her his said Cousen with others to demand and enquire of her certain Questions Her Answeâ—s whereunto his pleasure is they shall require and note in writing which sâ—all throughly decipher whether she be indeed the person she pretendeth or for any respect hath with generall words laboured to cloak the speciall matter which is repugnant and contrary to that which his Majesty hath gathered and conceived of the same 1. And first after their Accesse and Declaration of the Premises they shall for their first Question demand of her Whether she doth recognise and knowledge the King's Highnesse for her Soveraign Lord and King in the Emperiall Crown of this Realm of England and will and doth submit her self unto his Highnesse and to all and singuâ—ar the Laws and Statutes of this Realm as becommeth every true and faithfull Subject to do 2. Also whether she will with all her power and qualities that God hath endu'd her withall not onâ—ly obey keep and observe all and singular Laws and Statutes of this Realm but also set forth advance and maintain the same to the utmost of her power according to her bounden duty 3. Also whether she will recognise accept take and repute the King's Highnesse to be supream Head in Earth under Christ of the Church of England and utterly refuse the Bishop of Rome's pretended Power and Jurisdiction heretofore usurped in this Realm according to the Laws and Statutes of the same made and ordained in the behalf of all the King 's true Subjects humbly received admitted obeyed kept and observed And also will and do renounce and utterly forsake all manner of Remedy Interesse and Advantage by the said Bishop of Rome's Laws Processe or Jurisdiction to her in any wise appertaining or that hereafter may by any Title Colour or Mean belong grow succeed or appertain or in any case may follow or ensue 4. And whether she will and doth of her Duty and Obedience towards God her Alleigance towards the King's Highnesse and the Laws of this Realm and also of the sincere love and zeal that she beareth towards the Truth freely and franckly recognize and knowledge without any other respect both by Goâ—'s Law and Man's Law the Marriage heretofore had between his Majesty and her Mother to be unlawfull 5. Also Be she enquired or examined For what cause and by whose motion and means she hath continued and remained in her obstinacy so long and who did eâ—bold or animate her thereto with other circumstances thereof appertaining 6. Also What is the cause that she at this present time rather then at any other heretofore doth submit her selfe To these six Articles she was required to give a plain and positive answer Which plainly shews the doubtfulnesse and uncertainty of her present condition in being either forced to confesse her selfe to be illegitimate or running on the last hazzard of the Kings displeasure if she should do otherwise But wisely considering in her selfe whom she had to deal with she thought it safest to strike sale and to submit her selfe to him with whom it was not lawfull for her to dispute that point if she had been able She therefore makes a cleer acknowledgement of the four first Articles by the subscribing of her name but craved leave to demur on the two last because some persons were concern'd in them whom she was not willing to discover And by this means she gain'd so far upon the King that from that time forwards he held her in the same ranck with the rest of his children gave her her turn in the succession of the Kingdome assigned her portion of ten thousand pounds to be paid at her marriage and in the interim three thousand pounds per annum for her personal maintenance And more then this he did not do for his daughter Elizabeth notwithstanding the esteem and affection which he bare to her mother for bringâ—â—g whom into his bed he had cancelled all the bonds of his former marriage Little or nothing more occurreth of her in the time of King Henry because there was little or nothing altered in
brother on the 9th and 10th she removes her Court unto Whitehall and there continâ—es till it was within two or three dayes of her Coronation Which time now drawing neer at hand she passed by water to the Tower on the 27th of September accompanied by her Sister the Princesse Elizabeth and a great train of Noble Ladies made her return through the principal streets of the City on the last of the same month in most â—tately manner and the next day proceeded with the like magnificence to the Abby Church where she was met by three â—â—lver Crosses and eighty singing men all in riâ—h and gorgeoâ—s Coaps so sudden a recruit was made of these sacâ—ed Vestments amongst whom went the new Dean of Westminster Dr. Westoâ— and divers Chaplains of her own each of them â—earing in their hands some Ensign or other After them marched ten Bishops which were as many as remained of her perswasion with their Miâ—ers rich Coaps and Crosier staves The Sermon was preached by Dr â—ay whom she had restored to the See of Chichester and the solemnity of the Coronation celebrated by the new Lord Chancellor Craâ—ner Archbishop of Canterbury being then commited and otherwise conceived unworthy of so great an honour Till this time none more dear to her then her Sister Elizabeth whom she alwayes took with her by the hand wheresoever she went and seldome dined or supped without her But this solemnity being passed over as if she were now freed from all the feaâ—s of a competition she estranged her self from her in such a manner as shewed that she had formerly desited her company for some by-respects and not out of natural affection More gratefâ—l unto other persons who deserved well of her she preferred Henry Ratcliff Earle of Sâ—ssex Commander Generall of her Army to the Society of the Gatter which Honour she conferred on his son Thomas after his decease and to be covered in her Presence at all times and places tending to the custome of the Grandees in the Realm of Spain Which priviledge not being very frequent in the Politâ—ie of the Realm of England I find to be recorded in these following words viz. Mary by the Grace of God Queen of England France and Ireland Defender of the Faith and of the Church of England and Ireland in earth the Supream Head o all to whom this present writing shall come sendeth Greeting in our Lord everlasting Know ye that We do give and pardon to Our wel-beloved and trusty Cosen and one of Our Privy Council Henry Earl of Sussex and Viscount Fittzwater Lord Egremond and Burnel Liberty Licence and Pardon to wear his Cap Coyfe or Night-cap or two of them at his pleasure as well in Our presence as in the presence of any other person or persons within this Our Realm or any other place of Our Dominions whatsoever during his life and these Our Letters shall be his sufficient Warrant in this behalf Given under Our Sign Manuall at Our Pallace of Westminster 2. Octob. 1 Regni With the like Royal gratitute she advance the Earl of Arundel who had deserved as well of her in the Council as the Earl of Sussex in the Camp to the Place or Office of Lord Steward investing him with all those powers and priviledges which had been formâ—rly exercised by the Lord Great Master whom he succeeded in Authority though not in Title Sir Edward Hastings who came over to her with 4000 men she first made Master of the Horse and Knight of the Garâ—er and afterwards Lord Chamberlain of the Houshold and Lord Hastings of Louthborough Sir John Williams who had done her very good service in Buckingham and Oxfordâ—hires â—hires she honoured with the Title of Lord Williams of Jaâ—e of which more hereafter Sir Hâ—nry Jerninâ—ham who first appeared in Norfoâ—k for her she preferred to be Captain of her Guard aâ—soon as she came unto the Crown and toward the latter end of her Reign Sir Thomas Threâ—â—â—m was created Lord Prior of the Order of St Johns of Jerusalem and consequently according to the old pretension the first Baron of England And as for her domestique servants who had suffered with her she thought it no unfit decorum that they should in part Reign with her also To which end she preferred Hopâ—on her old Chaplain to the See of Norwich Râ—chester to be Compâ—roller of her Houshold Ingâ—â—field toâ— be Master of the Wards and Wâ—lgrave to be Master of the Wardrobe which is sufficiâ—nt â—o deâ—lâ—re that she was willing to comply with all obligarionâ— and not to bâ— too long in debt to her greatest subjects but much lesse to her mâ—nial servants But in â—â—gard that all these were considered for their perâ—onal merits not in reference only to their zeal for the Catholick Cause she was to shew some act of favour unto those of thaâ— party which might create a confidence in them of her good affections To which end she made choice of Sir John Gage a man most zealously addicted to the Church of Rome to be Lord Chamberlain of â—â—r Houshold when she came first to the Tower to the great satisfaction of all those of that Religion And that she might in some meaâ—ure also obâ—â—ge the rest of her suâ—jects and make the entâ—ance of her Reign the more pleaâ—â—ng to them her Coronation was accompanied with a general pardon at the least in shew Out of which all prisoners in the Tower such as remained in the Fleet together with sixty other being excepted and the reâ—trictions and proviso's with which it was in all parts clogged being well observed there were not many especially of those whom it most concerned that could create unto themselves any benefit by it Thus was the Civil State established on a right foundation and the succession setled most agreeably to the Laws of Nature according to the last Will and Testament of King Heâ—ry the 8th and the Laws made in that behalfe But we shall see the pillars of the Church removed the very foundation of it shaken and the whole â—abrick of Religion so demolished that scarce one stone thereof did seem to stand upon the other without regâ—rd unto the Laws and contrary to the will and purpose of King Edwâ—â—d the 6th At the Queens first entrance into London on the thiâ—d of August she discâ—arged Gardinâ—r of the Tower as she did Bâ—â—ner of the Marshelsey and Bishop Tâ—â—stall from the Kings Bench within two dayes after To make way to whose restitution to their former Sees Bishop Ridley is removed from London Bishop Poiâ—ct from Winchester and an Act of Parliâ—ment pâ—ocâ—red for the restoring of the Church of Durham to all its Lands Preheminences and Juriâ—dictions of which it stood divested by the lâ—te Act of Dissolution made in the last year of the King deceased By the like power was Coverdale displaced from the See of Exon Sâ—ory from that of Chichester and Hooper dispossessed of that Jurisdiction whiâ—h he held as the Commendatory of the See
year proceeds in which there was nothing to be found but Troubles and Commotions and Disquiets both in Church and State For about this Time there started up a sort of men who either gave themselves or had given by others the Name of Gospellers of whom Bishop Hooper tells us in the Preface to his Exposition on the Ten Commandments That They be better Learned then the Holy Ghost for they wickedly attribute the Cause of Punishment and Adversity to God's Providence which is the Cause of no Ill as he himself can do no ill and of every Mischief that is done they say it is God's Will And at the same time the Anabaptists who had kept themselves unto themselves in the late King's Time began to look abroad and disperse their Dotages For the preventing of which Mischief before it grew unto a Head some of the Chiefs of them were convented on the second of April in the Church of Saint Paul before the Arch-Bishop of Canterbury and the Bishop of Westminster Doctour Cox Almoner to the King Doctour May Dean of that Church Doctour Cole Dean of the Arches and one Doctour Smith afterwards better known by the Name of Sir Thomas Smith And being convicted of their Errours some of them were dismissed onely with an Admonition some sentenced to a Recantation and others condemned to bear their Faggots at Saint Paul's Cross. Amongst which last I finde one Campneys who being suspected to incline too much to their Opinions was condemned to the bearing of a Faggot on the Sunday following being the next Sunday after Easter Doctour Miles Coverdale who afterwards was made Bishop of Exâ—ter then preaching the Rehearsal Sermon which Punishment so wrought upon him that he relinquished all his former Errours and entred into Holy Orders flying the Kingdom for the better keeping of a good Conscience in the Time of Queen Mary and coming back again with the other Exiles after Her Decease At what time he published a Discourse in the way of a Letter against the Gospellers above-mentioned In which he proves them to have laid the blame of all sins and wickedness upon God's Divine Decree of Predestination by which men were compelled unto it His Discourse answered not long after by John Veron one of the Preâ—ends of Saint Paul's and Robert Crowley Parsons of Saint Giles's near Cripplegate but answered with Scurrility and Reproach enough according to the Humour of the Predestinarians And now the Time draws on for putting the New Liturgie in Execution framed with such Judgment out of the Common Principles of Religion wherâ—in all Parties do agree that even the Catholicks might have resorted to the same without Scruple or Scandal if Faction more then Reason did not sway amongst them At Easter some began to officiate by it followed by others as soon as Books câ—â—ld be provided But on Whitsunday being the day appointed by Act of Parliament it was solemnly Executed in the Cathedral Church of Saint Paul by the Command of Doctour May for an example unto all the rest of the Churches in London and consequently of all the Kingdom In most parts whereof there was at the first a greater forwardness then could be rationally expected the 〈◊〉 men amongst the Papists conforming to it because they 〈…〉 in the maine no not so much as in the Canon of the 〈…〉 Latine Seâ—vice And the unlearned had good reason to be pleased 〈…〉 in regard that all Divine Offices were Celebrated in a Tongue whic◠〈◊〉 understood whereby they had means and opportunity to become acqâ—aintâ—â— with the châ—eâ— Mysteries of their Religion which had been before 〈◊〉 sâ—cret frâ—m â—hem But then withall many of those both Priests and Bâ—shops who â—peâ—â—y had Officiated by it to avoid the Penalty of the Law did Celebrate their private Masses in such secret places wherein it was not easie to discover their doings More confidently caâ—ried in the Church of St. Paul in many Chapels whereof by the Bishop's sufferance the former Masses were kept up that is to say Our Ladies Mass the Apostles Mass c. performed in Latine but Disguised by the English names of the Apostles Communion and Our Ladies Communion Which coming to the knowledg of the Lords of the Council they addâ—â—ssed their Letters unto Bonner Dated the twenâ—y fourth of June and Subscribed by the Lord Protectour the Lord Chancellour Rich the Earl of Shrewsbury the Lord St. John Chief Justice Mountague and Mr. Cecil made not long after one of the Secretaries of State Now the Tenour of the said Letters was as followeth AFter Hearty Commendations having very credible notice that within that your Cathedral Church there be as yet the Apostles Mass and Our Ladies Mass and other Masses of such peculiar name under the defence and nomination of Our Ladies Communion and the Apostles Communion used in private Chapels and other remote places of the same and not in the Chancel contrary to the King's Majesties Proceedings the same being for that misuse displeasing unto God for the place Pauls in example not tolerable for the fondness of the name a scorn to the Reverence of the Communion of Christ's Body and Blood We for the Augmentation of God's Glory and Honour and the Consonance of His Majestie 's Lawes and the avoiding of Murmur have thought good to will and Command you that from henceforth no such Masses in this manner be in your Church any longer used but that the Holy Blessed Communion according to the Act of Parliament be Administred at the High Altar of the Church and in no other places of the same and onelâ— at such time as your High Masses were wont to be used except some number of People desire for their necessary business to have a Communion in the Morning and yet the same to be executed at the Chancel on the High Altar as it is appointed in the Book of the Publick Servicâ— without Cautele or Digression from the Common Order And herein you shall not onely satisfie Our Expectation of your Conformity in all Lawfull things but also avoid the murmur of sundry that be therewith justly offended And so We bid your Lordship farewell c. These Commands being brought to Bonâ—er he commits the Execution of them to the Dean and Chapter not willing to engage himself too far upon either side till he had seen the Issue of such Commotions as were then raised in many Parts of the Kingdom on another occasion Some Lords and Gentlemen who were possessed of Abbey-Lands had caused many inclosures to be made of the waste Grounds in their several Mannours which they conceived to be as indeed it was a great advantage to themselves and no less profitable to the Kingdom Onely some poor and indigent people were offended at it in being thereby abridged of some liberty which before they had in raising to themselves some inconsiderable profit from the Grounds enclosed The Lord Protectour had then lost himself in the love of the Vulgar by his severe if not
carried prisoner to the Court from thence committed to the Tower arraigned at Westminster on the 15th of March and executed on the 11th of April having first heard that no fewer than 50 of his accomplices were hanged in London and Bret with 22 more in several places of Kent It can not be denied but that the restitution of the Reformed Religion was the matter principally aimed at in this Rebellion through nothing but the Match with Spain appeared on the outside of it Which appears plainly by a Book writ by Christopher Goodman associated with John Knox for setting up Presbytery and Rebellion in the Kirk of Scotland in which he takes upon him to shew How far Superioâ—r Magistrates ought ot be obeyed For having filled almost every Chapter of it with railing speeches against the Queen and stirring up the people to rebel against her he falleth amongst he rest upon this expression viz. Wyat did but his duty and it was but the duty of all others that profess the Gospel to have risen with him for maintenance of the same His cause was just and they were all Traytors that took not part with him O Noble Wyat thou art now with God and those worthy men that dyed in that happy enterprise But this Book was written at Geneva where Calvin reigned To whom no pamphlet could be more agreeable than such as did reproach this Queen whom in his Comment upon Amoz he entituleth by the name of Porserpine and saith that she exceeded in her cruelties all the devils in hell Much more it is to be admired that Dr John Poynct the late Bishop of Winchester should be of Counsel in the plot or put himself into their Camp and attend them unto the place where the carriage brake Where when he could not work on Wiat to desist from that unprofitable labour in remounting the Cannon he counselled Vauham Bret and others to shift for themselves took leave of his more secret friends told them that he would pray for their good success and so departed and took ship for Germany where he after died The fortunate suppressing of these insurrections secured the Queen from any fear of the like dangers for the present And thereupon it was advised to make use of the opportunity for putting the Church into a posture when the spirits of the opposite party were so crush'd and broken that no resistance could be looked for Articles therefore are sent into every Diocess and letters writ unto the several and Respective Bishops on the 3d. of March to see them carefully and speedily put in execution The Tenour of which Articles were as followeth 1. That every Bishop and his Officers with all other having Ecclesiastical jurisdiction shall with all speed and dilâ—gence and all manner of ways to them possible put in execution all such Canons and Ecclesiastical Laws heretofore in the time of King Henry the 8th used within this Realm of England and the Dominions of the same not being directly and expresly contrary to the Laws and Statutes of this Realm 2. That no Bishop or any his Officer or other person hereafter in any of their Ecclesiastical writings in processe or other extra-judicial acts do use or put in this clause or Sentence Regia Auhoritate fulcitus 3. That no Bâ—â—â—op nor any his Officers or other person do hereafter exact or demand in the admessien of any person to any Ecclesiastical Promotion Order or Office any Oâ—â—h touching the primacy or succession as of late few years past haâ—h been accâ—stomed and used 4. That every Bishop and his Officers with all other persons have a vigilant eye and use special diligence and foresight that no person be admitted or received to any Ecclesiastical function Benefice or Office being a Sacramentary infected or defamed with any notable kind of Heresie or other great crime and that the said Bishop do stay and cause to be staid as much as lyeth in him that Benefices and Ecclesiastical promotions do not notably decay or take hinderance by passing or confirming of unreasonable Leases 5. That every Bishop and all other persons aforesaid do diligently travail for the reprâ—ssing of Heresies and notable crimes especially in tâ—e Clergy duely correcting and punishing the same 6. That every Bishop and all other persons aforesaid do likewise travail for the condemning and repressing of corrupt and naughty opinions unlawful Books Ballads and other pernitious and hurtful devices engeâ—driâ—g hatred and discord amongst the people And that Schoolmasters Teachers and Preachers do exercise and use their offices and duties without Teaching Preaching or setting forth any evil and corrupt doctrine and that doing the contrary they may be by the Bishop and his said Officers punished and removed 7. That every Bishop and all other person aforesaid proceeding summarily and with all celerity and speed may and shall deprive or declare deprived and remove according to their learning and discretion and such persons from their Benefices and Ecclesiastical promotions who contrary to the state of their Order and the laudable custome of the Church have maried and used women as their wives or otherwise notably and slanderously disordered or abused themselves sequestring also during the sayd processe the fruits and profits of the said Benefices and Ecclesidstical promotions 8. That the said Bishop and other persons aforesaid do use more lenity and clemency with such as have maried whose wives be dead than with others whose women do yet remain alâ—ve And likewise such Priests as with the consent of their wives or women openly in the presence of the Bishop do professe to abstain to be used more favourable In which case after th Penance effectually done the Bishop according to his discretion and wisdome may upon just consideration receive and admit them again to their former administrations so it be not in the same place appointing them such a portion to live upon to be paid out of their Benefice whereof they be deprived by the discretion of the said Bishop or his Officer as he shall think may be spared of the same Benâ—fice 9. That every Bishop and other person aforesaid do foresee that they suffer not any â—â—ligious man having solemly professed chastity to continue with his woman or wife but that all such persons after deprivation of their Benefice or Ecclesiastical promotion be also divorced every one from his said woman and due punishment otherwise taken for the offence therein 10. Item That every Bishop and all other persons aforesaid do take Order and direction with the â—arishioners of every Benefice where Priests do want to repair to the next Parish for divine Service or to appoint for a convenient time till other better provision may be made one Curate â—o serve alienis vicibus in divers Parishes and to allot the said Curaâ—e for his labour some part of the Benefice which he so serveth 11. That all and all manner of Processions in the Church be used frequently and continued after the old Order of the Church
enjoying all those Rights and Privileges which formerly he stood possessed of in this Kingdom For the passing of which Bill into Act the King and Queen vouchsafed their presence as soon as it was fitted and prepared for them not staying till the end of the Session as at other times because the businesse might not suffer such a long delay It was upon the 24 th of November that the Cardinal came first to London and had his Lodgings in or near the Court till Lambeth house could be made ready to receive him Having reposed himself for a day or two the Lords and Commons are required to attend their Majesties at the Court where the Cardinal in a very grave and eloquent speech first gave them thanks for being restored unto his Country in recompence whereof he told them that he was come to restore them to the Country and Court of Heaven from which by their departing from the Church they had been estranged He therefore earnestly exhorts them to acknowledge their errors and cheerfully to receive that benefit which Christ was ready by his Vicar to extend unto them His Speech is said to have been long and artificial but it concluded to this purpose That he had the Keys to open them a way into the Church which they had shut against themselves by making so many Laws to the dishonour and reproach of the See Apostolick on the revoking of which Laws they should â—ind him ready to make use of his Keys in opening the doors of the Church unto them It was concluded hereupon by both Houses of Parliament that a Petition should be made in the name of the Kingdom wherein should be declared how â—orry they were that they had withdrawn their obedience from the Apostolick See and consenting to the Statutes made against it promising to do their best endeavour hereafter that the said Laws and Statutes should be repealed and beseeching the King and Queen to intercede for them with his Holiness that they may be absolved from the Crimes and Censures and be received as penitent children into the bosom of the Church These things being thus resolved upon both Houses are called again to the Court on St. Andrews day where being assembled in the presence of the King and Queen they were asked by the Lord Chancellor Gardiner whether they were pleased that Pardon should be demanded of the Legat and whether they would return to the Unity of the Church and Obedience of the Pope Supream Head thereof To which when some cryed Yea and the rest said nothing their silence was taken for consent and so the Petition was presented to their Majesties in the name of the Parliament Which being publickly read they arose with a purpose to have moved the Cardinal in it who meeting their desires declared his readinesse in giving them that satisfaction which they would have craved And having caused the Authority given him by the Pope to be publickly read he showed how acceptable the repentance of a sâ—nner was in the sight of God and that the very Angels in Heaven rejoyced at the conversion of this Kingdom Which said they all kneeled upon their knees and imploring the mercy of God received absolution for themselves and the rest of the Kingdom which Absolution was pronounced in these following words Our Lord Jesus Christ which with his most precious blood hath redeemed and wash'd uâ— from all our sins and iniquities that he might purchase unto himself a glorious Spouse without spot or wrinckle and whom the Father hath appointed Head over all his Church He by his mercy absolve you And we by Apostolick Authority given unto us by the most holy Lord Pope Julius the 3 d his Vicegerent here on earth do absolve and deliver you and every of you with the whole Realm and the Dominions thereof from all Heresie and Schism and from all and every Judgment Censures and Pains for that cause incurred And also we do restore you again unto the unity of our Mother the holy Church as in our Letters more plainly it shall appear In the Name of the Father the Son and the Holy Ghost Which words of his being seconded with a loud Amen by such as were present he concluded the days work with a solemn Procession to the Chapel for rendring Prayers and Thanks to Almighty God And because this great work was wrought on St. Andrews day the Cardinal procured a Decree or Canon to be made in the Convocation of the Bishops and Clergy that from thenceforth the Feast of St. Andrew should be kept in the Church of England for a Majus Duplex as the Rituals call it and celebrated with as much solemnity as any other in the year It was thought fit also that the actions of the day should be communicated on the Sunday following being the second of December at St. Paul's Crosse in the hearing of the Lord Mayor Aldermen and the rest of the City According to which appointment the Cardinal went from Lambeth by water and landing at St. Paul's Wharf from thence proceeded to the Church with a Cross two Pillars and two Pole-axes of silver born before him Received by the Lord Chancellor with a solemn Procession they â—arried till the King came from Westminster Immediately upon whose comming the Lord Chancellor went into the Pulpit and preached upon on those words of St. Paul Rom. 13. Fratres scientes quia hora est jam nos de somno surgerâ— c. In which Sermon he declared what had been done on the Friday before in the submission which was made to the Pope by the Lords and Commons in the name of themselves and the whole Kingdom and the Absolution granted to them by the Cardinal in the name of the Pope Which done and Praiers being made for the whole Estate of the Catholick Church the company was for that time dismissed And on the Thursday after being the Feast of St. Nicholas day the Bishops and Clergy then assembled in their Convocation presented themselves before the Cardinal at Lamboth and kneeling reverently on their knees they obtained pardon for all their Perjuries Schisms and Heresies From which a formal Absolution was pronounced also that so all sorts of people might partake of the Pope's Benediction and thereby testifie their obedience and submission to him The news whereof being speedily posted over to the Pope he caused not onely many solemn Processions to be made in Rome and most parts of Italy but proclaimed a Jubile to be held on the 24th of December then next comming For the anticipating of which solemnity he alleged this reason That it became him to imitate the father of the Prodigal child and having received his lost son not onely to expresse a domestical joy but to invite all others to partake thereof During this Parliament was held a Convocation also as before was intimated Bonner continuing President of it and Henry Cole Archdeacon of Ely admitted to the office of Prolocutor They knew well how the Cards were
plaid and that the Cardinal was to be entreated not to insist on the restoring of Church Lands rather to confirm the Lords and Gentry in their present possessions And to that end a Petition is prepared to be presented in the name of the Convocation to both their Majesties that they would please to intercede with the Cardinal in it Which Petition being not easie to be met withall and never printed heretofore is here subjoyned according to the tenour and effect thereof in the Latine Tougne WE the Bishops and Clergy of the Province of Canterbury assembled in Convocation during the sitting of this Parliament according to the antient custom with all due reverence and humility do make known to your Majesties That though we are appointed to take upon us the care and charge of all those Churches in which we are placed as Bishops Deans Archdeacons Parsons or Vicars as also of the Souls therein committed to us together with all Goods Rights and Privileges thereunto belonging according to the true intent and meaning of the Canons made in that behalf and that in this respect we are bound to use all lawfull means for the recovery of those Goods Rights Privileges and Jurisdictions which have been lost in the late desperate and pernicious Schism and to regain the same unto the Church as in her first and right estate Yet notwithstanding having took mature deliberation of the whole matter amongst our selves we cannot but ingenuously confesse that we know well how difficult a thing if not impossible it is to recover the said Goods unto their Churches in regard of the manifold unavoidable Contracts Sales and Alienations which have been made about the same and that if any such thing should be attempted it would not onely redound to the disturbance of the publick peace but be a means that the unity in the Catholick Church which by the goodnesse of your Majesties had been so happily begun could not obtain its desired effect without very great difficulty Wherefore preferring the publick good and quiet of the Kingdom before our own private commodities and the salvation of so many souls redeemed with the precious blood of Christ before any earthly things whatsoever and not seeking our own but the things of Jesus Christ we do most earnestly and most humbly beseech your Majesties that you would graciously vouchsafe to intercede in our behalf with the most reverend Father in God the Lord Cardinal Pole Legat à Latere from his Holinesse our most serene Lord Pope Julius the third as well to your most excellent Majesties as to the whole Realm of England that he would please to settle and confirm the said Goods of the Church either in whole or in part as he thinks most fit on the present occupants thereof according to the powers and faculties committed to him by the said most serene Lord the Pope thereby preferring the publick good before the private the peace and tranquillity of the Realm before sutes and troubles and the salvation of Souls before earthly treasures And for our parts we do both now and for all times comming give consent to all and every thing which by the said Lord Legate shall in this case be finally ordained and concluded on humbly beseeching your Majesties that you would gratioâ—sly vouchsafe to perswade the said Lord Cardinal in our behalf not to show himself in the Premises too strict and dâ—fficult And we do further humbly beseech your Majesties that you would please according to your wonted goodnesse to take such course that our Ecclesiastical Rights Lâ—berties and Jurisdictions which have been taken from us by the iniquity of the former times and without which we are not able to discharge our common duties either in the exercise of the pastoral Office or the cure of souls committed to our trust and care may be again restored unto uâ— and be perpetually preserved inviolabâ—e both to us and our Churches and that all lawes which have been made to the prejudice of this our jurisdiction and other Ecclesiastical liberties or otherwise have proved to the hindrance of it may be repeated to the â—â—nour of God as also to the temporal and spiritual profit not only of your said most excellent Majesty but of all the Realm giving our selves assured hope that your most excellent Majesties according to your singular pieâ—y to almighty God for so many and great benefits received from him will not be wanting to the necessities of the Kingdom and the occasions of the Churches having cure of souls but that you would consider and provide as need shall be for the peace thereof Which Petition being thus drawn up was humbly offered to the Legate in the name of the whole Convocation by the Lord Chancellor who was present at the making of it the Prolocutor and six others of the lower house And it may very well be thought to be welcome to him in regard it gave him some good colour for not touching on so harsh a stâ—ing as the restoring of Church lands Concerning which he was not ignorant that a message had been sent to the Pope in the name of the Parliament to desire a confirmation of the sale of the lands belonging to Abbies Chanteries c. or otherwise to let him know that nothing could be granted in his behalf And it is probable that they received some fair promises to that effect in regard that on the New years day then next following the Act for restoring the Pope's supremacy was passed in both houses of Parliament and could not but be entertain'd for one of the most welcome New years Gifts which ever had been given to a Pope of Rome What the Pope did in retribution we are told by Sleidan in whom we find that he confirmed all those Bishops in their several Sees which were of Catholick perswasions and had been consecrated in the time of the Schism as also that he established such new Bishopricks which were erected in the time of King Henry the 8th and made good all such mariages as otherwise might be subject unto dispute He adds a confirmation also which I somewhat doubt of the Abby lands and telleth that all this was ratified by the Bull of Pope Paul the 4th He dispensed also by the hand of the Cardinal with irregularity in several persons confirmed the Ordination and Institution of Clergy men in their Callings and Benefices legitimated the children of forbidden mariages and retified the processes and sentences in matters Ecclesiastical Which general favours notwithstanding every Bishop in particular except only the Bishop of Landaff most humbly sought and obtained pardon of the Pope for their former errour not thinking themselves to be sufficiently secured by any general dispensation how large soever And so the whole matter being transacted to the content of all parties the poor Protestants excepted only on Friday the 25th of January being the Feast of the Conversion of Saint Paul there was a general and solemn Procession throughout
London to give God thanks for their conversion to the Catholick Church Wherein to set out their glorious pomp were ninety Crosses one hundred sixty Priests and Clarks each of them attired in his Cope and after them eight Bishops in their Pontificalibus followed by Bonner carrying the Popish Pix under a Canopy and attended by the Lord Mayor and Companies in their several Liveries Which solemn Procession being ended they all returned into the Church of St Paul where the King and Cardinal together with all the rest heard Mass and the next day the Parliament and Convocation were dissolved Nothing now rested but the sending of a solemn Embassery in the name of the King and Kingdom to the Court of Rome for testifying their submission to his Holiness and receiving his Apostolical benediction To which employment were designed Sir Anthony Brown who on the 2d of September had been created Viscoâ—nt Mountacute in regard of his descent from Sir John Nevil whom King Edward the 4th advanced unto the Title of Marquisse Mountacute as being the second son of Richard Nevil Earl of Sarisbury and Alâ—ce his wife daughter and heir of Thomas Mountacute the last and most renowned Earl of Sarisbury of that Name and Family With whom was joined in Commission an another Ambassador extraordinary Dr Thomas Thurlby Bishop of Ely together with Sir Edward Karâ— appointed to recide as Ordinary in the Papal Court. On the 18th day of February they began their journy but found so great an alteration when they came to Rome that Pope Juâ—â—â—us was not only dead but that Marcellus who succeeded him was deceased also so that the honour and felicity of this address from the King of England devolved on Cardinal Caraffa no great friend of Poles who took unto himself the name of Paul the 4th on the first day of whose Papacy it chanced that the three Ambassadors came first to Rome It was in the first Consistory also after his inauguration that the Ambassadors were brought before him Where prostrating themselves at the Pope's feet they in the name of the Kingdom acknowledged the faults committed relating them all in particular for so the Pope was pleas'd to have it confessing that they had been ungrateful for so many benefits received from the Church and humbly craving pardon for it The pardon was not only granted and the Ambassadors lovingly imbraced but as an overplus the Pope was pleas'd to honour their Majesties with the Title of Kings of Ireland Which Title he conferred upon them by the authority which the Popes pretend to have from God in erecting and subverting Kingdoms He knew right well that Ireland had been erected into a Kingdom by King Henry the 8th and that both Edward the 6th and the Queen now reigning had alwayes used the Title of Kings of Ireland in the style Imperial But he conceived himself not bound to take notice of it or to relinquish any privilege which had been exercised in that kind by his predecessors And thereupon he found out this temperament that is to say to dissemble his knowlege of that which had been done by Henry and of himself to erect the Island into a Kingdom that so the world might be induced to believe that the Queen rather used that Title as indulged by the Pope than as assumed by her Father And this he did according to a secret mystery of Government in the Church of Rome in giving that which they could not take from the possessor as on the other side some Kings to avoid contentions have received of them their own proper goods as gifts and others have dissembled the knowledge of the Gift and the pretence of the Giver These things being thus dispatched in publick the Pope had many private discourses with the Ambassadors in which he found fault that the Church goods were not wholly restored saying that by no means it was to be tolerated and that it was necessary to render all even to a farthing He added that the things which belong to God could never be applied to humane uses and that he who withholdeth the least part of them was in continual state of damnation that if he had power to grant them he would do it most readily for the fartherly affection which he bare unto them and for the experience which he had of their filial obedience but that his authority was not so large as to prophane things dedicated to Almighty God and therefore he would have the people of England be assured that these Church lands would be an Anathema or an accursed thing which by the just revenge of God would keep the Kingdom in perpetual infelicity And of this he charged the Ambassadors to write immediately not speaking it once or twice only but repeating it upon all occasions He also told them that the Peter-Pence ought to be paid assoon as might be and that according to the custome he would send a Collector for that purpose letting them know that himself had exercised that charge in England for three years together and that he was much edified by seeing the forwardness of the people in that contribution The discourse upon which particular he closed with this that they could not hope that St Peter would open to them the gates of Heaven as long as they usurped his goods on earth To all which talk the Ambassadors could not chuse but give a hearing and knew that they should get no more at their coming home At their departure out of England they left the Queen in an opinion of her being with child and doubted not but that they should congratulate her safe delivery when they came to render an account of their imployment but it proved the contrary The Queen about three months after her mariage began to find strong hopes not only that she had conceived but also that she was far gone with child Notice whereof was sent by Letters to Bonner from the Lords of the Council by which he was required to cause Te Deum to be sung in all the Churches of his Diocess with continual prayers to be made for the Queen 's safe delivery And for example to the rest these commands were executed first on the 28th of November Dr Chadsey one of the Prebends of Paul's preaching at the Cross in the presence of the Bishop of London and nine other Bishops the Lord Mayor and Aldermen attending in their scarlet Robes and many of the principal Citizens in their several Liveries Which opinion gathering greater strength with the Queen and belief with the people it was Enacted by the Lords and Commons then sitting in Parliament That if it should happen to the Queen otherwise than well in the time of her travel that then the King should have the politick Government Order and Administration of this Realm during the tender years of her Majestie 's issue together with the Rule Order Education and Government of the said issue Which charge as he was pleased to undergo at their humble
vain about it In these distractions some of the Franckfort Schismaticks desire that all divine Offices might be executed according to the order of the Church of Geneva which Knox would by no means yield unto thinking himself as able to make a Rule for his own Congregation as any Calvin of them all But that the mouths of those of Stralsburge and Zuriâ—k might be stopped for ever he is content to make so much use of him as by the authority of his judgment to disgrace that Liturgy which those of Zurick did contend for He knew well how he had bestirred himself in quarrelling the first Liturgy of King Edward the 6th and nothing doubteth but that the second though reviewed on his importunity would give him as little satisfaction as the other did To this intent the Order of the English Liturgy is drawn up in Latine transmitted to him by Knox and Whittingham by this infallible judgment to stand or fall The Oracle returns this answer on the 31 of January In Liturgia Anglâ—cana qualem mihi describitis multas vidâ—o tolerabiles ineptias That in the Book of England as by them described he had observed many tolerable fooleries Whiâ—h last words being somewhat ambiguous as all Oracles are he explicates himself by telling them That there wanted much of that purity which was to be desired in it that it contained many relicks of the dregs of Popery that being there was no manifest impiety in it it had been tolerated for a season because at first it could not otherwise be admitted But howsoever though it was lawful to begin with such beggarly rudiments yet it behoved the learned grave and godly Ministers of Christ to endeavour farther and set forth something more refined from filth and rustinesse This being sent for his determinate sentence unto Knox and Whittingham was of such prevalency with all the rest of that party that such who â—ormerly did approve did afterwards as much dislike the English Liturgy and those who at the first had conceived onely a dislike grew afterwards into an open detestation of it Those who before had been desirous that the Order of Geneva should be entertained had now drawn Knox and Whittingham unto them Mr. John Fox the Author of the Acts and Monuments contributing his approbation amongst the rest But in the end to give content to such as remained affected to the former Liturgy it was agreed upon That a mixt Form consisting partly of the Order of Geneva and partly of the Book of England should be digested and received till the first of April consideration in the mean time to be had of some other course which should be permanent and obliging for the time to come In this condition of affairs Doctor Richard Cox the late Dean of Christ-Church and Westminster first Schoolmaster and after Almoner to King Edward the sixth putteth himself into Franckfort March 13. accompanied with many English Exiles whom the cause of Religion had necessitated to forsake their Country Being a man of great learning of great authority in the Church and one that had a principal hand in drawing up the Liturgy by Law established he could with no patience endure those innovations in it or rather that rejection of it which he found amongst them He thereupon first begins to answer the Minister contrary to the Order there agreed on and the next Sunday after causeth one of his company to go into the Pulpit and read the Letany Against which doings of his Knox in a Sermon the same day inveigheth most bitterly affirming many things in the Book of England not onely to be imperfect but superstitious For the which he is not onely rebuked by Cox but forbidden to preach Wherewith Whittingham being much offended deals with some of the Magistrates from whom he procureth an Order of the 22 of March requiring That the English should conform themselves to the Rules of the French Knox had not long before published a seditious Pamphlet entituled An Admonition to Christians containing the substance of some Sermons by him preached in Engâ—and in one of which he affirmed the Emperor to be no lesse an enemy to Christ that the â—yrant Nero. For this and several other passages of the like dangerous nature he is accused by Cox for Treason against the Emperor the Senate made acquainted with it and Knox commanded thereupon to depart the City who makes hâ—s Farewel-Sermon on the 25th of March and retires himself unto Geneva Following his blow Cox gets an order of the Senate by the means of another of the Glaâ—berges by which Whittingham and the rest of his faction were commanded to receive the Book of England Against which order Whiâ—tingham for a time opposeth encouraged therein by Goodman who for the love of Knox with whom afterwards he associated in all his practices had left the grave soâ—iety of those of Stralsbâ—rge to joyn himself unto the Sectaries of 〈…〉 But finding Cox to be too strong for them in the Senate both they and all the rest who refused conformity resolved to betake themselves to some other place as they shortly did Cox thus made Master of the field begins to put the Congregation into such order as might preserve the face and reputation of an English Church He procures Whitehead to be chosen for the principal Paâ—â—or appoints two Ministers for Elders and four Deacons for aâ—â—istants to him recommends Mr. Robert Horn whom he had drawn from Zurick thither to be Hebrew-Reader Mullings to read the Greek Lecture Trahern the Lecture in Divinity and Chambers to be Treasurer for the Contributions which were sent in from time to time by many godly and wellâ—affected persons both Dutch and English for the use of that Church Having thus setled all things answerable to his own desires he gives an account thereof to Calvin subscribed by fourteen of the chief men in that Congregation partly excusing themselves that they had proceeded so far without his consent and partly rejoycing that they had drawn the greatest part of that Church to their own opinions Calvin returns his Answer on the last of May which puts his party there on another project that is to say to have the whole business referred to some Arbitrators equally chosen on both sides But Cox was already in possession great in esteem with the chief Magistrates of the City and would by no means yield to refer that point which had already been determined to his advantage With these debates the time is taken up till the end of August at what time Whiâ—tingham and the rest of the faction take their leave of Franckfort Fox with some few others go to Basil but the main body to Geneva as their Mâ—ther-City where they make choice of Knox and Goodman for their constant Preachers under which Ministry they reject the whole frame and fabrick of the Reformation made in England conformed themselves wholly to the fashions of the Church of Geneva and therewith entertain
Church and whether any of them do say the divine Service or dâ— minister the Sacraments in the English tongue contrary to the usual order of the Church Of which sort also were the first of those touching the Laity viz. Whether any manner of persons of what estate degree or condition soever they be do hold maintain and affirm any Heresies Errors and erronious Opinions contrary to the Laws Ecclesiastical and the unity of the Catholick Church Which general Article was after branched into such particulars as concerned the Carnal presence of Christ in the Sacrament the reverent esteem thereof the despising of any of the Sacramentals and the decrying of Auricular Confession by the word or practice And somewhat also of this sort was the 17th Article by which it was enquired Whether any of the Priests or Clergy that having been married under the preâ—ence of Lawful Matrimony and since reconciled do privily resort to their pretended wives or that the said women do privily resort to them Nothing material or considerable in all the rest but what hath been in use and practice by all the Archbishops Bishops and other Ecclesiastical Judges in the Church of England since the first and best times of Queen Elizabeâ—h all of them seeming to have took their pattern from this reverend Prelate 's and to have precedented themselves by the Articles of his Visitation In two points onely he appeared to be somewhat singular and therefore found no followers in the times succeeding the first whereof was The Registring of the names of the Godfathers and Godmothers as well as of the child Baptized which why it should be laid aside I can see no reason the Rubrick of the Church allowing none to perform that office before they have received the holy Communion The second was an Enquiry whether the Parsons Vicars and Curats were diligent in teaching the Midwifes how to Christen children in time of necessity according to the Canons of the Church which seemed sufficiently necessary to be put in practice as long as Baptism was permitted to Midwives or any other persons not in holy Orders But though he seemed more favouâ—able than any of the rest of the Bishops towards those which were living he was content to exercise the utmost of his power upon those that were dead nor was he without hope that by the punishment and disgrace of those which were not sensible of eiâ—her he might be thought to manifest his greatest zeal towards the maintenance of the Doctrins of the Church of Rome as if he had inflicted the like censures on them when they were alive This prompts him to a Visitation of the University of Cambridge partly to rectifie the Statutes of it which in many points were thought to stand in need of a Reformation but principally to exercise some more than ordinary rigour on the dead bodies of Martin Bucer and Paulus Fagius Of these the first having been the publick Reader in Divinity in the time of King Edward was solemnly interred in the Church of St. Maries the other having been Hebrew-Reader at the same time also was buried in the Church of St. Michael In order to this Visitation he Delegates one Ormanete an Italian honored with the title of the Popes Daâ—ary Doctor Cuthbert Scot then newly consecrated Bishop of Chester Doctor Watson Mr. of St. John's College and Lord Elect of Lincoln and Doctor Christopherson Master of Trinity Colledge and Dean of Norwich Lord Elect of Chichester and Doctor Henry Cole Provost of Eaton College and Dean of St. Pauls With these were joyned as Commissioners Doctor Andrew Pern Master of Peterhouse and Vice-chancellor some Doctors of Divinity Sir James Dâ—er then the Recorder of the Town and certain others in the name of the King and Queen It must be some great business doubtlesse that must require so many hands and exercise the wits of so many persons Bishops Deans Doctors in Divinity Canonists common Lawyers Knights and Gentlemen But what the business was and how little it required such preparations we are next to see The Cardinals Commissioners came to Cambridge on the 9th of January where they found the rest ready to receive them and the next day they interdicted the two Churches above mentioned for daring to entertain the dead bodies of such desperate Hereticks I pretermit the eloquent speech made by Stoaks the University-Orator the Answer thereunto by Sâ—ot then Bishop of Chester the Latine Sermon preached by Peacock against Sects and Hereticks together with the Solemn Mass with which this weighty businesse was to take beginning Which preparations being past over a Petition is presented to the Cardinals Delegates in the name of the Vice-chancellor and Heads of the University for taking up the bodies of the said Martin Bucer and Panlus Faglus to the end that some legal proceedings might be had against them to the terrour of others in regard of those many dangerous and heretical Doctrines by them formerly taught The Petition being granted and the dead bodies condemned to be taken out of their graves a publick Citation is set up at St. Mary's Church the Market-place and the common Schools requiring the said Martin Bucer and Paulus Fagius or any other in their names or in their behalf to appear before the Lords Commissioners on Monday the 18th of that Month to answer to such Articles as then and there should be objected against them But the dead bones not being able to come unless they were carried and no body daring to appear as their Proctor or Advocate they might have been taken pro confessis but that the Court was willing to proceed by Witnesses and to that end they took the Depositions of several persons touching the Doctrine taught by the said two Hereticks and then upon mature deliberation they condemned them of Heresie ordered them to be taken out of their graves degraded from all holy Orders and delivered to the secular Magistrate Of all this an account is given to the Cardinal-Legat who is desired to take some course that the ordinary Writ de comburendo Haereticâ— for the burning of Hereticks might be taken out and sent unto the Mayor of Cambridge without which nothing could be done in order to the execution of the rest of the Sentence The Writ accordingly comes down and Saturday the sixth day of February is appointed for the burning of the two dead bodies which being taken out of their graves and laid in their coffins on mens shoulders are carried to the marketâ— place with a guard of men well armeâ— and weaponed for fear of making an escape chained unto several posts as if still alive the wood and fire put to them and their bodies burned together with as many of their Books as could be gotten which were cast into the same flames also And because one University should not mock the other the like cruelty was also exercised upon the dead body of Martyr's wiâ—e at Oxford a godly grave and sober matron while she lived and to the
exercise of his Bulls and Faculties Peitow the new Cardinal Legate puts himself on the way to England when the Queen taking to her self some part of her fathers spirit commands him at his utmost peril not to adventure to set foot upon English ground to which he readily inclined as being more affected unto Cardinal Pole than desirous to shew himself the servant of another mans passion In the end partly by the Queens mediation the intercession of Ormaenete the good successes of the French in the taking of Calais but principally by the death of Peitow in the April following the rupture was made up again and Pole confirmed in the possession of his former powers The fear of running the like hazard for the time to come made him appear more willing to connive at his under Officers in shedding the blood of many godly and religious persons than otherwise he would have been Whereupon followed the burning of ten men in the Diocess of Canterbury on the 15th of January whereof two suffered at Ashford two at Riâ— and the other six in his own Metropolitan City and possibly the better to prepare the Pope towards this Attonement the Queen was moved to issue her Commission of the month of February directed to the Bishop of Ely the Lords Windsor North and seventeen others by which the said Commissioners or any thâ—eâ— or more of them were impowred to enquire of all and singular Heretical opinions Lollardies Heretical and seditious books concealâ—ents contempts conspiracies and all false tales rumours seditious or slanderous words c. As also seize into their hands all manner of Heretical and seditious Books Letters and Writings wheresoever they or any of them should be found as well in Printers houses and shops as elsewhere willing them and every of them to search for the same in all places according to their discretions And finally to enquire after â—ll such persons as obstinately do refuse to receive the blessed Sacrament of the Altar to hear Mass or coâ—e to their Parish Churches and all such as refuse to go on Procession to take holy bread or holy water or otherwise misuse themselves in any Church or hallowed place c. The party so offending to be proceeded against according to the Ecclesiastical Lawes or otherwise by fine or imprisonment as to them seemed best But the Commissioners being many in number persons of honour and imployment for the most part of them there was little or nothing done in pursuance of it especially as to the searching after prohibited books the number whereof increasing every day more and more a Proclamation was set forth on the 6th of June to hinder the continual spreading of so great a mischief Which Proclamation was as followeth viz. Whereas divers books filled with Hersie Sedition and Treason have of late been dayly brought into this Realm out of forein Countries and places beyond the seas and some covertly printed within this Realm and cast abroad in sundry parts thereof whereby not only god is dishonoured but also incouragement given to disobey lawful Princes and Governours the King and Queens Majesties for redress hereof do by their present Proclamation declare and publish to all their subjects that whosoever shall after the Proclamation hereof be found to have any of the said wicked and seditious books or finding them do not forthwith burn the same without shewing or reading the same to any other persons shall in that case be reputed and taken for a rebel and shall without further delay be executed for that offence according to the order of Martial Law Which Proclamation though it were very smart and quick yet there was somewhat of more mercy in it than in another which came out in the very same month at the burning of seven persons in Smithfield published both at Newgate where they were imprisoned and at the stake where they were to suffer whereby it was straightly charged and commanded That no man should either pray for or speak to them or once say God help them A cruelty more odious than that of Domitian or any of the greatest Tyrants of the elder times in hindering all entercourse of speech upon some jealousie and distrusts of State between man and man Which Proclamation notwithstanding Bentham the Minister of one of the London Congregations seeing the fire set to them turning his eyes unto the people cried and said We know they are the people of God and therefore we cannot chuse but wish well to them and say God strengthen them and so boldly he said Almighty God for Christs sake strengthen them With that all the people with one consent cryed Amen Amen the noise whereof was so great and the cryers so many that the Officers knew not whom to seize oâ— or with whom they were to begin their accusation And though peradvâ—nture it may seem to have somewhat of a miracle in it that the Protestants should have a Congregation under Bonner's nose yet so it was that the godly people of that time were so little terrified with the continual thoughts of that bloody Butcher that they maintained their constant meetings for religious offices even in London it self in one of which Congregations that namely whereof Bentham was at this time Minister there assembled seldome under 40. many times 100. and sometimes 200. but more or less as it stood most with their conveniency and safety The Ministers of which successively were Mr Edward Scambler after Bishop of Peterborough Mr Thomas Foule of whom I find nothing but the name Mr John Rough a Scot by Nation convented and condemned by Bonner and suffering for the testimony of a good conscience December 20. After whom followed Mr Augustine Bernher a moderate and learned man And finally Mr Thomas Bentham before mentioned who continued in that charge till the death of Queen Mary and was by Queen Elizabeth preferred to the See of Lichfield Anno 1589. By the encouragement and constant preaching of which pious men the Protestant party did not only stand to their former principle but were resolved to suffer whatsoever could be laid upon them rather than forfeit a good conscience or betray the cause They had not all the opportunity of such holy meetings but they meâ— frequently enough in smaller companies to animate and comfort one another in those great extremities Nor sped the Queen much better in her Proclamation of the sixth of June concerning the suppression of prohibited Books but notwithstanding all the care of her Inquisitors many good Books of true Christian Consolation and good Protestant Doctrine did either find some Press in London or were sent over to their brethren by such learned men as had retired themselves to their several Sanctuaries their places of Retreat which not improperly may be called their Cities of Refuge which we have seen already amongst which I find none but Embden in the Lutheran Countries the rigid Professors of which Churches abominated nothing more than an English Protestant because they
conclude with this Address to Almighty God That as He hath restored Your Majesty to the Throne of Your Father and done it in so strange a manner as makes it seem a Miracle in the Eyes of Christendom so He would settle You in the same on so sure a Bottom that no Design of Mischievous and Unquiet Men may disturb Your Peace or detract any thing from those Felicities which You have acquired So prayeth Dread Sovereign Your Majestie 's most obedient Servant and most Loyal Subject PETER HEYLYN To the Reader READER I Here present thee with a Piece of as great variety as can be easily comprehended in so narrow a compass the History of an Affair of such Weight and Consequence as had a powerful Influence on the rest of Christendome It is an History of the Reformation of the Church of England from the first Agitations in Religion under HENRY the Eight untill the final settling and establishing of it in Doctrine Government and Worship under the Fortunate and most Glorious Reign of Queen ELIZABETH Nor hast thou here a bare Relation onely of such Passages as those Times afforded but a discovery of those Counsels by which the Action was conducted the Rules of Piety and Prudence upon which it was carryed the several steps by which it was promoted or retarded in the Change of Times together with the Intercurrence of such civil Concernments both at home and abroad as either were co-incident with it or related to it So that We may affirm of this present History as Florus doth of his Compendium of the Roman Stories Ut non tam populi unius quam totius generis humani that is to say That it contains not onely the Affairs of one State or Nation but in a manner of the greatest part of all Civil Governments The Work first hinted by a Prince of an undanted Spirit the Master of as great a Courage as the World had any and to say truth the Work required it He durst not else have grapled with that mighty Adversary who claiming to be Successour to St. Peter in the See of Rome and Vicar-General to Christ over all the Church had gained unto himself an absolute Sovereignty over all Christian Kings and Princes in the Western Empire But this King being violently hurried with the transport of some private Affections and finding that the Pope appeared the greatest Obstacle to his desires he first divested him by degrees of that Supremacy which had been challenged and enjoyed by his Predecessours for some Ages past and finally extinguished His Authority in the Realm of England without noise or trouble to the great admiration and astonishment of the rest of the Christian World This opened the first way to the Reformation and gave encouragement to those who enclined unto it To which the King afforded no small Countenance out of Politick Ends by suffering them to have the Bible in the Englishâ—ongue â—ongue and to enjoy the benefit of such Godly Tractates as openly discovered the Corruptions of the Church of Rome But for his own part he adhered to his old Religion severely persecuted those who dissented from it and dyed though Excommunicated in that Faith and Doctrine which he had sucked in as it were with his Mother's Milk and of the wâ—ich he shewâ—d himself so stout a Champion against Martin Luther in his first Quarrels with the Pope Next comes a Minor on the Stage just mild and gracious whose Name was made a Property to serve turns withall and his Authority abused as commonly it happeneth on the like occâ—sions to his own undoing In his first year the Reformation was resolved on but on different ends endeavoured by some Godly Bâ—shops and other Learned and Religious Men of the lower Clergy out of Judgment Conscience who managed the Affair according to the Word of God the Practice of the Primitive Times the general current and consent of the old Catholick Doctours but not without an Eye to such Foreign Churches as seemed to have most consonancy to the antient Forms Promoted with like Zeal and Industry but not with like Integrity and Christian Candour by some great men about the Court who under colour of removing such Corruptions as remained in the Church had cast their â—yes upon the spoil of Shrines and Images though still preserved in the greatest part of the Lutheran Churches and the improving of their own Fortunes by the â—hantery-Lands All which most sacrilegiously they divided amongst themselves without admitting the poor King to his share therein though nothing but the filling of his Coffers by the spoil of the one and the encrease of his Revenue by the fall of the other was openly pretended in the Conduct of it But separating this â—bliquity from the main Intendment the Work was vigorously carryed on by the King and his Councellours as appears clearly by the Doctrinals in the Book of Homilies and by the Practical part of Christian Pâ—ety in the first Publick Liturgie confirmed by Act of Parliament in the second and third year of this King and in that Act and which is more by Fox himself affirmed to have been done by the especial aid of the Holy Ghost And here the business might have rested if Catvin's Pragmatical Spirit had not interposed He first began to quarrel at some passages in this Sacred Liturgâ—e and afterwards never left solliciting the Lord Protectour and practising by his Agents on the Court the Countrey and the Universities till he had laid the first Foundation of the Zuinglian Faction who laboured nothing more then Innovation both in Doctrine and Discipline To which they were encouraged by nothing more then some improvident Indulgence granted unto John A-Lasco Who bringing with him a mixt multitude of Poles and Germans obtained the Privilege of a Church for himself and his distinct in Government and Forms of Worship from the Church of England This gave a powerful animation to the Zuinglian Gospellers as they are called by Bishop Hooper and some other Writers to practise first upon the Church who being countenanced if not headed by the Earl of Warwick who then began to undermine the Lord Protectour first quarrelled the Episcopal Habit and afterwards inveighed against Caps and Surplices against Gowns and Tippets but fell at last upon the Altars which were left standing in all Churches by the Rules of the Liturgie The touching on this String made excellent Musick to most of the Grandees of the Court who had before cast many an envious Eye on those costly Hangings thâ—t Massie Plate and other rich and preâ—ious Utensils which adorned those Altars And What need all this waste said Judas when one poor Chalice onely and perhaps not that might have served the turn Besides there was no small spoil to be made of Copes in which the Priest officiated at the Holy Sacrament some of them being made of Cloth of Tyssue of Cloth of Gold and Silver or embroidered Velvet the meanest being made of Silk or Sattin with
for pressing him to the disinheriting of his foâ—mer children But whether this were so or not certain it is that his last wife being a proud imperious woman and one that was resolved to gain her own ends upon him never leâ—t plying him with one suspition after anoâ—her till in the end she had prevâ—iled to have the greatest part of his lands and all his Honourable Titles setled on her eldest son And that she might make sure work of it she caused him to obtaine a private Act of Parliament in the 32. yeare of Henry the Eighth Anno 1540. for entailing the same on this last Edward and the Heires male of his body So easie was he to be wrought on by those that knew on which side he did lie most open to assaults and batteries Of a farr different temper was his brother Thomas the youngest sonne of Sir John Seimour of a daring and enterprising nature arrogant in himselfe a dispiser of others and a Contemner of all Counsells which were not first forged in his own brain Following his sister to the Court he received the Order of Knighthood from the hands of the King at such time as his brother was made Earle of Hartford and on May day in the thirtieth yeare of the Kings Reign he was one of the Challengers at the Magnificent Justs maintained by him and others against all comers in the Pallace of Westminster in which together with the rest he behaved himselfe so highly to the Kings contentment and their own great Honoâ—r that they were all severally rewarded with the Grant of 100. Marks of yearely rent and a convenient house for habitation thereunto belonging out of the late dissolved order of Saint John oâ— Iâ—rusalem Which being the first foundation of his following greatness proved not sufficient to support the building which was raised upon it the Gentleman and almost all the rest of the challengers coming within few yeares after to unfortunate ends For being made Lord Seimour of Sudley and Lord High Admirall of England by King Edward the sixth he would not satisfie his ambition with a lower marriage then the widow of his deceased Soveraign aspiring after her death to the bed of the Princes of Elizabeth the second daughter of the King Which wrought such Jealousies and distrusts in the Head of his brother then being Lord Protector of the King and Kingdom that he was thereupon Arraigned Condemned and Executed of which more anon to the great joy of such as practised to â—ubvert them both As for the Barrony of Sudley denominated from a goodly Mannor in the County of Glâ—câ—ster it wasâ— ancâ—ently the Patrimony of Harrold the eldest Son of Ralph d' Mont. the son of 〈◊〉 Medantinuâ— or d' Mount and of Goda his wife one of the daughters of Ethilred and sister of Edmond sirnamed â—roâ—side Kings of England whose Posterity taking to themselves the name of Sudley continued in possession of it till the time of John the last Baron of this name and Famiâ—y VVhose daugâ—ter Joane conveyed the whole estate in marriage to Sir William Botteler of the Family of Wemm in Shropshire From whom deâ—cended Ralph Lord Botteleâ— of Sudley Castle Chamberlain of the Houshold to King Henry the sixth by whom he was created Knight of the Garter and Lord High Treasurer of England And though the greatest part of this Inheritance being devided between the sisters and co-heires came to other Families yet the Castle and Barony of Sudley remained unto a male of this house untill the latter end of the Reign â—f King Henry the eighth to whom it was escheated by the Attainder of the last Lord Botteller whose greatest Crime was thought to be this goodly Mannor which some greedy Courtiers had an eye on And being fallen unto the Crown it was no hard matter for the Lord Protector to estate the same upon his brother who was scarce warmed in his new Honour when it fell into the Crown again Where it continued all the rest of King Edwards Reign and by Queen Mary was conferred on Sir John Bruges who derived his Pedigree from one of the said sisters and co-heires of Ralph Lord Botteler whom she ennobled by the Title of Lord Chaundos of Sudley As for Sir Henry Seimour the second son of Sir John Seimour he was not found to be of so fine a metall as to make a Courtier and was therefore left unto the life of a Country Gentleman Advanced by the Power and favour of his elder Brother to the oâ—der of Knighthood and afterwards Estated in the Mannours of Marvell and Twyford in the County of Southhampton dismembred in those broken times from the see of Winchester To each of these belonged a Park that of the first containing no less then foure miles that of the last but two in compass the first being also Honoured with a goodly Mancion house belonging anciently to those Bishops and little inferiour to the best of the Wealthy Bishopricks There goes a story that the Priest Officiating at the Altar in the Church of Ouslebury of which Parish Marvell was a part after the Mass had been abolished by the Kings Authority was violently dragged thence by this Sir Henry beaten and most reproachfully handled by him his servants universally refusing to serve him as the instruments of his Rage and Fury and that the poore Priest having after an opportunity to get into the Church did openly curse the said Sir Henry and his posterity with Bell Book and Candle according to the use observed in the Church of Rome Which whether it were so or not or that the maine foundation of this Estate being laid on Sacrilidge could promise no long blessing to it Certain it is that his posterity are brought beneath the degree of poverty For having three Nephewes by Sir John Seâ—mour his only Son that is to say Edward the eldest Henry and Thomas younger sons besides severall daughters there remaines not to any of them one foot of Land or so much as a penny of money to supply their necessities but what they have from the Munificence of the Marquesse of Hartford or the charity of other well disposed people which have affection or Relation to them But the great ornament of thisâ— house was their sister Jane the only daughter of her father by whose care she was preferred to the Court and service of Queen Ann Bollen where she outâ—shined all the other Ladies and in short time had gained exceeding much on the King a great admirer of Fresh Beauties and such as could pretend unto no command on his own affections Some Ladies who had seen the pictures of both Queenes at White Hall Gallery have entertained no small dispute to which of the two they were to give Preheminence in point of beauty each of them having such a plentifull measure of Perfections as to Entitle either of them to a Superiority If Queen Ann seemed to have the more lively countenance Queen Jane was thought to carry it in the exact
extreame griefe of the King and the generall sorrow of the Court who had him in a High degree of veneration for his birth and Galantry It appeares also by a passage in this Act of Parliament above mentioned that the King was not only hurried to this Marriage by his own affections but by the humble petition and intercession of mâ—st of the Nobles of his Realm moved thereunto as well by the conveâ—ienâ—y of her yeares as in respect that by her excellent beauty and purenesse of flesh and blood I speak the very words of the Act it selfe she was apt God willing to concieve issue And so accordingly it proved For on the 12th of October 1537. about two of the clock in the morning she was delivered of a young Prince Christened not long after by the name of Edward but it cost her deare she dying within two dayes after and leaving this Character behind her of being the Discreetest Humblest and Fairest of all the Kings Wives It hath been commonly reported and no lesse generally believed that that childe being come unto the birth and there wanting naturall strength to be delivered his Mothers body was ripped open to give him a passage into the World and that she died of the Incision in a short time after The thing not only so related in our common Heralds but taken up for a constant and undoâ—bted truth by Sir John Haywood in his History of the Life and Reign of King Edward the sixth which notwithstanding there are many reasons to evince the contrary For first it is observed by the said Sir John Haywood that children so brought forth were by the ancient Romans esteemed fortunate and commonly proved great enterprisers with happy successe And so it is affirmed by Pliny viz. Auspicatius Enecta Matre Nascuntur c. called first Caesones and afterwards more commonly Caesares as learned Writers do averr quia caeso matris utero in Lucem prodiissent because their Mothers bodies had been opened to make passage for them Amongst whom they reckon Caeso and Fabius who was three times Consull Scipio sirnamed Affricanus Renowned for his Victories in Spain his vanquishing of Haniball and humbling the proud Cities of Carthage And besides others Julius Caesar who brought the whole Roman Empire under his Command whereas the life of this Prince was short his Reigne full of troubles and his end generally supposed to be traiterously contrived without performing any memorable Action either at home or abroad which might make him pass in the account of a fortunate Prince or any way successefull in the enterprising of Heroick Actions Besides it may appeare by two severall Letters the one written by the appointment of the Queen her selfe immediately after her delivery the other by one of her Physitians on the morrow after that she was not under any such extream necessity though questionlesse she had a hard labour of it as report hath made her For first the Queen immediately upon the birth of the Prince caused this ensuing Letter signed with her own signet to be sent unto the Lordâ— of the Privy Counsell that is to say RIght trusty and well Beloved we greet you well And forasmuch as by the inestimable goodnesse and Grace of Almighty God we be delivered and brought in Childeâ—â—ed of a PRINCE concieved in most Lawfull Matrimony between my Lord the Kings Majesty and us Doubting not but that for the Love and affection you beare unto us and to the Common-Wealth of this Realme this knowledge shall be joyous and Glad Tidings unto you We have thought good to certifie you of this same To the intent ye might not only render unto God Condigne thanks and praise for so great a benefit but also continually pray for the long Continuance and preservation of the same here in this life to the Honour of God joy and pleasure of my Lord the KING and us and the Vniversall Weale quiet and tranquillity of this whole Realme Given under our signet at my Lords Mannor of Hamptonâ—Court the twelâ—th day of October But having a hard labour of it as before was said it brought her first into a very high distemper and after into a very great looseness which so accelerated the approach of death that she prepared her selfe for God according to the Rites of the Church then being And this appâ—ares by a letter of the Queenes Physitians directed in these words to the Lords of the Counsell viz. THese shall be to advise your Lordships of the Queenes Estate Yesterday afternoon she had a naturall lax by reason whereof she began to lighten and as it appeared to amend and so continued till towards night All this night she hath been very sick and doth rather appare then amend her Confessor hath been with her Grace this morning and hath done that to his office appertaineth and is even now preparing to Administer to her Grace the Sacrament of Vnction Subscribed at Hampton Court on Wednesday morning at eight of the clock by Thomas Cutland Robert Karhold Edward Bayntam John Chambers Priest William Butts George Owen So died this Noble Beautifull and Vertuous Queen to the Generall lamentation of all good Subjects and on the twelfth of November following with great Solemnity was conveyed to Windsor and there Magnificently interred in the midst of the quire In memory of whom I find this Epitaph not unworthy the greatest wits of the present times to have then been made viz. Phoenix Jana Jacet nâ—to Phaenice Dolendum est Saecula Phoenices nulla tulisse duas That is to say Here Jane a Phenix lies whose death Gave to another Phenix breath Sad case the while that no age ever Could show two Phaenixes together But to return unto the Prince It is affirmed with like confidence and as little truth that on the 13th day of October then next following that being but the sixth day after his birth he was created Prince of Wales Duke of Cornwall Earle of Chester c. In which though I may easily excuse John Stow and Bishop Goodwine who report the same yet I shall never pardon the late Lord Herbert for his incuriosity as one that had fit opportunities to know the contrary For first Prince Edward was never created Duke of Cornwall and there was no reason why he should he being actually Duke of Cornwall at the houre of his birth according to the Entaile which was made of that Dukedome to the Crown by King Edward the third And secondly he was never created Prince of Wales nor then nor any time then after following his Father dying in the midst of the preparations which were intended for the Pomp and Ceremony of that Creation This truth confessed by Sir John Haywood in his History of the Life and Reigâ— of this King and generally avowed by all our Heralds who reckon none of the children of King Henry the Eighth amongst the Princes of Wales although all of them successively by vulgar
cast his eye on the Lands of Bishoppricks though there were some who thought the time long till they fell upon them Concerning which there goes a story that after the Court-Harpies had devoured the greatest part of the spoyle which came by the suppression of Abbyes they began to seek some other way to satiate that greedy Appetite which the division of the former booty had left unsatisfied and for the satisfying whereof they found not any thing so necessary as the Bishops Lands This to effect Sir Thomas Seimour is imployed as the fittest man as being in favour with the King as brother to Queen Jane his most and best beloved wife and having the opportunity of accesse unto him as being one of the Gentlemen of his Privy Chamber And he not having any good affection to Arch-Bishop Cranmer desired that the experiment should be tryed on him and therefore took his time to informe the King that my Lord of Canterbury did nothing but fell his woods letting long leases for great fines and making havock of the Royalties of his Arch-Bishopprick to raise thereby a fortune to his wife and children withall he did acquaint the King that the Arch-Bishop kept no hospitality in respect of such a large Revenue and that in the opinion of many wise men it was more meet for the Bishops to have a sufficient yearely Stipend out of the Exchequer then to be so encumbred with temporall Royalties being so great a hindrance to their Studies and Pastorall Charge and that the said Lands and Royalists being taken to his Majesties use would afford him besides the said Annuall Stipends a great yearly Revenue The King soon smelt out the Device and shortly after sent him on an Errand to Lambeth about dinner time where he found all the tables in the great Hall to be very bountifully furnished the Arch-Bishop himselfe accompanied at dinner with divers persons of Quality his Table exceeding plentifully served and all things answerable to the Port of so great a Prelate Wherewith the King being made acquainted at his coming back he gave him such a Ratle for his false information and the design which visibly depended on it that neither he nor any other of the Courtiers durst stir any further in the suite whilest King Henry lived But the King considering further of it could not think fit that such a plausible Proposition as taking to himselfe the Lands of the Bishops should be made in vaine Only he was resolved to prey further off and not to fall upon the spoyle two neere the Court for feare of having more partakers in the Booty then might stand with his profit And to this end the deales with Hâ—lgate preferred not long before from Landâ—ff to the See of Yorke from whom he takes at one time no fewer then seventy Mannors and Town-ships of good old Rents given him in exchange to the like yearly value certain Impropriations Pensions Tithes and Portions of Tithes but all of an extended Rent which had accrued unto the Crown by the fall of Abbyes Which Lands he â—aid by Act of Parliament to the Dutchy of Lancaster For which see 37 Hen. 8. Câ—p 16. He dismembred also by these Acts certain Mannors from the See of Loâ—don in favâ—ur of Sir William Petie and others in the like manner from the See of Canterbury but not without some reasonable compensation or allowance for them And though by reason of his death which folâ—owed within short time after there was no further alienation made in his time of the Churches Patrimoney yet having opened such a Gap and discovered this secret that the sacred Patrimony might be alienated with so little trouble the Courtieâ—s of King Edwards time would not be kept from breaking violently into it and making up their own fortune in the spoyle of the Biâ—hopricks Of which we may â—peak more hereafter in it's proper place So impossible a thing it is for the iâ—l example of Great Princes not to finde followers in all ages especially where profit or preferment may be furthered by it But then it cannot be deâ—ied but that King Henry left the Church in many Respects in a better condition then he found it not only in order to the Reformation of Religion which none but such a Masculine Prince durst have undertaken but also in the Polity and endowments of it The Mâ—nâ—steries and Religious Houses might possibly be looked upon no otherwise then as so many excrescences upon the body of the Church exempt for the most part from the Episcopall Jurisdiction wholly depending on the Pope and such as might be taken away without any derogation to the Church in Power or Patrimony But Bishopricks being more essentiall to the constitution of the same he did not only preserve as before he found them but increased their number Such of the old Cathedralls as were founded on a Prior and Covent he changed into a Corporation of secular Priests consisting of a Deane and Prebendarles according to the proportion of their yearely rents of which sort were the Churches of Canterbury Winton Durham Elie Rochester Norwich and Carlile Six of the wealthier Monasteries he turned into Episcopall Sees that is to say the Abbyes of Westminster Peter Borough Bristoll Glocester and Chester with that of Oâ—sney for the See of the Bishop of Oxon assigning to every new Episcopall See its Deane and Chapter and unto every such Cathedrall a competent number of Quiremen and other Officers all of them liberally endowed and provided for And that the Church might be continually furnished with sufficient Seminaries he sounded a Grammer Schoole in every one of his Cathedralls either old or new with Annuall pensions to the Master and some allowance to be made to the children yearely and ordained also that in each of the two Universities there should be publick Readers in the faculties of Divinity Law and Physick and in the Greek and Hebrew Tongues all which he pensioned and endowed with lâ—berall Saâ—aries as the times then were Besides which publique benefactions he confirmed Cardinall Wolsies Colledge in Oxon by the name of Kings Colledge first and of Christ church afterwards and erected that most beautifull piâ—e of Trinity Colledge in Cambridge those being the two faâ—rest and most magnificent foundations in the Christian World As for the Polity of the Church he setled it in such a manner that Arch-bishops and Bishops might be chosen confirmed and consecrated and all the Subjects be relieved in their suits and Grievances without having such Recourse to the Court of Rome as formerly had drained the Realm of so much Treasure For having by his Proclamation of the 19th of September Anno 1530. prohibited all addresses and Appeales to the Popes of Rome he prevailed so farr upon his Bishops and Clergy intangled by the Cardinalls fall in a Premunire that they acknowledged him in their Convocation to be the Supreme Head on Earth of the Church of England and signified as much in a Publick Instrument bearing date the
special Coâ—fidence which we have and ever had in them to have a due and diligent Eye perfect Zeal Love and Affection to the Honour Surety Estate and Dignity of Our said Son and the Good State and Prosperity of this Our Realm And that all delays set apart they well aid and assist Our said Councellours and Executours to the performance of this Our present Testament and last Will in every part as they will answer before God at the day of Judgement Cum venerit judicate vivos mortuos And furthermore for the special Trust and Confidence which We have in the Earls of Arundel and Essex that now be Sir Thomas Cheney Knight Treasurer of Our Houshould Sir John Gage Knight Comptroller of Our Houshold Sir Anthony Wingfield Knight Our Vice-Chamberlain Sir William Peter Knight one of Our two principal Secretaries Sir Richard Rich Knight Sir John Baker Knight Sir Ralph Sadler Knight Sir Thomas Seimour Knight Sir Richard Souâ—hwel and Sir Edmond Peckham Knights they and every of them shall be of Council for the aiding and assisting of the fore-named Councellours and Our Executours when they or any of them shall be called by Our said Executours or the more part of the same Item We bequeath to Our Daughters Mary and Elizabeth's Marriage they being married to any outward Potentate by the Advice of the aforeâ—said Councellours if We bestow them not in Our Life-time ten thousand pounds in Money Plate Jewels and Houshold-stuff for each of them or a larger sum as to the discretion of Our Executours or the more part of them shall be thought convenient Willing them on My Blessing to be ordered as well in Marriage as in all other lawfull things by the Advice of Our foreâ—named Councellours And in case they will not then the sum to be minished at the Councellours Discretions And Our further Will is That from the first Hour of Our Death untill such time as the said Councellours can provide either of them or both some Honourable Marriages They shall have each of them M. M. M. lb. ultra reprisas to live upon Willing and charging the afore-said Councellours to limit and appoint to either of them such said Officers and Ministers for Orderance thereof as may be imployed both to Our Honour and Theirs And for the great Love Obedience and Chastness of Life and Wisdom being in Our fore-named Wife and Queen We bequeath unto Her for Her proper Vse and as it shall please Her to Order it M. M. M. lb. in Plate Jewels and Stuff of Houshold besides such Apparell as it shall please Her to take as She hath already And further We give unto Her M. lb. in Money with the enjoying of Her Dowry and Joynture according to Our Grant by Act of Parliament Which said He bequeathed in other Legacies amongst the Lords of His Council and other of His Principal Officers whom He had declared for His Executours the sum of 6433. lb. 6. s. 8. d. And amongst other Knights and Gentlemen His Domestick Servants and such as were in Ordinary Attendance about the Court under which stile I find that Patrick before-remembred the Sum of 5â—83 lb. 6. s. 8. d. Both Sums amounting in the total to 11516. lb. 13. s. 4. d. And so concludeth with a Revocation of all other Wills and Testaments by Him formerly made that onely this might stand in Force and be effectual to all Intents and Purposes in the Law whatsoever Dated 30. December Signed with His own hand and Witnessed by eleven of such of His Physicians and Attendants as were then about Him Such was the Last Will and Testament of this Puissant Prince Of which how little was performed and how much less should have been performed if some Great Persons whom He had nominated for His Executours might have had their Wills we shall hereafter show in fit time and place In the mean season we will see Him laid into His Grave which was done with as much convenient speed as the necessary Preparations for a Royal Funeral could of right admit For on the fourteenth day of February then next following His Body being removed in a Solemn and Magnificent manner to Shene near Richmond was the next day with like Solemnity attended to His Castle of Windsore one of the Goodlieâ—t and most Gallant Seats of the Christian World and there Interred in a Vault prepared for Himself and His Dear Wife Queen Jane as in His Last Will He had desired For though a most Magnificent and Costly Tomb had been begun for Him by Cardinal Wolâ—â—e in a by-Chapel of that Church commonly called The Chapel of King Henry the Eighth yet being an unfinished piece and the King having otherways disposed of His own Interment a Vault was opened for Him in the middest of the Quire Into which the Body of the King was no sooner laid but all His Officers brake their Staves and threw them in the Grave according to the usual Ceremonies on the like Occasions receiving new ones the next day at the hands of His Son Nor were the Funeral Rites performed by His own Subjects onely but a Solemn Obsequie was kept for Him in the Church of Nostre-Dame in Paris by King Francis the First notwithstanding that He had been Excommunicated by the Popes of Rome So much that Generous Prince preferred His old affections to this King for former Favours not onely above the late displeasures conceived against Him for the taking of Bulloign but even above the Pope's Curse and all the Fulminations of the Court of Rome which might follow on it But long it will not be before we shall discharg this debt in paying the like Duty to the Honour of Francis who dying on the two and twentieth day of March next following had here an Obsequie as Solemn as the Times could give Him Of which more hereafter THE LIFE and REIGN OF KING EDWARD THE SIXTH Anno Reg. 1. Anno Dom. 1546 1547. HENRY being dead EDWARD His onely surviving Son at the age of nine years three moneths and sixteen days by the name of King EDWARD the Sixth succeeds His Father in the Throne Charles the Fifth being then Emperour of Germany and King of Spain Francis of Angâ—lesme the last Branch of the Royal Line of Valoys King of the French and Paul the Third of the Noble House of the Farnezi presiding in the Church of Rome No sooner was His Father dead but Edward Earl of Hartford and Sir Anthony Brown Master of the Horse were by the Rest of the Council dispatched in hast to Hartford-Castle where at that time He kept His Court accompanied with His Sister the Princess Elizabeth about four years elder then Himself Both whom they brought the next day as far as Enfield where they imparted to Them the sad News of the King's Decease received by both with such a measure of true Sorrow that it was very hard to say whither Their Tears did more obscure or set forth Their Beauties The next day advancing
any other shuffling till the end of the Game this very Parliament without any sensible alteration of the Members of it being continued by Protogation from Session to Session untill at last it ended by the Death of the King For a Preparatory whereunto Richard Lord Rich was made Lord Chancellour on the twenty fourth of October and Sir John Baker Chancellour of the Court of First-Fruits and Tenths was nominated Speaker for the House of Commons And that all things might be carried with as little opposition and noise as might be it was thought fit that Bishop Gardiner should be kept in Prison till the end of the Session and that Bishop Tonstal of Duâ—ham a man of a most even and moderate Spirit should be made less in Reputation by being deprived of his Place at the Council-Table And though the Parliament consisted of such Members as disagreed amongst themselves in respect of Religion yet they agreed well enough together in one Common Principle which was to serve the present Time and preserve themselves For though a great part of the Nobility and not a few of the Chief Gentry in the House of Commons were cordially affected to the Church of Rome yet were they willing to give way to all such Acts and Statutes as were made against it out of a fear of losing such Church-Lands as they were possessed of if that Religion should prevail and get up again And for the rest who either were to make or improve their Fortunes there is no question to be made but that they came resolved to further such a Reformation as should most visibly conduce to the Advancement of their several Ends. Which appears plainly by the strange mixture of the Acts and Results thereof some tending simply to God's Glory and the Good of the Church some to the present Benefit and enriching of particular Persons and some again being devised of purpose to prepare a way for exposing the Revenues of the Church unto Spoil and Rapine Not to say any thing of those Acts which were merely Civil and tended to the Profit and Emolument of the Common-Wealth Of the first Sort was The Act for repealing several Statutes concerning Treason Under which head besides those many bloody Laws which concerned the Life of the Subject in Civil Matters and had been made in the distracted Times of the late King Henry there was a Repeal also of all such Statutes as seemed to touch the Subject in Life or Liberty for matter of Conscience some whereof had been made in the Times of King Richard the Second and Henry the Fourth against such as dissenting in Opinion from the Church of Rome were then called Lollards Of which Sort also was another made in the twenty fifth of the King Deceased together with that terrible Statute of the Six Articles commonly called The whip with six strings made in the thirty first year of the said King Henry Others were of a milder Nature but such as were thought inconsistent with that Freedom of Conscience which most men coveted to enjoy that is to say The Act for Qualification of the said Six Articles 35. H. 8. cap 9. The Act inhibiting the Reading of the Old and New Testament in the English Tongue and the Printing Selling Giving or Delivering of any such other Books or Writings as are there in mentioned and condemned 34. H. 3. cap. 1. But these were also Abrogated as the others were together with all and every Act or Acts of Parliament concerning Doctrine and Matters of Religion and all and every Article Branch Sentence and Matter Pains and Forfeitures in the same contained By which Repeal all men may seem to have been put into a Liberty of Reading Scripture and being in a manner their own Expositours of entertaining what Opinions in Religion best pleased their Fancies and promulgating those Opinions which they entertained So that the English for a time enjoyed that Liberty which the Romanes are affirmed by Tacitus to have enjoyed without comptrol in the Times of Nerva that is to say A liberty of Opining whatsoever they pleased and speaking freely their Opinions wheresoever they listed Which whether it were such a great Felicity as that Authour makes it may be more then questioned Of this Sort alâ—o was the Act. entituled An Act against such as speak against the Sacrament of the Altar and for the receipt thereof in both kinds cap. 1. In the first part whereof it is Provided with great Care and Piety That Whatsoever person or persons from and after the first day of May next coming shall deprave despise or contemn the most Blessed Sacrament by any contemptuous words or by any words of depraving despising or reviling c. that then he or they shall suffer Imprisonment and make Fine and Ransome at the King's pleasure And to say Truth it was but time that some provision should be made to suppress that Irreverence and Profaness with which this Blessed Sacrament was at that time handled by too many of those who seemed most ignorantly Zealous of a Reformation For whereas the Sacrament was in those Times delivered unto each Communicant in a small round Wafer called commonly by the name of Sacramentum Altaris or The blessed Sacrament of the Altar and that such parts thereof as were reserved from time to time were hanged up over the Altar in a Pix or Box those zealous ones in hatred to the Church of Rome reproached it by the odious Names of Jack-in-a-box Round-Robin Sacrament of the Halter and other Names so unbecoming the Mouths of Christians that they were never taken up by the Turks and Infidels And though Bishop Ridley a right Learned and Religious Prelate frequently in his Sermons had rebuked the irreverent behaviour of such light and ill-disposed Persons yet neither he nor any other of the Bishops were able to Reform the Abuse the Quality and Temper of the Times considered which therefore was thought fit to be committed to the power of the Civil Magistrate the Bishop being called in to assist at the Sentence In the last branch of the Act it is First declared According to the Truth of Scripture and the Tenour of approved Antiquity That it is most agreeable both to the Institution of the said Sacrament and more conformable to the common Vse and Practice both of the Apostles and of the Primitive Church by the space of five hundred years after Christ's Ascension that the said Blessed Sacrament should rather be ministred unto all Christian people under both the Kinds of Bread and Wine then under the form of Bread onely And thereupon it was Enacted That The said most Blessed Sacrament should be hereafter commonly delivered and ministred unto the People within the Church of England and Ireland and other the King's Dominions under both the Kinds that is to say of Bread and Wine With these Provisoes notwithstanding If necessity did not otherwise require as in the Case of suddain Sickness and other such like Extremities in
Shifts on his part and much patience on theirs he is taken pro confesso on the twenty third and in the beginning of October deprived of his Bishoprick To whom succeded Doctour Nicholas Ridley Bishop of Rochester a Learned Stout and Resolute Prelate as by the Sequel will appear not actually translated till the twelâ—th of April in the year next following and added not long after to the Lords of the Council The necessary Execution of so many Rebels and this seasonable Severity against Bishop Bonner did much facilitate the King's Proceedings in the Reformation As certainly the Opposition to Aâ—thority when it is suppressed both makes the Subject and the Prince more absolute Howsoever to make sure Work of it there passed an act of Parliament in the following Session which also took beginning on the fourth of November for taking down such Images as were still remaining in the Churches as also for the bringing in of all Antiphonaries Missalls Breviaries Offices Horaries Primers and Processionals with other Books of False and Superstitious Worship The Tenour of which Act was signified to the Subject by the King's Proclamations and seconded by the Missives of Arch-Bishop Cranmer to the Suffragan Bishops requiring them to see it put in execution with all Care and Diligence Which so secured the Church on that side that there was no further Opposition against the Liturgie by the Romish Party during the rest of this King's Reign For what can any workman do when he wants his Tools or how could they Advance the Service of the Church of Rome when the Books by which they should officiate it were thus taken from them But then there started up another Faction as dangerous to the Church as opposite to the Publick Liturgie and as destructive of the Rules of the Reformation then by Law established as were those of Rome The Arch-Bishop and the rest of the Prelates which co-operated with him in the Work having so far proceeded in abolishing many Superstitions which before were used resolved in the next place to go forwards with a Reformation in a Point of Doctrine In Order whereunto Melancthon's coming was expected the year before but he came not then And therefore Letters were directed by the Archâ—Bishop of Canterbury to Martin Bucer and Peter Martyr two Great and Eminent Divines but more addicted to the Zuinglian then the Lutheran Doctrines in the point of the Sacrament Martyr accordingly came over in the end of November and having spent some timewith the Arch-Bishop in his House at Lambeth was dispatched to Oxford where he was made the King's Professour for Divinity and about two years after made Canon of Christ-Church In his first Lectures he is said by Sanders if he may be credited to have declared himself so much a Zuinglian in that point as to give great offence to Cranmer and the rest of the Bishops but afterwards upon notice of it to have been more moderate and to conform his Judgment to the Sense of those Learned Prelates Which whether it be true or not certain it is that his Readings were so much disliked by some of that University that a publick Disputation was shortly had betwixt him and some of those who disliked his Doings in which he publickly maintained these two Propositions 1. That the Substance of the Bread and Wine was not changed and 2. That the Body and Blood of Christ was not Carnally and Bodily in the Bread and Wine but united to the same Sacramentally And for the better Governing of the Disputation it was appointed by the King that Doctour Cox Chancellour of that University assisted by one Mr. Morrison a right Learned man should preside as Judges or Moderatours as we call them by whom it was declâ—red in the open Scholes that Martyr had the upper hand and had sufficiently answered all Arguments which were brought against him But Chadsey the chief of the Opponents and the rest of those who disputed with him acknowledged no such Satisfaction to be given unto them their party noising it abroad according to the Fate of such Dispuâ—ations that they had the Victory But Bucer not coming over at the same time also he was more earnestly invited by Pet. Alexander the Arch-Bishop's Secretary whose Letters bear Date March 24. which so prevailed with him at the last that in June we finde him here at Canterbury from whence he writes to Peter Martyr who was then at Oxford And being here he receives Letters from Calvin by which he was advised to take heed of his old fault for a fault he thought it which was to run a moderate course in his Reformations The first thing that he did at his coming hither as he saith himself was to make himself acquainted with the English Liturgie translated for him into Latine by Alexander Alesius a Learned Scot and generally well approved of by him as to the main Frame and Body of it though not well satisfied perhaps in some of the particular Branches Of this he gives account to Calvin and desires some Letters from him to the Lord Protectour with whom Câ—lvin had already began to tamper that he might finde the greater favour when he came before him which was not till the Tumults of the time were composed and quieted Having received a courteous entertainment from the Lord Protectour and being right heartily welcomed by Arch-Bishop Cranmer he is sent to take the Chair at Cambridg Where his first Readings gave no such distast to the Learned Academicks as to put him to the necessity of challenging the Dissentients to a Disputation though in the Ordinary Form a Disputation was there held at his firstâ—coming thither concerning the Sufficiency of Holy Scripture the Fallibility of the Church and the true Nature of Justification But long he had not held the place when he left this life deceasing on the nineteenth of January 1550. according to the computation of the Church of England to the great loss and grief of that University By the chiefest Heads whereof and most of the Members of that Body he was attended to his Grave with all due Solemnity of which more hereafter But so it was that the Account which he had given to Calvin of the English Liturgie and his desiring of a Letter from him to the Lord Protectour proved the occasions of much trouble to the Church and the Orders of it For Calvin not forgetting the Repulse he found at the hands of Cranmer when he first offered his Assistance had screwed himself into the Favour of the Lord Protectour And thinking nothing to be well done which either was not done by him or by his Direction as appears by his Letters to all Princes which did but cast an eye towards a Reformation must needs be meddling in such Matters as belonged not to him He therefore writes a very long Letter to the Lord Protectour in which approving well enough of set Forms of Prayer he descends more particularly to the English Liturgy in canvasing whereof he
Edward Wotton Doctour Wotton and Sir Richard Southwell Of which some shewed themselves against him upon former Grudges as the Earl of South-hampton some out of hope to share those Offices amongst them which he had ingrossed unto himself many because they loved to follow the strongest side few in regard of any Benefit which was like to Redound by it to the Common-Wealth the greatest part complaining that they had not their equal Dividend when the Lands of Chanteries Free-Chapels c. were given up for a Prey to the greater Courtiers but all of them disguising their private Ends under pretense of doing service to the Publick The Combination being thus made and the Lords of the Defection convented together at Ely-House in Holborn where the Earl then dwelt they sent for the Lord Mayour and Aldermen to come before them To whom it is declared by the Lord Chancellour Rich a man of Sommerset's own preferring in a long Oration in what dangers the Kingdom was involved by the mis-Government and Practices of the Lord Protectour against whom he objected also many Misdemeanours some frivolous some false and many of them of such a Nature as either were to be condemned in themselves or forgiven in him For in that Speech he charged him amongst other things with the loss of the King's Peeces in France and Scotland the sowing of Dissension betwixt the Nobility and the Commons Embezelling the Treasures of the King and inverting the Publick stock of the Kingdom to his private use It was Objected also That he was wholly acted by the Will of his Wife and therefore no fit man to command a Kingdom That he had interrupted the ordinary Course of Justice by keeping a Court of Requests in his own House in which he many times determined of mens Free-holds That he had demolished many Consecrated Places and Episcopal Houses to Erect a Palace for himself spending one hundred pounds per diem in superflous Buildings That by taking to himself the Title of Duke of Sommerset he declared plainly his aspiring to the Crown of this Realm and finally having so unnaturally laboured the Death of his Brother he was no longer to be trusted with the Life of the King And thereupon he desires or conjures them rather to joyn themselves unto the Lords who aimed at nothing in their Counsels but the Safety of the King the Honour of the Kingdom and the Preservation of the People in Peace and Happiness But these Designs could not so closely be contrived as not to come unto the Knowledg of the Lord Protectour who then remained at Hampton-Court with the rest of the Lords who seemed to continue firm unto him And on the same day on which this meeting was at London being the sixth day of October he causeth Proclamation to be made at the Court-Gates and afterwards in other places near adjoyning requiring all sorts of persons to come in for the defence of the King's Person whom he conveyed the same night unto Windsore-Castle with a strength of five hundred men or thereabouts too many for a Guard and too few for an Army From thence he writes his Letters to the Earl of Warwick to the rest of the Lords as also to the Lord Mayour and City of London of whom he demanded a supply of a thousand men for the present service of the King But that Proud City seldom true to the Royal Interess and secretly obsequious to every popular Pretender seemed more inclinable to gratifie the Lords in the like Demands then to comply with his Desires The News hereof being brought unto him and finding that Master Secretary Peter whom he had sent with a secret Message to the Lords in London returned not back unto the Court be presently flung up the Cards either for want of Courage to play out the Game or rather choosing willingly to lose the Set then venture the whole Stock of the Kingdom on it So that upon the first coming of some of the opposite Lords to Windsore he puts himself into their hands by whom on the fourteenth day of the same Moneth he is brought to London and committed Prisoner to the Tower pitied the less even by those that loved him because he had so tamely betrayed himself The Duke of Sommerset no longer to be called Protectour being thus laid up a Parliament beginneth as the other two had done before on the fourth of November In which there passed two Acts of especial consequence besides the Act for removing all Images out of the Church and calling in all Books of false and superstitious Worship before-remembred to the concernments of Religion The first declared to this Effect That Such form and manner of making and Consecrating Arch-Bishops and Bishopt Priests Deacons and other Ministers of the Church as by six Prelates and six other Learned Men of this Realm learned in God's Law by the King to be appointed and assigned or by the most number of thâ—m shall be devised for that purpose and set forth under the Great Seal before the First of April next coming shall be lawfully exercised and used and no other The number of the Bishops and the Learned Men which are appointed by this Act assure me that the King made choice of the very same whom he had formerly imployed in composing the Liturgie the Bishop of Chichester being left out by reason of his Refractoriness in not subscribing to the same And they accordingly applyed themselves unto the Work following therein the Rules of the Primitive Church as they are rather recapitulated then ordained in the fourth Councel of Carthage Anno 401. Which though but National in it self was generally both approved and received as to the Form of Consecrating Bishops and inferiour Ministers in all the Churches of the West Which Book being finished was made use of without further Authority till the year 1552. At what time being added to the second Liturgie it was approved of and confirmed as a part thereof by Act of Parliament An. 5. Edw. 6. cap. 1. And of this Book it is we finde mention in the 36th Article of Queen Elizabeth's Time In which it is Declared That Whosoever wâ—re Consecrated and Ordered according to the Rites thereof should be reputed and adjudged to be lawfully Consecrated and rightly Ordered Which Declaration of the Church was afterwards made good by Act of Parliament in the eighth year of that Queen in which the said Ordinal of the third of King EDVVARD the Sixth is confirmed and ratified The other of the said two Acts was For enabling the King to nominate Eight Bishops as many Temporal Lords and sixteen Members of the Lower House of Parliament for reviewing all such Canons and Constitutions as remained in force by Virtue of the Statute made in the 25th year of the late King HENRY and fitting them for the Vse of the Church in all Times succeeding According to which Act the King directed a Commission to Arch-Bishop Cranmer and the rest of the Persons whom he
and his Preaching before the King till March next following and then we may hear further of him And thus we have the first beginning of that Opposition which hath continued ever since against the Liturgie it self the Cap and Surplice and other Rites and Vsages of the Anglican Church Which Differences being thus begun were both fomented and increased by the Pragmaticalness of John à Lasco Opposite both in Government and Forms of Worship if not perhaps in Doctrine also to the Church of England For John à Lasco not content to enjoy those Privileges which were intended for the use of those Strangers onely so far abused His Majestie 's goodness as to appear in favour of the Zuinglian or Calvinian Faction which then began more openly to shew it self against the Orders of the Church For first he publisheth a Book entituled Forma ratio totius Ecclesiastici Ministerii Wherein he maintains the Use of Sitting at the Holy Communion contrary to the Laudable Custome of the Church of England but much to the Encouragement of all those who impugned her Orders A Controversie unhappily moved by Bishop Hooper concerning the Episcopal Habit was presently propagated amongst the rest of the Clergy touching Caps and Surplices And in this 〈◊〉 John à Laâ—co must needs be one not onely countenancing those who refused to wear them but writing unto Martin Bucer to declare against them For which severely reprehended by that Moderate and Learned Man and all his Cavils and Objections very solidly Answered which being sent to him in the way of Letter was afterwards Printed and dispersed for keeping down that Opposite Humour which began then to overswell the Banks and threatned to bear all before it And by this Passage we may rectifie a Mistake or a Calumny rather in the Altare Damascenum The Authour whereof makes Martin Bucer Peremptory in refusing to wear the Square Cap when he lived in Cambridg and to give this simple Reason for it That he could not wear a Square Cap since his Head was Round But I note this onely by the way to shew the Honesty of those men which erected that Altar and return again to John à Lasco who being born in Poland where Sitting at the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper had been used by the Arians who looking no otherwise on Christ then their Elder Brother might think it was no Robbery at all to be equal with Him and sit down with Him at His Table what he learned there he desired might be Practiced here the better to conform this Church to the Polish Conventicles As for the other Controversie about Caps and Surplices though it found no Encouragement from Martin Bucer yet it received no small countenance from Peter Martyr For in a Letter of his of the first of July inscribed Vnto a nameless Friend who had desired his Judgement in it he first declares according to the very Truth That being indifferent in themselves they could make no man of themselves to be either Godly or Vngodly by the use or forbearance of them but then he addeth That He thinks it most Expedient to the Good of the Church that they and all others of that kind should be taken away when the next convenient Opportunity should present it self And then he gives this Reason for it That Where such Ceremonies were so stifly contended for which were not warranted and supported by the Word of God there commonly men were less sollicitous of the Substance of Religion then they were of the Circumstances of it But he might well have spared his Judgement which had so visibly appeared in his dayly Practice For he hath told us of himself in one of his Epistles bearing Date at Zurick the fourth of November 1559. being more then five years after he had left this Kingdom That He had never used the Surplice when he lived in Oxford though he were then a Canon of Christ-Church and frequently present in the Quire So that between the Authority of Peter Martyr on the one side and the Pragmaticalness of John à Lasco on the other many were drawn from their Obedience to the Rules of the Church for the time then present and a ground laid for more Confusions and Disturbances in the time to come The Regular Clergy in those days appeared not commonly out of their own Houses but in their Priests Coats with the Square Cap upon their Heads and if they were of Note and Eminency in their Gowns and Tippets This Habit also is decryed for Superstitious affirmed to be a Popish Attire and altogether as unfit for Ministers of the Holy Gospel as the Chimere and Rochet were for those who claimed to be the Successours of the Lord's Apostles So Tyms replyed unto Bishop Gardiner when being asked Whether a Coat with Stockings of divers Colours the upper part White and the nether-stock Russet in which Habit he appeared before him were a fit Apparel for a Deacon which Office he had exercised in this Church he sawcily made Answer That his Vesture did not so much vary from a Deacon's as his Lordships did from that of an Apostle The less to be admired in Tyms in that I finde the like aversness from that Grave and Decent Habit in some other men who were in Parts and Place above him For while this Controversie was on Foot between the Bishops and Clergy about wearing Priests-Caps and other Attire belonging to their Holy Order Mr. John Rogers one of the Prebends of Saint Paul's and Divinity-Reader of that Church then newly returned from beyond the Seas could never be perswaded to wear any other then the Round Cap when he went abroad And being further pressed unto it he declared himself thus That he would never agree to the point of Conformity but on this Condition that if the Bishops did require the Cap and Tipper c. then it should also be decreed that all Popish Priests for a Distinction between them and others should be constrained to wear upon their Sleeves a Chalice with an Host upon it The like aversness is by some ascribed also to Mr. John Philpot Arch-Deacon of Winchester not long before returned from beyond the Seas as the other was and sâ—ffering for Religion in Queen Marie's Days as the other did Who being by his place a Member of the Convocation in the first of Queen Mary and required by the Prolâ—cutour to come apparelled like the rest in his Gown and Tippet or otherwise to forbear the House chose rather to accept of the last Condition then to submit unto the former But there was some thing else in the first Condition which made him unwilling to accept it and that was That He must not speak but when he was commanded by the Prolocutour Which being so directly against the Customes of the House and the Privileges of each Member of it he had good reason rather to forbear his Presence then to submit himself and consequently all the rest of the Members to so
intercepted or molested by the Ships of England were Shipwracked as before was said on the Coast of Ireland Nothing else Memorable in this King's Reign which concerned that Kingdom and therefore I have lai'd it altogether in this Place and on this Occasion But we return again to England where we have seen a Reformation made in Point of Doctrine and settled in the Forms of Worship the Superstitions and corruptions of the Church of Rome entirely abrogated and all things rectified according to the Word of God and the Primitive Practice nothing defective in the Managing of so great a Work which could have been required by equal and impartial Men but that it was not done as they conceived it ought to have been done in a General Council But first we finde not any such Necessity of a General Council but that many Heresies had been suppressed and many Corruptions removed out of the Church without any such Trouble Saint Augustine in his fourth Book against the two Epistles of the Pelagians cap. 12. speaks very plainly to this Purpose and yet the Learned Cardinal though a great Stickler in behalf of General Councils speaks more plain then he By whom it is affirrmed that for seven Heresies condemned in seven General Councils though by his leave the seventh did not so much suppress as advance an Heresie an huudred had been quashed in National and Provincial Councils The Practice of the Church in the several Councils of Aquilia Carthage Gangra Milevis c. make this plain enough all of them being Provincial or at least but National and doing their own Work without Help from others The Church had been in an ill Condition had it been otherwise especially under the Power of the Heathen Emperours when such a Confluence of the Prelats from all Parts of the World would have been construed a Conspiracy against the State and drawn Destruction on the Church and the Persons both Or granting that they might assemble without any such Danger yet being great Bodies moving slowly and not without long time and many Difficulties and Disputes to be rightly Constituted the Church would suffer more under such Delay by the spreading of Heresie then receive Benefit by this Care to suppress the same So that there neither is or can be any such Necessity either in Order to the Reformation of a National Church or the Suppressing of particular Heresies as by the Objectours is supposed Howsoever taking it for granted that a General Council is the best and safest Physick that the Church can take on all Occasions of Epidemical Distempers yet must it be granted at such times and in such Cases onely when it may conveniently be had For where it is not to be had or not had conveniently it will either prove to be no Physick or not worth the taking But so it was at the time of the Reformation that a General Council could not conveniently be assembled and more then so it was impossible that any such Council should assemble I mean a General Council rightly called and constituted according to the Rules lai'd down by our Controversers For first they say It must be called by such as have Power to do it Secondly That it must be intimated to all Christian Churches that so no Church nor People may plead Ignorance of it Thirdly That the Pope and the four chief Patriarchs must be present at it either in person or by Proxie And lastly That no Bishop be excluded if he be known to be a Bishop and not Eâ—xcommunicated According to which Rules it was impossible I say that any General Council should be assembled at the time of the Reformation oâ— the Church of England It was not then as when the chief four Patriarchs together with their Metropolitan and Suffragan Bishops were under the Protection of the Christian Emperours and might without Danger to themselves or to their Churches obey the Intimation and attend the Service the Patriarchs with their Metropolitans and Suffragans both then and now languishing under the Power and Tyranny of the Turk to whom so general a Confluence of Christian Bishops must needs give matter of Suspicion of just Fears and Jealousies and therefore not to be permitted as far as he can possibly hinder it on good Reason of State And then besides it would be known by whom such a General Council was to be assembled if by the Pope as generally the Papists say He and his Court were looked on as the greatest Grievance of the Christian Church and it was not probable that he should call a Council against himself unless he might have leave to pack it to govern it by His own Legats fill it with Titular Bishops of His own creating or send the Holy Ghost to them in Cloak-Bag as he did to Trent If joyntly by all Christian Princes which is the Common Tenent of the Protestant Scholes what Hopes could any man conceive as the Times then were that they should lay aside their particular Interesses to enter all together upon one design Or if they had agreed about it what Power had they to call the Prelats of the East to attend the Business and to protect them for so doing at their going home So that I look upon the hopes of a General Council I mean a General Council rightly called and constituted as an empty Dream The most that was to be expected was but a meeting of some Bishops of the West of Europe and those but of one Party onely as such were excommunicated and that might be as many as the Pope should please being to be excluded by the Cardinal's Rule Which how it may be called an Oecumenical or General Council unless it be a Topical-Oecâ—menical a Particular-General as great an Absurdity in Grammar as a Romaeu-Catholick I can hardly see Which being so and so no question but it was either the Church must have continâ—ed without Reformation or else it must be lawfull for National particular Churches to Reform themselves And in that case the Church may be Reformed per partes part after part Province after Province as is said by Gerson Further then which I shall not enter into this Dispute this being enough to Justifie the Church of England from doing any thing Unadvisedly Unwarrantably or without Example That which remains in Reference to the Progress of the Reformation concerns as well the Nature as the Number of such Feasts and Fastâ— as were thought fit to be retained Determined and Concluded on by an Act of Parliament to which the Bishops gave their Vote but whether Predetermined in the Convocation must be left as doubtfull In the Preamble to which Act it is Declared That At all times men are not so mindfull of performing those Publick Christian Duties which the true Religion doth require as they ought to be and therefore it hath been wholesomly provided that for calling them to their Duties and for helping their Infirmities that some certain Times and Days should be appointed wherein
French when they were in England the onely two great Charges which we finde Him at in the whole course of His Reign must be inconsiderable It was to no purpose for Him to look too much backward or to trouble Himself with enquiring after the ways and means by which He came to be involved in so great a Debt It must be now his own care and the endeavours of those who plunged Him in it to finde the speediest way for His getting out And first they fall upon a course to lâ—ssen the Expenses of His Court aâ—d Family by suppressing the Tables formerly appointed for young Lords the Masters of the Requests Serjeant at Arms c. which thought it saved some money yet it brought in none In the next place it was resolved to call such Officers to a present and publick Reckoning who either had embezelled any of the Crown Lands or inverted any of the King's Money to their private use On which course they were the more intent because they did both serve the King and content the People but might be used by them as a Scourge for the whipping of those against whom they had any cause of quarrel Amongst which I finde the new Lord Paget to have been fined six thousand pound as before was said for divers Offences of that nature which were charged upon him Bâ—aumont then Master of the Rolls had purchased Lands with the King's Money made longer Leases of some other Crown Lands then he was authorized to do by his Commission and was otherwise guâ—lty of much corrupt and fraudulent dealing For expiating of which Crimes he surrendred all his Lands and Goods to the King and seems to have been well befriended that he sped no worse The like Offences proved against one Whaley one of the King's Receivers for the County of York for which he was punished with the loss of his Offices and adjudged to â—tand to any such Fine as by his Majesty and the Lords of hâ—s Council shouâ—d be set upon him Which manner of proceeding though it be for the most part pleasing to the Common People and profitable to the Common-Wealth yet were it more unto the honour of a Pâ—ince to make choice of such Officers whom He thinks not likely to offend then to sacrifice them to the People and His own Displeasures having thus offended But the main Engine at this time for advancing Money was the speeding of a Commission into all parts of the Realm under pretence of selling such of the Lands Goods of Chanterys c as remained unsold but in plain truth to seize upon all Hangings Altar-Cloths Fronts Parafronts Copes of all sorts with all manner of Plate which was to be found in any Cathedral or Parochial Church To which Rapacity the demolishing of the foâ—mer Altars and placing the Communion Table in the middle of the Quires or Chancels of every Church as was then most used gave a very good hâ—â—t by rendring all such Furnitures rich Plate and other costly Utensils in a manner useless And that the business might be carryed with as much advantage to the King as might be He gave out certain Instâ—uctâ—ons under his Hand by which the Commissioners were to regulate themselves in their Proceedings to the advancement of the service Amongst which pretermitting those which seem to be Preparatoriâ—s onely unto all the rest I shall put down as many as I think material And that being done it shall be left to the Reader 's Judgment whether the King being now in the sixteenth year of his Age were either better studied in his own Concernments or seemed to be worse principled in Maâ—ters which concerned the Church Now the most Material of the said Instructions were these that follow 1. The said Commissioners shall upon their view and survey taken cause due Inventories to be made by Bills or Bookâ— indented of all manner of Goods Plates Jewels Bells and Ornaments as yet remaining or any wise forthcoming and belonging to any Churches Chapels Fraternities or Gilds and one part of the said Inventories to send and return to 〈◊〉 Privy Council and the other to deliver to them in whose hands the said Goods Plate Jewels Bells and Ornaments shall remain to be kept and preserved And thâ—y shall also give good Charge and Order that the same Goods and every part thereof be at all times forthcoming to be answered leaving nevertheless in every Parish-Church or Chapel of common resort one two or more Chalices or Cups according to the multitude of People in every such Church or Chapel and also such other Ornameâ—ts as by their discretion shall seem requisite for the Divine Service in every such place for the time 2. That because Information hath been made that in many Places great quantities of the said Plate Bells Jewels Ornaments hath been embezelled by certain private men contrary to his Majestie 's express Commandment in that behalf the said Commissioners shall substantially and justly enquire and attain the knowledge thereof by whose default the same is or hath been or in whose hands any part of the same is come And in that point the said Commissioners shall have good regard that they attain to certain Names and dwelling Places of every person or persons that hath sold alienated embezelled taken or carryed away or of such also as have counselled advised and commanded any part of the said Goods Plate Jewels Bells Vestments and Ornaments to be taken or carryed away or otherwise embezelled And these things they shall as certainly and duly as they can cause to be searched and understood 3. That upâ—n full search and enquiry thereof the said Commissioners four or three of them shall cause to be called before them all such persons by whom any of the said Goods Plate Jewels Bells Ornaments or any other the Premises have been alienated embezelled and taken away or by whose means and procurement the same or any part thereof hath been attempted or to whose hands or use any of the same or any profit for the same hath grown And by such means as to their discretions shall seem best cause them to bring into these the said Commissioners hands to Our use the said Plate Jewels Bells and other the Premises so alienated for the true and full value thereof certifying unto Our Privy Council the Names of all such as refuse to stand to or obey their Order touching their delivery or restitution of the same or the just value thereof To the intent that as cause and reason shall require every man may answer to his doings in this behalf 4. To these another Clause was added touching the moderation which they were to use in their Proceedings to the end that the effect of their Commission might go forward with as much quiet and as little occasion of trouble or disquiet to the Multitude as might be using therein such wise perswasions as in respect of the place and disposition of the People may seem to their Wisdoms most
Shrewsbury and Pembroke served as principal Mourners the Funeral Sermoâ— Preached by Doctour Day then shortly to be re-established in the See of Chichester And if the Dead â—e capable of any Felicity in this present Woald He might be said to have had a special part thereof in this particular viz. That as He had caused all Divine Offices to be Celebrated in the English Tongue according to the Reformation which was made in the time of His Life so the whole Service of the Day together with the Form of Burial and the Communion following on it were Officiated in the English Tongue according to the same Model on the Day of his Obsequies But whilest these things were Acting on the Câ—urch of Westminster Queen Mary held a more beneficial Obsequie for Him as She then imagined in the Tower of London where She caused a Solemn Dirige in the Latine Tongue to be Chanted in the Afternoon and the next Day a Mass of Requiem to be sung for the good of His Sonl At which both She and many of Her Ladies made their accustomed Offerings according to the Form and Manner of the Church of Kome Such was the Life and such the Death of this Excellent Prince whose Character I shall not borrow from any of our own English Writers who may be thought to have been byassed by their own Affections in speaking more or less of Him then He had deserved But I shall speak Him in the words of that Great Philosopher Hierome Cardanus an Italian born and who professing the Religion of the Church of Rome cannot be rationally accused of Partiality in his Character of Him There was in Him saith he a towardly Disposition and pregnancie apt to all Humane Literature as who being yet a Childe had the knowledg of divers Tongues First of the English His own Natural Tongue of the Latine also and of the French Neither was He ignorant as I hear of the Greek Italian and Spanish Tongues and of other Languages peradventure more In His own in the French and in the Latine Tongue singularly perfect and with the like facility apt to receive all other Neither was He ignorant in Logick in the Principles of Natural Philosophie or in Musick There was in Him lacking neither Humanity a Princely Gravity and Majesty for any kind of towardliness beseeming a Noble King Briefly it might seem A Miracle of Nature to behold the Excellent Wit and Forwardness that appeared in Him being yet but a Childe And this saith he I speak not Rhetorically to amplifie things or to make them more then Truth is nay the Truth is more then I do utter So He in reference to His Perâ—onal Abâ—lities and Qualifications And for the rest that is to say His Piety to Almighty God His Zeal to the Reformation of Religion His Care for the well-ordering of the Common-Wealth and other Qualities belonging to a Christian King so far as they could be found in such tender years I leave them to be gathered from the Passages of His Life as before lai'd down Remembring well that I am to play the Part of an Historian and not of a Panegyrist or Rhetorician As for the manner of His Death the same Philosopher leaves it under a suspicion of being like to fall upon Him by some dangerous Practise For whether He divined it by his ART in Astrologie having Calculated the Scheme of His Nativity or apprehended it by the Course and Carriage of Business he made a dangerous Prediction when he fore-saw that the KING should shortly dye a violent Death and as he reporteth fled out of the Kingdom for fear of further danger which might follow on it Of any Publick Works of Piety in the Reign of this KING more then the Founding and Endowing of the Hospitals before-remembred I finde no mention in our Authours which cannot be affirmed of the Reign of any of His Predecessours since their first receiving of the Gospel But their Times were for building up and His unfortunate Reign was for pulling down Howsoever I finde His Name remembred amongst the Benefactours to the University of Oxford and by that Name required to be commemorated in all the Prayers before such Sermons as were Preached ordinarily by any of that Body in Saint Marie's Church or at Saint Paul's Cross or finally in the Spittle without Bishops-Gate on some solemn Festivals But possibly it is that his Beneficence did extend no further then either to the Confirmation of such Endowments as had been made unto that University by King Henry the Eight or to the excepting of all Colleges in that and the other University out of the Statute or Act of Parliament by which all Chantries Colleges and Free-Chapels were conferred upon Him The want of which Redemption in the Grant of the said Chantries Colleges Free-Chapels to King Henry the Eight strook such a Terrour unto the Students of both Universities that they could never think themselves secure till the Expiring of that Statute by the Death of the King notwithstanding a very Pious and Judicious Letter which had been written to the King in that behalf by Doctour Richard Cox then Dean of Christ-Church and Tâ—â—our to His Son Prince Edward But not to leave this Reign without the Testimony of some Work of Piety I cannot but remember the Foundation of the Hospital of Christ in Abindon as a Work not onely of this Time but the King 's own Act. A Guild or Brother-hood had been there founded in the Parish-Church of Saint Hellens during the Reign of King Henry the Sixth by the procurement of one Sir John Gollafrie a near Neighbouring Gentleman for Building and Repairing certain Bridges and High-waies about the Town as also for the Sustenance and Relief of thirteen poor People with two or more Priests for performing all Divine Offices unto those of the Brother-hood Which being brought within the Compass of the Act of Parliament by which all Chantries Colleges and Free-Chappels were conferred on the Crown the Lands hereof were seized on to the use of the King the Repairing of the Waies and Bridges turned upon the Town and the Poor left Destitute in a manner of all Relief In which Condition it remained till the last Year of the King when it was moved by Sir John Mason one of the Masters of Requests a Town-born Childe and one of the poorest mens Children in it to erect an Hospital in the same and to Endow it with such of the Lands belonging to the former Brother-hood as remained in the Crown and to charge it with the Services and Pious Uses which were before incumbent on the old Fraternity The Suitour was too powerfull to be denyed and the Work too Charitable in it self to be long demurr'd on so that he was easily made Master also of this Request Having obtained the King's Consent he caused a handsome Pile of Building to be Erected near the Church distributed into several Lodgings for the Use of the Poor and one convenient Common-Hall
conclusion to his just reward Others there were and doubt less many others also in the House of Commons who had as great zeal as he to the Papal interess but either had more modesty in the conduct of it or preferred their duty and allegiance to their natural Prince before their zeal to the concernments of the Church of Rome In this Parliament there passed an act for recognizing the Queens just Title to the Crown but without any Act for the validity of her mothers mariage on which her Title most depended For which neglect most men condemned the new Lord Keeper on whose judgement she relied especially in point of Law in whom it could not but be looked on as a great incogitancy to be less careful of her own and her mothes honour than the Ministers of the late Queen Mary had been of hers But Bacon was not to be told of an old Law-Maxim That the Crown takes away all defects and stops in blood and that from the time that the Queen did assume the Crown the fountain was cleared and all attainders and corruption of blood discharged Which Maxim how unsafe soever it may seem to others yet since it goes for a known rule amongst our Lawyers could not be questioned at that present And possible it is that he conceived it better for the mariage of the Queens mother to pass unquestioned as a matter justly subject unto no dispute than to build the validity of it on no better ground than an Act of Parliament which might be as easily reversed as it was agreed to There paâ—t an Act also for restoring to the Crown the tenths and first fruits first serled thereon in the time of King Henry the 8th and afterwards given back by Queen Mary as before was said For the better drawing on of which concession it was pretended that the Patrimony of the Crown had been much dilapidated and that it could not be supported with such honour as it ought to be if restitution were not made of such rents and profits as were of late dismembred from it Upon which ground they also passed an act for the dissolution of all such Monasteries Convents and Religious Orders as hâ—d been founded and established by the Queen deceased By vertue of which Act the Queen was repossessed again of all those lands which had been granted by her sister to the Monks of Westminster and Sheene the Knights Hospitalers the Nuns of Sâ—on together with the Mansion Houses re-edified for the Observants at Greenwich and the Black Friers in Smithfield Which last being planted in a house neer the dissolved Priory of Great St Bartholomews had again fitted and prepared the Church belonging thereunto for religious offices but had scarce fitted and prepared it when dissolved again and the Church afterwards made a Parochial Church for the use of the Close and such as lived within the verge and precincts thereof How she disposed of Sion House hath been shewn already and what she did with the rich Abby of Westminster we shall see hereafter In the passing of these Acts there was little trouble in the next there was For when the Act of the Supremacy came to be debated it seemed to be a thing abhorrent even in Nature and Polity that a woman should be declared to be the supream Head on Earth of the Church of England But those of the reformed party meant nothing less than to contend about words and phrases so they might gain the point they aimed at which was the stripping of the Pope of all authority within these Dominions and fixing the supream power over all persons and estates of what ranck soever in the Crown Imperial not by the name of Supream Head which they perceived might be made lyable to some just exceptions but which comes all to one of the Supream Governesse Which when it gave occasion of discourse and descant amongst many of the captious Papists Queen Mary helped her sister unto one good Argument for her justification and the Queen helped her self to another which took off the cavil In the third Session of Parliament in Queen Mary's time there pass'd an Act declaring That the Regal power was in the Queens Majesty as fully as it had been in any of her predecessors In the body whereof it is expressed and declared That the Law of the Realm is and ever hath been and ought to be understood that the Kingly or Regal Office of the Realm and all Dignities Prerogatives Royal Power Preheminences Privileges Authorities and Jurisdictions thereunto annexed united or belonging being invested either in Male or Female are be and ought to be as fully wholly absolutely and intirely deemed adjudged accepted invested and taken in the one or in the other So that whatsoever Statute or Law doth limit or appoint that the King of this Realm may or shall have execute and do any thing as King c. the same the Queen being Supream Governesse possessor and inheritor to â—he Imperial Crown of this Realm may by the same power have and execute to all intents constructions and purposes without doubt ambiguity scruple or question any custome use or any other thing to the con trary notwithstanding By the very tenor of which Act Queen Mary grants unto her sister as much authority in all Church concernments as had been exercised and enjoyed by her Father and Brother according to any Act or Acts of Parliament in their several times Which Acts of Parliament as our learned Lawyers have declared upon these occasions were not to be consider'd as Introductory of a new power which was not in the Crown before but only Declaratory of an old which naturally belonged to all Christian Princes and amongst others to the Kings and Queens of the Realm of England And to this purpose it is pleaded by the Queen in her own behalf Some busie and sedâ—tious persons had dispersed a rumour that by the Act for recognizing of the Queens Supremacy there was something further ascribed unto the Queen her heirs and successors a power of administring Divine Service in the Church which neither by any equity or true sence of the words could from thence be gathered And thereupon she makes this Declaration unto all her subjects That nothing was or could be meant or intended by the said Act than was acknowledged to be due to the most Noble King of famous memory King Henry the 8th her Majesties Father or King Edward the 6th her Majesties Brother And further she declareth That she neither doth not will challenge any other authority by the same than was challenged and lately used by the said two Kings and was of ancient time due unto the Imperial Crown of this Realm that is under God to have the Soverainty and Rule over all persons born within her Realms or Dominions of what estate either Ecclesiastical or Temporal soever they be so as no other forein power shall or ought to have any superiority over them Which explication published in the Queens
we find the Queens Professor in Oxford to pass amongst the Non-Conformists though somewhat more moderate than the rest and Cartwright the Lady Margarets in Cambridge to prove an unextinguished firebrand to the Church of England Whittington the chief Ringleader of the Franckfort Schismaticks preferred unto the Deanry of Durham from thence encouraging Knox and Goodman in setting up Presbytery and Sedition in the Kirk of Scotland Sampson advanced unto the Deanry of Christ-Church and within few years after turned out again for an incorrigible Non-Conformist Hardiman one of the first twelve Prebends of the Church of Westminster deprived soon after for throwing down the Altar and defacing the vestments of the Church Which things I only touch at now leaving the further prosecution of them to another place Of all these traverses the Pope received advertisement from the first to the last But being of a rugged humouâ— he fell most infinitely short of that dexterity which the case required for finding out a fit expedient to prevent the rupture When his first sullen fits had left him he began to treat more seriously with the English Agent not that the Queen should sue unto him for the Crown which she was possessed of but that no alteration of Religion might be driven at by her To whiâ—h Karn answered according to such instructions as he had received That he could give him no assurance in that point unless the Pope would first declare that the mariage of King Henry with Queen Anne Bollen had been good and lawful Which cross request so stumbled both the Pope and the Conclave that they made choise rather of doing nothing than to do that of which they could not promise to themselves any fortunate issue Roused at the last by the continual alarums which came from England he entertains some secret practices with the French and on the sudden signifies his commands to Karn that he should not depart out of Râ—me without his leave and that in the mean time he should take upon him the government of the English Hospital in the City In which command each of them is affirmed to have had his own proper ends For Karn affected that restraint which he was thought to have procured under hand because he had no mind to return into England where he wâ—s like to find a different Religion from that which he embraced in his own particular And the Pope had his own ends also in hindering as he thought â—he discovering of that secret intelligence which he maintained with the French King to the Queens destruction if his designs had took effect But his design was carried with so little cunning that presently it discovered it self without the help of a revelation from the English Agent For whether it were by his instigation or by the solicitation of the French King or the ambition of the Daulphin who had then maried the Queen of Scots as before was said the Queen of Scots assumes unto her self the stile and title of Queen of England quartereth the Arms thereof upon all her Plate and in all Armories and Escoutcheons as she had occasion And this she did as Cosen and next heir to the Queen deceased which could not be without imputing bastardy to the Queen then living A folly which occasioned such displeasure in the heart of Elizabeth that it could neither be forgotten nor so much as forgiven till that unfortunate Lady was driven out of her Kingdom hunted into a close imprisonment and finally brought out to the fatal block This as it somewhat startled the new Queen of England so it engaged her the more resolutely in that Reformation which was so happily begun And to that end she sets out by Advice of her Council a certain Body of Injunctions the same in purpose and effect with those which had been published in the first of King Edward but more accommodated to the temper of the present time Nothing more singular in the same than the severe course taken about Ministers Mariages the use of singing and the Reverences in Divine Worship to be kept in Church the posture of the Communion Table and the form of bidding Prayers in the Congregation This last almost the same verbaâ—im with that which is prescribed Can. 55. Anno 1603. and therefore not so necessary to be here repeated The first worne long since out â—f use and not much observed neither when it first came out as if it had been published in the way of caution to make the Clergy men more wary in the choice of their wives than with a purpose of persuing it to an execution But as for that concerning the use of singing and the accustomed Reverences to be kept in Churches they are these that follow Touching the last it is enjoyed That whensoever the name of Jesus should be in any Lesson Sermon or otherwise in the Church pronounced that due reverence be made of all persons young and old with lowliness of courtesie and uncovering of the heads of the men kind as thereunto did necessarily belong and heretofore hath been accustomed For the encouragement of the Art and the continuance of the use of Singing in the Church of Engâ—and it was thus enjoyned that is to say That because in divers Collegiat as also in some Parish Câ—urches heretofore there hath been Livings appointed for the maintenance of men and children for singing in the Church by means whereof the laudable exercise of Musick hath been had in estimation and preserved in knowledge The Queens Majesty neither meaning in any wiâ—e the decay of any thing that might conveniently tend to the use and continuance of the said Science neither to have the same so abused in any part of the Church that thereby the Common-Prayer should be the worse understood by the Hearers willeth and commandeth that first no alterations be made of such assignments of Living as heretofore hath been appointed to the use of Singing or Musick in the Church but that the same so remain And that there be a modest and distinct Song so used in all parts of the Common-Prayers in the Church that the same may be as plainly understood as if it were read without singing And yet nevertheless for the comforting of such as delight in Musick it may be permitted that in the beginning or in the end of common-Prayer either at morning or evening there may be sung an Hymn or such like Song to the praise of Almighty God in the best Melody and Musick that may be conveniently devised having respect that the sentence of the Hymn may be understood and perceived According to which order as Plain-song was retained in most parish-Parish-Churches for the daily Psalms so in her own Chapels and in the Quire of all Cathedrals and some Colleges the Hymns were sung after a more melodious manner with Organs commonly and sometimes with other musical Instruments as the solemnity required No mention here of singing David's Psalms in Meeter though afterwards they first thrust out the Hymns
in which provision had been made for the maintenance of it or where the people could be trained up at the least to plain-song All which particulars were either established by the Lawes or commanded by the Queens Injunctions or otherwise retained by vertue of some anâ—ient usages not by Law prohibited Nor is it much to be admired that such a general conformity to those antient usages was constantly observed in all Cathedral and the most part of the Parish Churâ—hes considering how well they were presidented by the Court it self in which the Liturgy was officiated every day both morning and evening not only in the publick Chapel but the private Closet celebrated in the Chapel with Organs and other musical instâ—uments and the most excellent voices both of men and children that could be got in all the Kingdom The Gentlemen and children in their Surplices and the Priests in Copes as oâ—t as they attended the Divine Service at the Holy Altar The Altar furnished with rich Plate two fair gilt Candlesticks with Tapers in them and a massie Crucifix of silver in the midst thereof Which last remained there for some years till it was broke in pieces by Pach the Fool no wiser man daring to undertake such a desperate service at the solicitation of Sir Francis Knolles the Queens neer Kinsman by the Caries and one who openly appeared in favour of the Schism at Franckfort The antient Ceremonies accustomably observed by the Knights of the Garter in their adoration toward the Altar abolished by King Edward the 6th and revived by Queen Mary were by this Queen retained as formerly in her Fathers time which made that Order so esteemed amongst forein Princes that the Emperors Maximilian and Rodolphus the French Kings Charls the 9th and Henry the 3d. together with Francis Duke of Mont Morency though of a contrary Religion to her not to say any any thing of divers Lutheran Kings and Pâ—inces did thankfully accept of their elections into that society The solemn Sermons upon each Wednesday Friday and Sunday in the time of Lent preached by the choicest of the Clergy she devoutly heard attired in black according to the commendable custome of her Predecessors in which if any thing escaped them contrary to the Doctrine and approved Rites and Ceremonies of the Church of England they were sure to hear of it for which she received both thanks and honour from her very enemies as appears by Dr. Harding's Epistle Dedicatory before his Answer to the Apology writ by Bishop Jewel Particularly when one of her Chaplains Mr. Alexander Nowel Dean of St. Pauls had spoke less reverently in a Sermon preached before her of the sign of the Cross she called aloud to him from her closet window commanding him to retire from that ungodly digression and to return unto his Text. And on the other side when one of her Divines had preached a Sermon in defence of the Real Presence on the day commonly called Good Friday Anno 1565. she openly gave him thanks for his pains and piety The Bishops and the Clergy had been but ill proficients in the school of conformity under so excellent a Mistriss if they had not kept the Church in the highest splendor to which they were invited by that great example And in this glorious posture still had lasted longer had not her Order been confounded and her Peace disturbed by some factious spirits who having had their wils at Franckfort or otherwise ruling the Preâ—byâ—ery when they were at Geneva thought to have carried all before them with the like facility when they were in England But leaving them and their designes to some other time we must next look upon the aid which the Queen sent to those of the reformed Religion in the Realm of Scotland but carried under the pretence of dislodging such French Forces as were Garrisoned there and might have proved bad neighbours to the Kingdom of England Such of the Scots as desired a Reformation of Religion taking advantage by the Queens absence the easiness of the Earl of Arran and want of power in the Queen Regent to suppress their practices had put themselves into a Body Headed by some of the Nobility they take unto themselves the name of the Congregation managing their own affairs apart from the rest of the Kingdom and in assurance of their own strength petition to the Queen Regent and the Lords of the Council that the Sacrament of the Lords Supper might be administred in both kinds that Divine Offices might be celebrated in the Vulgar tongue and that they might have the choice of their own Ministers according to the practice as it was pretended of the Primitive times The Answer hereunto was fair and gratious but rather for the gaining of time than with a purpose to grant any of the points demanded The principal Leaders of the party well followed by the common people put themselves into Perth and there begin to stand on higher terms than before they did The news whereof occasioneth Knox to leave his Sanctuary in Geneva and joyn himself unto the Lords of the Congregation At Perth he goes into the Pulpit and falls so bitterly on Images Idolatry and other superstitions of the Church of Rome that the people in a popular fury deface all the Images in that Church and presently demolish all Religious Houses within that City This hapned about the end of May Anno 1559. and gave a dangerous example to them of Couper who forthwith on the hearing of it destroyed all the Images and pulled down the Altars in that Church also Preaching at Craile he inveighed sharply against the Queen Regent and vehemently stirred up the people to joyn together for the expulsion of the French which drew after it the like destruction of all Altars and Images as was made before at Perth and Couper The like followed on his preaching at St. Andrews also the Religious Houses being pulled down as well as the Images and laid so flat that there was nothing left in the form of a building Inflamed by the same firebrand they burned down the rich Monastery of Scone and ruined that of Cambâ—skenneth demolished all the Altars Images and Covents of Religious persons in Sterling Lithgoâ— Glascough Edenburgh make themselves Masters of the last and put up their own Preachers into all the Pulpits of that City not suffering the Queen Regent to have the use of one Church onely for her own devotions Nor staid they there but being carried on by the same ill spirit they pass an Act among themselves for depriving the Queen Regent of all place and power in the publick Government concerning which the Oracle being first consulted returned this Answer sufficiently ambiguous as all Oracles are that is to say That the iniquity of the Queen Regent ought not to withdraw their hearts from the obedience due to their Soveraigns nor did he wish any such sentence to be pronounced against her but when she should change her course and submit
both Religions and finally amongst many other particulars that neither the Queen of Scots nor the French King should from thenceforth assume the Titles and Arms of England Which Articles being signed and confirmed for both Kingdoms the French about the middle of July take their leave of Scotland and the English Army at the same time set forward for Barwick being there disbanded and dismissed to their several dwellings Followed not long after by the Earls of Morton and Glencarn in the name of the rest of the Congregation sent purposely to render to the Queen their most humble thanks for her speedy prosperous assistance and to desire the continuance of her Majesties favours if the French should any more attempt to invade their Country Assured whereof and being liberally rewarded with gifts and presents they returned with joy and glad tydings to the Congregation whom as the Queen had put upon a present confidence of going vigorously on in their Reformation so it concerned them to proceed so carefully in pursuance of it as might comply with the dependence which they had upon her First therefore that she might more cordially espoâ—se their quarrel they bound themselves by their subscription to embrace the Liturgy with all the Rites and Ceremonies of the Church of England which for a time remained the onely form of Worship for the Kirk of Scotland when and by whose means they receded from it may be shown hereafter In the next place they cause a Parliament to be called in the month of August according to the Articles of the Pacification from which no person was excluded who either had the right of Suffrage in his own capacity or in relation to their Churches or as returned from their Shrevalties or particular Burroughs of which last there appeared the accustomed number but of the Lords Spiritual no more than six Bishops of thirteen with thirteen Abbots and Priors or thereabouts and of the Temporal Lords to the number of ten Earls and as many Barons By whose Authority and consent they passed three Acts conducing wholly to the advantage of the Reformation the first whereof was for abolishing the Popes Jurisdiction and Authority within the Realm the second for annulling all Statutes made in former times for maintenance of Idolatry and Superstition and the third for the punishment of the Sayers and Hearers of the Masse To this Parliament also some of the Ministers presented A Confession of the Faith and Doctrine to be believed and professed by the Protestants of the Kirk of Scotland modelled in many places by the Principles of Calvin's Doctrine which Knox had brought with him from Geneva but being put unto the Vote it was opposed by no more than three of the Temporal Lords that is to say the Earl of Atholl and the Lords Somervil and Borthwick who gave no other reason for it but that they would believe as their fathers did The Popish Prelates were silent in it neither assenting nor opposing Which being observed by the Earl-Marshal he is said to have broke out into these words following Seeing saith he that my Lords the Bishops who by their learning can and for the zeal they should have to the truth ought as I suppose to gainsay any thing repugnant to it say nothing against the Confession we have heard I cannot think but that it is the very truth of God and that the contrary of it false and deceivable Doctrine Let us now cross over into Ireland where we shall find the Queen as active in advancing the reformed Religion as she had been in either of the other Kingdoms King Henry had first broke the ice by taking to himself the Title of Supream Head on earth of the Church of Ireland exterminating the Popes authority and suppressing all the Monasteries and Religious Houses In matters doctrinal and forms of Worship as there was nothing done by him so neither was there much endeavoured in the time of King Edward it being thought perhaps unsafe to provoke that people in the Kings minority considering with how many troubles he was elsewhere exercised If any thing were done therein it was rather done by tolleration than command And whatsoever was so done was presently undone again in the Reign of Queen Mary But Queen Elizabeth having setled her affairs in England and undertaken the protection of the Scots conceived her self obliged in point of piety that Ireland also should be made partaker of so great a benefit A Parliament is therefore held on the 12th of January where past an Act restoring to the Crown the antient jurisdiction over all Ecclesiastical and Spiritual persons By which Statute were established both the Oath of Supremacy and the High Commission as before in England There also past an Act for the Uniformity of Common Prayer c. with a permission for saying the same in Latine in such Church or place where the Minister had not the knowledge of the English Tongue But for translating it into Irish as afterwards into Welsh in the 5th year of this Queen there was no care taken either in this Parliament or in any following For want whereof as also by not having the Scriptures in their native language most of the natural Irish have retained hitherto there old barbarous customes or pertinaciously adhere to the corruptions of the Church of Rome The people by that Statute are required under several penalties to frequent their Churches and to be frequent at the reading of the English Liturgy which they understand no more than they do the Mass. By which means the Iâ—ish was not only kept in continual ignorance as to the Doctrines and Devotions of the Church of England but we have furnished the Papists with an excellent Argument against our selves for having the Divine Service celebrated in such a language as the people do not understand There also past another Statute for restoring to the Crown the first fruits and twenty parts of all Ecclesiastical promotions within that Kingdom as also of all impropriat Parsonages which there are more in number than those Rectories which have cure of souls King Henry had before united the first fruits c. to the Crown Imperial but Queen Mary out of her affection to the Church of Rome had given them back unto the Clergy as before was said The like Act passed for the restitution of all such lands belonging to the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem as by that Queen had been regranted to the Order with the avoidance of all Leases and other grants which had been made by Sir Oswald Massingberd the lâ—te Lord Prior of the same Who fearing what was like to follow had voluntarily forsook the Kingdome in the August foregoing and thereby saved the Queen the charge of an yearly pension which otherwise he might have had as his Predecessors had before him in the time of King Henry During the Reign of which King a Statute had been made in Ireland as in England also for the electing and consecrating of
a most prudent Prince had formerly protested against the calling of this Council by Pope Paul the 3d. who did as much pretend to the peace of Christendome as the Pope now being that to admit a Minister of the Pope in the quality or capacity of a Nuncio inferred a â—acit acknowledgement of that supâ—emacy whereof he had been deprived by Act of Parliament that the Popes of Rome have alwaies raised great advantages by the smallest concessions and therefore that it was most expedient for the good of the Kingdom to keep him alwaies at a distance that Queen Mary in favour only unto Pâ—lâ— refused to give admittance to Cardinal Peitow though coming from the Pope in quality of a Legate a Lateâ—â—e that a great part of the people were in discontentment with the change of Religion and wanted nothing but such an opportunity to break out into action as the Nuncio's presence might afford them and therefore that it concerned the Queen to be as zealous for Religion and the weal of her people as her sister the late Queen Mary was in maintenance of Cardinal Pole and his private authority And to say truth the greatest obstacle in the way of the Nuncio's coming was partly laid in it by the indiscretion of some Papists in England and partly by the precipitancy of the Popes Ministers in Ireland For so it was that the only noise of the coming of a Nuncio from the Pope had wrought in sundry evil-disposed persons such a courage and boldness that they did not only break the Laws made against the Pope and his authority with great audacity but spread abroad false and slanderous reports that the Queen was at the point to change her Religion and alter the government of the Realm Some also had adventured further even to a practising with the Devil by conjurations charms and casting of Figures to be informed in the length and continuance of her majesties Reign And on the other side the Popes Legate being at the same time in Ireland not only joyned himself to some desperate Traytors who busied themselves in stirring up rebellion there but for as much as in him was had deprived her Majesty of all Right and Title to that Kingdom Upon which grounds it was carried clearly by the Board against the Nuncio Nor would they vary from the Vote upon the intercession of the French the Spaniard or whose displeasure was more dangerous of the Duke of Alva Nothing discouraged with the repulse which had been given to the French and Spaniard the Emperour Ferdinand must make tryal of his fortune also not as they did in favour of the Nuncio's coming but in perswading her to return to the old Religion To this end he exhorts her by his Letters in a friendly way not to relinquish the Communion of so many Catholick Kings and Princes and her own Ancestors into the bargain nor to prefer her single judgement and the judgement of a few private persons and those not the most learned neither before the judgement and determination of the Church of Christ. That if she were resolved to persist in her own opinion she should deal favourably with so many reverend and Religious Prelates as she kept in prison and which she kept in prison for no other reason but for adhering unto that Religion which himself professed and finally he intreats most earnestly that she would set apart some Churches to the use of the Catholicks in which they might with freedome exercise their own Religion according to the Rites and Doctrines of the Church of Rome To which desires she made a full and sufficient answer by satisfying him touching her merciful dealing with those Bishops whom for their obstinacy and many other weighty reasons she had deprived of their preferments in the Church And to the rest she answered That she had setled her Religion on so sure a bottome that she could not easily be changed that she doubted not but that she had many learned men in her Dominions which were able to defend the doctrine by them taught against all Opponents and that for granting any Churches to the use of the Papists it was a point so contrary to the polity and good Lawes of the Land that she desired to be excused for not yielding to it In which last she seemed to have an eye upon the Edict of the Emperour Constantine touching the meetings of the Marcionites Novatians Valentinians and other Hereticks of that age In which it was enjoined that none of them should from thenceforth hold any assemblys and that for the more certain conforming unto his Decree those Churches or other houses whatsoever they were in which they used to hold their Meetings should be demolished to the ground to the end that there might be no place in which such men as were devoted to their superstitious faction might have the opportunity of assembling together For which the Reader may consult Eusebius in the life of Constantine l. b. 3. cap. 63. But that it might appear both to him and others that she was ready to shew all just favours she laid a most severe command upon all her Officers for the full payment of all such pensions as had been granted unto all such Abbots Monks and Friers in the time of her father as were not since preferred in the Church to cures or dignities And this to be performed to the utmost farthing on pain of her most high displeasure in neglect thereof It could not be but that the governing of her affairs with such an even and steady hand though it occasioned admiration in some must needs create both envy and displeasure in the hearts of other Christian Princes from none of which she had a juster cause to fear some practice than the King of Spain or rather from the fierce and intemperate Spirit of the Duke of Alva as appeared afterwards when he was made Lord Deputy or Vice-Gerent of the Belgick Provinces They had both shewed themselves offended because their intercession in behalf of the Nuncio had found no better entertainment and when great persons are displeased it is no hard matter for them to revenge themselves if they find their adversaries either weak or not well provided But the Queen looked so well about her as not to be taken tardy in either kind For which end she augments her store of Arms and Ammunition and all things necessary for the defence of her Kingdom which course she had happily begun in the year foregoing But holding it a safer maxim in the Schools of Polity not to admit than to endeavour by strong hand to expel an enemy She entertains some fortunate thoughts of walling her Kingdom round about with a puissant Navy for Merchants had already increased their shipping by managing some part of that wealthy trade which formerly had been monopolized by the Haâ—se or Easterlings And she resolves not to be wanting to her self in building ships of such a burthen and so fit for service as might inable
her in short time not only to protect her Merchants but command the Ocean Of which the Spaniard found good proof to his great loss and almost to his total ruine in the last 20 years of her glorious government And knowing right well that mony was the â—inew of war she fell upon a prudent and present course to fill her coffers Most of the monies in the Kingdom were of forein coynage brought hither for the most part by the Easterling and Flemish Merchants These she called in by Proclamation â—â—ted the 15th of November being but two dayes before the end of this 3d. year commanding them to be brought to her Majesties Mint there to be coyned and take the stamp of her Royal authority or otherwise not to pass for current within this Realm which counsel took such good effect that monies came flowing into the Mint insomuch that there was weekly brought into the Tower of London for the space of half a year together 8000. 10000. 12000. 16000. 20000. 22000 l. of silver plate and as much more in Pistols and other gold of Spanish coins which were great sums according to the standard of those early dayes and therefore no small profit to be growing to her by the coynage of them The Genevians slept not all this while but were as busily imployed in practising upon the Church as were the Romanists in plotting against the Queen Nothing would satisfie them but the nakedness and simplicity of the Zuinglian Churches the new fashions taken up at Franckfort and the Presbyteries of Geneva According to the pattern which they saw in those mounts the Church of England is to be modell'd nor would the Temple of Jerusalem have served their turn if a new Altar fashioned by that which they found at Damascus might not have been erected in it And they drove on so fast upon it that in some places they had taken down the steps where the Aâ—tar stood and brought the Holy Table into the midst of the Church in others they had laid aside the antient use of Godfathers and Godmothers in the administration of Baptism and left the answering for the child to the charge of the father The weekly Fasts the time of Lent and all other dayes of abstinence by the Church commanded were looked upon as superstitious observations No fast by them allowed of but occasional only and then too of their own appointing And the like course they took with the Festivals also neglecting those which had been instituted by the Church as humane inventions not fit to be retained in a Church reformed And finally that they might wind in there outlandish Doctrines with such forein usages they had procured some of the inferiour Ordinaries to impose upon their several Parishes certain new books of Sermons and Expositions of the holy Scripture which neither were required by the Queens Injunctions nor by Act of Parliament Some abuses also were discovered in the Regular Clergy who served in Churches of peculiar or exempt jurisdiction Amongst whom it began to grow too ordinary to marry all such as came unto them without Bains or Licence and many times not only without the privity but against the express pleasure and command of their Parents For which those Churches past by the name of Lawlesse Churches in the voice of the people For remedy whereof it was found necessary by the Archbishop of Canterbury to have recourse unto the power which was given unto him by the Queens Commission and by a clause or passage of the Act of Parliament for the Uniformity of Common Prayer and Service in the Church c. As one of the Commissioners for Causes Ecclesiastical he was authorized with the rest of his associates according to the Statute made in that behalf To reform redresse order correct and amend all such Errours Heresies Schisms abuses offences conâ—empts and enormities whatsoever as might from time to time arise in the Church of England and did require to be redressed and reformed to the pleasure of Almighty God the increase of vertue and conservation of the peace and unity of the Kingdom And in the passage of the Act before remembred it was especially provided That all such Ornaments of the Church and of the Ministers thereof should be retained and be in use as were in the Church of England by authority of Parliament in the second year of the Reign of King Edward the 6th until further Order should be therein taken by authority of the Queens Majesty with the advice of her Commissioners Appointed Ordered under the Great Seal of England for Causes Ecclesiastical or of the Metropolitan of this Realm And also if there shall happen any contempt or irreverence to be used in the Ceremonies or Rites of the Church by the misusing of the Orders of the said Book of Common Prayer the Queens Majesty might by the like advice of the said Commissioners or Metropolitan Ordain or publish such further Ceremonies or Rites as should be most for the advance of Gods glory the edifying of his Church and the due reverence of Christs holy Mysteries and Sacraments Fortified and assured by which double power the Archbishop by the Queens consent and the advice of some of the Bishops Commissionated and instructed to the same intent sets forth a certain book of Orders to be diligently observed and executed by all and singular persons whom it might concern In which it was provided That no Parson Vicar or Curate of any exempt Church commonly called Lawless Churches should from thenceforth attempt to conjoin by solemnization of Matrimony any not being of his or their Parish Church without sufficient testimony of the Bains being ask'd in the several Churches where they dwel or otherwise were sufficiently licenced That there should be no other dayes observed for Holy days or Fasting dayes as of duty and commandment but only such Holy dayes as be expressed for Holy dayes in the Calendar lately set forth by the Queens authority and none other Fasting dayes to be so commanded but as the Lawes and Proclamations of the Queens Majesty should appoint that it should not be lawful to any Ordinary to assign or enjoyn the Parishes to buy any Books of Sermons or Expositions in any sort than is already or shall be hereafter appointed by publick Authority that neither the Curates or Parents of the children which are brought to Baptism should answer for them at the Font but that the antient use of Godfathers and Godmothers should be still retained and finally that in all such Churches in which the steps to the Altar were not taken down the said steps should remain as before they did that the Communion Table should be set in the said place where the steps then were or had formerly stood and that the Table of Gods Precepts should be fixed upon the wall over the said Communion Board Which passage compared with that in the Advertisements published in the year 1565. of which more hereafter make up this construction that
should be given to all of every Nation Province City and Place where any thing was preached taught believed contrary to that which was believed in the Church of Rome But the Legats might have spared themselves the trouble of these considerations the Protestant Bishops of England not being so forward to venture themselves into that Council on such weak assurance considering how ill the safe conduct had been formerly kept to John Hus and Jerom of Prague at the Council of Constance And as for those of the Papal party though they might have a good will to be gadding thither yet the Queen kept them safe enough from going abroad So that there was no hopes for any English Bishops of either party to attend that service The Queen had absolutely refused to admit the Nunciâ— when he was sent on purpose to invite them to it And some of the most learned of that sacred Order had shown sufficient reasons in their printed Manifest why no such service or attendance could be looked for from them One Scipio a Gentleman of Venice who formerly had some acquaintance with Bishop Jewel when he was a student in Padua had heard of Martiningo's ill success in his Negotiation which notwithstanding he resolved to spend some eloquence in labouring to obtain that point by his private Letters which the Nuncio could not gain as a public Minister And to this end he writes his Letters of expostulation to his old friend Mr. Jewel preferred not long before to the See of Salisbury in which he seemed to admire exceedingly that England should send no Ambassador nor Message or Letter to excuse their Nations absence from the general Appearance of Christianity in that Sacred Council In the next place he highly extolled the antiquity and use of General Councils as the onely means to decide controversies in Religion and compose the distractions in the Church concluding it a superlative sin for any to decline the authority of it But this Letter did not long remain unanswered that learned Prelate was not so unstudied in the nature of â—ouncils as not to know how little of a General Council could be found at Trent And therefore he returns an Answer to the Proposition so eloquently penned and so elaborately digested that neither Scipio himself nor any other of that party durst reply upon him the Answer to be found at large in the end of the history of this Council translated into English by Sir Nathaniel Brent late Warden of Merton College in Oxon c. which though it were no other than the Answer of one single Prelate and writ on a particular occasion to â— private friend yet since it speaks the sense of all the rest of the 〈◊〉 â—nd to justifie the result of the Council-Table on the debate about 〈◊〉 or refusing the Popes invitation it will not be amiss to present the sum and substance of it in a short Epitome In the first place he signifies to the said Scipâ—o that a great part of the world professing the name of Christ as Greeks Armenians Abâ—ssines c. with all the Eastern Church were neither sent â—o nor summoned to this Council Secondly That England's absence was not so great a wonder seeing many other Kingdoms and Free states as Denmark Sweden Scotland Princes of Germany and Hanse-towns were not represented in this Council by any of their Ambassadors Thirdly That this pretended Council was not called according to the antient custom of the Church by the Imperial Authority but by the Papal Usurpation Fourthly That Trent was a petty place not of sufficient receit for such multitudes as necessarily should repair to a General Council Fifthly That Pope Pius the 4th by whose command the Council was re-assembled purchaâ—â—d his place by the unjust practices of Simonie and Briberie and managed it with murder and cruelty Sixthly That repairing to Councils was a free act and none ought to be condemned of Contumacy if it stood more with their conveniency to stay at home Seventhly That antiently it was accepted as a reasonable excuse of holy Pisâ—ops absenting or withdrawing themselves from any Council if they vehemently suspected ought would be acted therein prejudicial to the truth lest their though not actual included concurrence might be interpreted a countenancing thereof Eighthly That our Bishops were employed in feeding their Flocks and governing their Churches and could not be spared from their charge without prejudice to their consciences Ninthly That the Members of that Council of Trent both Bishops and Abbots were by Oath pregaged to the Pope To defend and maintain his authority against all the world And lastly He desired to know in what capacity the English Clergy should appear in this Council not as free persons to debate matters therein in regard they had been pre-condemned as Hereticks by Pope Julius the 3d. nor as offenders to receive the sentence of condemnation to which they had no reason to submit themselves Of these refusals and the reasons of them neither the Pope at Rome nor the Cardinal Legâ—ts in the Council could pretend to be ignorant yet still the expectation of the comming of some English Bishops must be kept on foot partly for the encouragement of such as were there already and partly for the drawing on of others who came slowly forwards and sometimes also it was used for an artifice to divert the Prelates when any business was in agitation which seemed dangerous to them For so it hapned that some of the Prelates being earnest in the point of Residence none of the Legats could devise a better expedient to put off that Question than to propose that some means should be used to set at liberty the English Bishops which were imprisoned by their Queen that comming to the Council it might be said that that noble Nation was present also and not wholly alienated from the Church This pleased all but the common opinion was that it might sooner be desired than hoped for They concluded that the Queen having refused to receive a Nuncio expresly sent from the Pope it could not be hoped that she would hearken to the Council therefore all they could do was to perswade the Catholick Princes to mediate for them And mediate though they did as before was said both for the admitting of the Nuncio and the restoring of those Bishops to their former liberty they were not able to prevail especially as to the licensing of any of them to attend the Council which if the Queen had yielded to she must have armed so many of her enemies to disturb her peace who questionless would have practised with the Ambassadors of all Princes and with the Prelates of all Nations whom they found there present to work some notable alteration in the Government and affairs of England Of all the Bishops which were left in England at the end of the Parliament I find none but Pates of Worcester and Goldnel of St. Asaph who forsook the Kingdom though possibly many of the rest
following they were dismist with many rich Presents and an annual pension from the Queen conducted honourably by the Lord Aburgavenny to the Port of Dover and there shipped for Calais filling all places in the way betwixt that and Baden with the report of the magnificence of their entertainment in the Court of England And that the Glories of their entertainment might appear the greater it hapned that Rambouillet a French Ambassador came hither at that time upon two solemnities that is to say to be installed Knight of the Garter in the place and person of that King and to present the Order of St Michael the principal Order of that Kingdom to Thomas Duke of Norfolk and the Earl of Leicester The one performed with the accustomed Pomps and Ceremonies in the Chapel of St George at Windsor the other with like State and splendour in the Royal Chapel at Whitehall Such a well tempered piety did at that time appear in the Devotions of the Church of England that generally the English Papists and the Ambassadors of forein Princes still resorted to them But true it is that at that time some zealots of the Church of Rome had begun to slacken their attendance not out of any new dislike which they took at the service but in regard of a Decree set forth in the Council of â—rent prohibiting all resort to the Churches of Hereticks Which notwithstanding the far greater part continued in their first obedience till the coming over of that Roaring Bull from Pope Pius the 5th by which the Queen was excommunicated the subjects discharged from their obedience to the Laws and the going or not going to the Church made a sign distinctive to difference a Roman Catholick from an English Protestant And it is possible enough that they might have stood much longer to their first conformity if the discords brought into the Church by the Zuinglian faction together with their many innovations both in Doctrine and Discipline had not afforded them some further ground for the desertion For in this year it was that the Zuinglian or Calvinian faction began to be first known by the name of Puritans if Genebrard Gualier and Spondanus being all of them right good Chronologers be not mistaken in the time Which name hath ever since been appropriate to them because of their pretending to a greater Purity in the service of God than was held forth unto them as they gave it out in the Common Prayer Book and to a greater opposition to the Rites and Usages of the Church of Rome than was agreeable to the constitution of the Church of England But this Purity was accompanied with such irreverence this opposition drew along with it so much licenciousnesse as gave great scandal and offence to all sober men so that it was high time for those which had the care of the Church to look narrowly unto them to give a check to those disorders and confusions which by their practices and their preachings they had brought into it and thereby laid the ground of that woful schism which soon after followed And for a check to those disorders they published the Advertisement before remembred subscribed by the Archbishop of Canâ—erbury the Bishops of London Winchester Ely Lincoln Rochester and other of her Majesties Commissioners for Causes Ecclesiastical according to the Statute made in that behalf This was the only present remedy which could then be thought of And to prevent the like confusions for the time to come a Protestation was devised to be taken by all Parsons Vicars and Curates in their several stations by which they were required to declare and promise That they would not preach not publickly interpret but only read that which is appointed by publick authority without special Licence of the Bishop under his Seal that they would read the Service plainly distinctly and audibly that all the people might hear and understand that they would keep the Register book according to the Queens Majesties Injunctions that they would use sobriety in apparel and especially in the Church at Common Prayers according to Order appointed that they would move the Parishioners to quiet and concord and not give them cause of offence and help to reconcile them that be at variance to their utmost power that they would read dayly at the least one Chapter of the Old Testament and another of the New with good advisement to the increase of their knowledge that they would in their own persons use and exercise their Office and Place to the honour of God and the quiet of the Queens subjects within their charge in truth concord and unity as also observe keep and maintain such Order and Uniformity in all external Policy Rites and Ceremonies of the Church as by the Lawes good usages and Orders are already well provided and established and finally that they would not openly meddle with any Artificers occupations as covetously to seek a gain thereby having in Ecclesiastical Livings twenty Nobles or above by the year Which protestation if it either had been generally pressed upon all the Clergy as perhaps it was not or better kept by them that took it the Church might questionlesse have been saved from those distractions which by the Puritan Innovators were occasioned in it Anno Reg. Eliz. 8. A. D. 1565 1566. THus have we seen the publick Liturgy confirmed in Parliament with divers penalties on all those who either did reproach it or neglect to use it or wilfully withdrew their attendance from it the Doctrine of the Church declared in the Book of Articles agreed upon in Convocation and ratified in due form of Law by the Queens authority external matters in officiating Gods publick service and the apparel of the Clergy regulated and reduced to their first condition by the Books of Orders and Advertisements Nothing remaineth but that we settle the Episcopal Government and then it will be time to conclude this History And for the setling of this Government by as good authority as could be given unto it by the Lawes of the Land we aâ—e beholden to the obstinacy of Dr Edmond Bonner the late great slaughter-man of London By a Statute made in the last Parliament for keeping her Majesties Subjects in their due obedience a power was given unto the Bishops to tender and receive the oath of Supremacy of all manner of persons dwelling and residing in their several Diocesses Bonner was then prisoner in the Clink or Marshalsea which being in the Burrough of Southwark brought him within the Jurisdiction of Horn Bishop of Winchester by whose Chancellor the Oath was tender'd to him On the refusal of which Oath he is endicted at the Kings Bench upon the Statute to which he appeared in some Term of the year foregoing and desires that counsel be assigned to plead his cause according to the course of the Court The Court assigns him no worse men than Christopher Wâ—ay afterwards chief Justice of the Common Pleas that famous Lawyer Edmond
called unpardonable and so affirmed to be by our Lord and Saviour _____ XVII Of Predestination and Election Predestination unto life is the everlasting purpose of God whereby before the foundations of the world were laid he hath constantly decreed by his counsel secret â—nto us to deliver from curse and damnation those whom he hath chosen out of Mankind and to bring them by Christ to everlasting salvation as vessels made to honor Wherefore they which be endued with so excellent a benefit of God be called according to Gods purpose by his Spirit working in due season they through grace obey the calling they be justified freely they are made sons by Adoption they are made like the image of the onely begotten Jesus Christ they walk religiously in good works and at length by Gods mercy they attain to everlasting felicity As the godly consideration of Predestination and Election in Christ is full of sweet pleasant and unspeakable comfort to godly persons and such as feel in themselves the working of the Spirit of Christ mortifying the works of the flesh and their earthly members and drawing up their mind to high and heavenly things as well because it doth greatly establish and confirm their faith of eternal salvation to be enjoyed through Christ as because it doth fervently kindle their love towards God So for curious and carnal persons lacking the Spirit of Christ to have continually before their eyes the sentence of Gods Predestination is a most dangerous downfall whereby the devil doth thrust them either into desperation or into wretchlesness of most unclean livingâ— no lesse perilous than desperation Furthermore though the Decrees of Predestination be unknown to us 17 yet must we receive Gods promises in such wise as they be generally set forth to us in holy Scripture and in our doings that will of God is to be followed which we have expresly declared unto us in the Word of God XVII Of Predestination and Election Predestination unto life is the everlasting purpose of God whereby before the foundations of the world were laid he hath constantly decreed by his counsel secret unto us to deliver from curse and damnation those whom he hath chosen in Christ 16 out of Mankind and to bring them by Christ to everlasting salvation they are made the sons of God by Adoption they be made like the Image of His onely begotten Son Jesus Christ c. Furthermore we must receive Gods promises in such wise as they be generally set forth to us c. XVIII Everlasting Salvation to be obtained onely in the Name of Christ. They also are to be had accursed that presume to say That every man shall be saved by the Law or Sect which he professeth so that he be diligent to frame his life according to that Law and the light of Nature For holy Scripture doth set out unto us onely the Name of Jesus Christ whereby men must be saved XVIII Of obtaining Eternal Salvation by the Name of Christ. They also are to be had accursed that presume to say That every man shall be saved by the Law or Sect which he professeth c. XIX All men are bound to keep the Precepts of the Moral Law 18 Although the Law given from God by Moses as touching Ceremonies and Rites do not bind Christian men nor the Civil Precepts thereof ought of necessity to be received in any Common-wealth yet notwithstanding no Christian man whatsoever is free from the obedience of the Commandments which are called Moral Wherefore they are not to be heard 19 which teach that the holy Scriptures were given to none but to the Weak and brag continually of the Spirit by which they do pretend that all whatsoever they preach is suggested to them though manifestly contrary to the holy Scripture _____ XX. Of the Church The visible Church of Christ is a Congregation of faithful men in which the pure Word of God is preached and the Sacraments be duly ministred according to Christs Ordinance in all those things that of necessity are requisite to the same As the Church of Jerusalem Alexandria and Antioch have erred so also the Church of Rome hath erred not onely in their Livings and manner of Ceremonies but also in matters of Faith XIX Of the Church The visible Church of Christ is a Congregation of faithful men in which the pure Word of God is preached c. XXI Of the Authority of the Church It is not lawful for the Church to ordain any thing that is contrary to Gods Word written neither may it so expound one place of Scripture that it be repugnant to aâ—other Whereâ—ore although the Church be a witnesse and keeper of holy Writ yet as it ought not to decree any thing against the same so besides the same ought it not to enforce any thing to be believed for necessity of Salvation XX. Of the Authority of the Church The Church hath power to decree Rites and Ceremonies and Authority in Controversies of Faith 20 It is not lawful for the Church c. XXII Of the Authority of General Councils General Councils may not be gathered together without the commandment and will of Princes And when they be gathered together forasmuch as they be an Assembly of men whereof all be not governed with the Spirit and word of God they may erre and sometimes have erred even in things pertaining unto God Wherefore things ordained by them as necessary to Salvation have neither strength nor authority unless it may be declared that they be taken out of holy Scripture XXI Of the Authority of General Councils General Councils may not be gathered together without the commandment and will of Princes c. XXIII Of Purgatory The Doctrine of the School-men concerning Purgatory Pardons Worshipping and Adoâ—ation as well of Images as of Relicts and also invocation of Saints is a fond thing vainly invented and grounded upon no warranty of Scripture but rather perniciously repugnant to the Word of God XXII Of Purgatory The Doctrine of the School-men concerning Purgatory c. XXIV No man to minister in the Church except he be called It is not lawfull for any man to take upon him the office of publick Preaching or ministring the Sacraments in the Congregation before he be lawfully called and sent to execute the same And those we ought to judge lawfully called and sent which be â—hosen and called to this work by men who have publiâ—k Authority given unto them in the Congâ—egation to call and send Ministers into the Lords Vineyard XXIII Of ministring in the Congregation It is not lawful for any man to take upon him the office of publick Preaching c. XXV All things to be done in the Congregation in such a Toung as is understood by the People It is most fit and most agreeable to to the Word of God 21 that nothing be read or rehearsed in the Congregation in a Tongue not known unto the People which Paul hath forbidden to be done unless
rather to their condemnation do eat and drink the Sign or Sacrament of so great a thing XXX Of Both Kinds 32 The Cup of the Lord is not to be denyed to the Lay People For both the parts of the Lords Sacrament by Christs Ordinance and Commandment ought to be ministred to all Christian People alike _____ XXX Of the one Oblation of Christ finished upon the Crosse. The Offering of Christ once made is the perfect Redemption Propitiation and Satisfaction for all the sins of the whole World both Original and Actual and there is none other Satisfaction for sin but that alone Wherefore the Sacrifices of Masses in which it was commonly said that the Priests did offer Christ for the quick and the dead to have remission of pain or guilt were fables and dangerous deceits XXXI Of the one Oblation of Christ finished upon the Crosse. The offering of Christ once made is the perfect Redemption c. were blasphemous fables and 33 dangerous deceits XXXI A single Life is imposed on none by the Word of God Bishops Priests and Deacons are not commanded by God's Law either to vow the estate of a single life or to abstain from Marriage XXXII Of the Marriage of Priests Bishops Priests and Deacons are not commanded by Gods Law c. Therefore it is lawful also for them 34 as for all other Christian men to marry at their own discretion as they shall judge the same to serve better to godlinesse XXXII Excommunicated Persons are to be avoided That person which by open Denunciation of the Church is rightly cut off from the unity of the Church and Excommunicated ought to be taken of the whole multitude of the faithful as an Heathen and Publican untill he be openly reconciled by Penance and received into the Church by a Judge which hath authority thereunto XXXIII Of Excommunicated Persons how they are to be avoided That person which by open Denunciation of the Church c. XXXIII Of the Traditions of the Church It is not necessary that Traditions and Ceremonies be in all places one and utterly like for at all times they have been divers and may be changed according to the diversities of Countries Times and mens Manners so that nothing be ordained against Gods Word Whosoever through his private judgment willingly and purposely doth openly break the Traditions and Ceremonies of the Church which be not repugnant to the Word of God and be ordained and approved by common Authority ought to be rebuked openly that others may fear to do the like as he that offendeth against the common Order of the Church and hurteth the Authority of the Magistrate and woundeth the Consciences of the weak Brethren XXXIV Of the Traditions of the Church It is not necessary that Traditions and Ceremonies c. Every particular or National Church 35 hath Authority to ordain change or aboâ—ish Ceremonies or Rites of the Church ordained onely by Man's Authority so that all things be done to edifying XXXIV Of the Homilies The Homilies lately delivered 36 and commended to the Church of England by the Kings Injunctionâ— do contain a godly and wholsome Doctrine and fit to be embraced by all men and for that cause they are diligently plainly and distinctly to be read to the People XXXV Of Homilies The second Book of Homilies the several Titles whereof we have joyned under this Article doth contain a godly and wholsome Doctrin and necessary for the times as doth the former Book of Homilies which were set forth in the time of Edward the sixth and therefore we judge them to be read in Churches by the Ministers diligently and distinctly that they may be understood of the People The names of the Homilies Of the Right use of the Church Of Repairing Churches Against the Peril of Idolatry Of Good Works c. XXXV Of the Book of Common Prayer and other Rites and Ceremonies of the Church of England The Book lately delivered to the Church of England by the Authority of the King and Parliament 37 containing the manner and form of publick Prayer and the ministration of the Sacraments in the said Church of England as also the Book published by the same Authority for Ordering Ministers in the Church are both of them very pious as to â—uth of Doctrine in nothing contrary but agreeable to the wholsome Doctrine of the Gospel which they do very much promote and illustrate And for that cause they are by all faithful Members of the Church of England but chiefly of the Ministers of the Word with all thankfulness and readiness of mind to be received approved and commended to the People of God XXXVI Of Consecration of Bishops and Ministers The Book of Consecration of 38 Archbishops and Bishops and ordering of Priests and Deacons lately set forth in the time of King Edward the sixth and confirmed at the same time by Authority of Parliament doth contain all things necessary to such Consecration and Ordering Neither hath it any thing that of it self is superstitious and ungodly And therfore whosoever are Consecrated or ordered according to the Rites of that Book since the second year of the afore-named King Edward unto this time or hereafter shall be Consecrated or ordered according to the same Rites we decree all such to be rightly orderly and lawfully Consecrated and Ordered XXXVI Of the Civil Magistrates The King of England is after Christ 39 the Supream Head on Earth of the Church of England and Ireland The Bishop of Rome hath no Jurisdiction in this Realm of England The Civil Magistrate is ordained and approved by God and therefore are to be obeyed not onely for fear of wrath but for conscience sake Câ—vil or temporal Laws may punish Christian men with death for heinous and grievous offences It is lawful for Christian men at the commandment of the Magistrate to wear Weapons and serve in the Wars XXXVII Of the Civil Magistrates The Queens Majesty hath the chief Power in this Realm of England and other her Dominions unto whom the chief Government of all Estates of this Realm whether they be Ecclesiastical or Civil in all cases doth appertain and is not nor ought to be subject to any Forein Jurisdiction Where we attribute to the Queens Majesty the chief Government 40 by which Titles we understand the minds of some slanderous folks to be offended We give not to our Princess the Ministry either of Gods Word or of the Sacraments the which thing the Injunctions lately set forth by Elizabeth our Queen do most plainly testifie but that onely Prerogative which we see to have been given always to all godly Princes in holy Scriptutes by God himself that is that they should rule all Estates committed to their charge by God whether they be Ecclesiastical or Temporal and restrain with the Civil Sword the stubborn and evil doers The Bishop of Rome hath no Jurisdiction in this Realm of England The Laws of this Realm may punish Christian men with death
the Lord Protectour with whom she might enjoy all Content and Happiness which a vertuous Lady could desire And that they might appear in the greater Splendour he took into his hands the Episcopal House belonging to the Bishop of Bath and Wells which being by him much Enlarged and Beautified came afterwards to the Possession of the Earls of Arundel best known of late Times by the name of Arundel-House And so far all things went on smoothly betwixt him and his Bâ—other though afterwards there were some distrust between them but this last Practice gave such an hot Alarum to the Duchess of Sommerset that nothâ—ng could content her but his absolute Ruin For what hope could she have of Disputing the Precedence with any of King Henâ—â—e's Daughters who if they were not married out of the Realm might Create many Troubles and Disturbances in it Nor was the Lord Prâ—tectâ—ur so insensible of his own Condition as not to fear the utmost Danger which the Effecting of so great an Enterprise might bring upon him so that the Rupture which before had began to close became more open then before made widâ—r by the Artifices of the Earl of Warwick who secretly playing with both hands exasperated each of them against the other that so he might be able to destroy them both The Plot being so far carried on the Admiral was committed to the Tower on the sixteenth of January but never called unto his Answer it being thought safer to Attaint him by Act of Parliament where Power and Faction might prevail then put him over to his Peers in a Legal way And if he were guilty of the Crimes which I finde charged upon him in the Bill of Attainder he could not but deserve as great a Punishment as was laid upon him For in that Act he stands condemned for Attempting to get into his Custody the Person of the King and the Government of the Realm for obtaining many Offices retaining many Men into his Service for making great Provision for Money and Victuals for endeavouring to marry the Lady Elizabeth the King's Sister and for perswading the King in His Tender Age to take upon Him the Rule and Order of Himself But Parliaments being Governed by a â—allible Spirit the Business still remaineth under such a Cloud that he may seem rather to have fallen a Sacrifice to the Private Malice of a Woman then the Publick Justice of the State For the Bill of Attainder passing at the End of the Parliament which was on the fourteenth day of March he was beheaded at Tower-Hill on the sixth day after the Warrant for his Execution coming under the hand oâ— his own Brother at what time he took it on his Death That he had never committed or meant any Treason against King or Kingdom Thus as it is affâ—â—med of the Emperour Valentinian that by causing the right Noble Aetius to be put to Death he had cut off his Right Hand with his Left so might it be affirmed of the Lord Protectour that when he signed that unhappy Warrant he had with his Right Hand robbed himself of his greatest Strength For as long as the two Brothers stood together they were good support unto one another but now the one being taken away the other proved not Subâ—tantive enough to stand by himself but fell into his Enemies hands within few Moneths after Comparing them together we may finde the Admiral to be Fierce in Courage Courtly in Fashion in Personage Stately in Voice Magnificent the Duke to be Mild Affable Free and Open more easie to be wrought upon and no way Malicious the Admiral generally more esteemed amongst the Nobles the Duke Honoured by the Common People the Lord Protectour to be more desired for a Friend the Lord Admiral to be more feared for an Enemy Betwixt them both they might have made one excellent man if the Defects of each being taken away the Virtues onely had remained The Protectour having thus thrown away the chief Prop of his House hopes to repair that Ruin by erecting a Magnificent Palace He had been bought out of his purpose for building on the Deanery and Close of Westminster and casts his Eye upon a piece of Ground in the Strand on which stood three Episcopal Houses and one Parish-Church the Parish-Church Dedicated to the Virgin Mary the Houses belonging to the Bishops of Worcester Lichfield and Landaff All these he takes into his Hands the Owners not daring to oppose and therefore willingly consenting to it Having cleared the place and projected the intended Fabrick the Workmen found that more Materials would be wanting to go thorough with it then the Demolished Church and Houses could afford unto them He thereupon resolves for taking down the Parish-Church of Saint Marâ—arets in Westminster and turning the Parishioners for the celebrating of all Divine Offices into some part of the Nave or main Body of the Abby-Church which should be marked out for that purpose But the Workmen had no sooner advanced their Scafâ—olds when the Parishioners gathered together in great Multitudes with Bows and Arrows Staâ—es and Clubs and other such offensive Weapons which so terrified the Workmen that they ran away in great Amazement and never could be brought again upon that Imployment In the next place he is informed of some superfluous or rather Superstitious Buildings on the North-side of Saint Paul's that is to say a goodly Cloyster environing a goodly piece of Ground called Pardon-Church-Yard with a Chapel in the midst thereof and beautified with a piece of most curious Workmanship called the Dance of Death together with a fair Charnel-House on the South-side of the Church and a Chapel thereunto belonging This was conceived to be the safer undertaking the Bishop then standing on his good Behaviour and the Dean and Chapter of that Church as of all the rest being no better in a manner by reason of the late Act of Parliament then Tenant at Will of their great Landlords And upon this he sets his Workmen on the tenth of April takes it all down converts the Stone Timber Lead and Iron to the use of his intended Palace and leaves the Bones of the dead Bodies to be buried in the Fields in unhallowed Ground But all this not sufficing to compleat the Work the Steeple and most parts of the Church of Saint John's of Jerusalem not far from Smithfield most beautifully built not long before by Dockwray a late Priour thereof was blown up with Gunpowder and all the Stone thereof imployed to that purpose also Such was the Ground and such were the Materials of the Duke 's New Palace called Sommerset-House which either he lived not to finish or else it must be very strange that having pulled down two Churches two Chapels and three Episcopal Houses each of which may be probably supposed to have had their Oratories to finde Materials for this Fabrick there should be no room purposely erected for Religious Offices According unto this Beginning all the
till the end of that Parliament the interval between the end of the Parliament the deprivation of the old Bishops and the consecration of the new was to be taken up in the executing of such surveys and making such advantages of them as most redoâ—nded to the profit of the Queen and her Courtiers Upon whiâ—h ground as all the Bishops Sees were so long kept vacant before any one of them was filled so in the following times they were kept void one after another as occasion served till the best Flowers in the whole Garden of the Church had been câ—lled out of it There was another Clause in the said Statutes by which the patrimony of the Church was as much dilapidaâ—ed sede plena as it was pulled by this in the times of vacancy for by that Clause all Bishops were restrained from making any Grants of their Farms and Mannors for more than twenty one years or three lives at the most except it were unto the Queen her Heirs and Successors But either to the Queen or to any of her Heirs and Successors and under that pretence to any her hungry Courtiers they might be granted in Fee farm or for a Lease of fourscore and nineteen years as it pleased the Parties By which means Credinton was dismembered from the See of Exon the goodly mannor of Sherborn from that of Salâ—sbury many fair mannors alienated for ever from the rich Sees of Winchester Elie and indeed what not But to proceed unto the Consecration of the new Archbishop the first thing to be done after the passing of the Royal Assent for ratifying of the election of the Dean and Chapter was the confirming of it in the Court of the Arches according to the usual form in that behalf Which being accordingly performed the Vicar General the Dean of the Arches the Proctors and Officers of the Court whose presence was required at this Solemnity were enteâ—tained at a dinner provided for them at the Nags head Tavern in Cheapside for which though Parker paid the shot yet shall the Church be called to an after reâ—koning Nothing remains to expedite the Consecration but the Royal Mandat which I find dated on the sixth of December directed to Anthony Ktâ—ching Bishop of Landaff William Barlow late Bishop of Bath and Wells Lord Elect of Chichester John Scory late Bishop of Chichester Lord Elect of Hereford Miles Coverdale late Bishop of Exeter John Hodgskins Suffragan of Bedford John Suffragan of Thetford and John Bale Bishop of Osserâ—â— in the Realm of Ireland requiring them or any of them at the least to proceed unto the consecration of the right reverend Matthew Parker lately elected to the Metropolitical See of Canterbury The first and the two last either hindred by sickness or by some other lawfull impediment were not in a condition to attend the service whiâ—h notwithstanding was performed by the other four on Sunday the seventeenth of that Month according to the Ordinal of King Edward the sixth then newly printed for that purpose the Ceremony performed in the Chapel at Lambeth house the East end whereof was hanged with rich Tapestry and the floor covered with red cloth the Morning Service read by Pearson the Archbishops Chaplain the Sermon preached by Doctor Scâ—â—y Lord Elect of Hereford on those words of St. Peter The Elders which are among you â— exhort c. 1 Pet. 5. 1. The Letters Parents for proceeding to the Consecration publickly read by Doctor Dale the Act of Consecration legally performed by the imposition of the hands of the said four Bishops according to the antient Canons and King Edward's Ordinal and after all a plentiful dinner for the entertainment of the company which resorted thither amongst whom Charls Howard eldest son of William Lord Effingham created afterwards Lord Admiral and Earl of Notingham hapned to be one and after testified to the truth of all these particulars when the reality and form of this Consecration was called in question by some captious sticklers for the Church of Rome For so it was that some sticklers for the Church of Rome having been told of the dinner which was made at the Nags head Tavern at such time as the election of the new Archbishop was confirmed in the Arches raised a report that the Nags head Tavern was the place of the Consecration And this report was countenanced by another slander causing it to be noised abroad and published in some seditious Pamphlets that the persons designed by the Queen for the several Bishopricks being met at a Tavern did then and there lay hands upon one another without Form or Order The first calumny fathered on one Keale once Hebrew Reader in the University of Oxford and Chaplain unto Bishop Bonner which last relation were sufficient to discredit the whole tale if there were no other evidence to disprove the same And yet the silence of all Popish Writers concerning this Nags head-Consecration during the whole Reign of Queen Elizabeth when it had been most material for them to insist upon it as much discrediteth the whole figment as the Author of it The other published by Dr. Nicholas Sanders never more truly Dr. Sâ—anders than in that particular in his pestilent and seditious Book Entituled De Schismate Anglicano whose frequent falshoods make him no fit Author to be built upon in any matter of importance Yet on the credit of these two but on the first especially thâ— Tale of the Nags-head-Consecration being once taken up was generally exposed to sale as one of the most vendible commodities in the writings of some Romish Pâ—iests and Jesuits as Champney's Fitzsimons Parson Kellison c. They knew right well that nothing did more justifie the Church of England in the eye of the world than that it did preserve a succession of Bishops and consequently of all other sacred Orders in the ministration Without which as they would not grant it to be a Church so could they prove it to be none by no stronger Argument than that the Bishops or the pretended Bishops rather in their opinion were either not consecrate at all or not canonically consecrated as they ought to be And for the gaining of this point they stood most pertinaâ—iously on the fiction of the Nags-head Tavern which if it could be proved or at least believed there was an end of the Episcopal succession in the Church of England and consequently also of the Church it self For the decrying of this clamour and satisfying all opponents in the truth of the matter it was thought fit by Dr. George Abbot then Archbishop of Canterbury to call before him some of the Priests and Jesuits that is to say Fairecloth Leake Laithwaite and Collins being then prisoners in the Clinck Who being brought to Lambeth on the 12th of May 1613. were suffered in the presence of divers Bishops to peruse the publick Registers and thereby to satisfie themselves in all particulars concerning the Confirmation and Consecration of Archbishop Parker according to the
circumstances and Punctillioes before laid down This stilled the clamour for the present though it brake out again forty years after and was again stilled by the care and industry of the right Reverend Dr. Bâ—amhall Lord Bishop of Derry in a Book Entituled The Church of England defended against some scandalous and fabulous â—â—pâ—tations cast upon her c. Which cavil for it is no better being thus refelled the other objections of the Adversaries will be easily answered though Barlow and Scory were deprived of their Episcopal Sees yet first the justice and legality of their deprivation was not clear in Law and secondly they neither were nor could be deprived of their Episcopal character which remained in them undefaced as before it was And whilst the character remained they were in a capacity of performing all Episcopal Offices to which they should be called by their Metropolitan or any higher Power directing and commanding in all such matters as concerned the Church And as for Suffragans by which title Hodgskins is Commissionated for the Consecration they were no other than the Chore-Epâ—scopi of the Primitive times Subsidiary Bishops ordained for easing the Diocesan of some part of his burthen By means whereof they were enabled to perform such offices belonging to that sacred function not limited to time and place by the ancient Canons by which a Bishop was restrained in some certain acts of Jurisdiction to his proper Diocess Of this sort there were twenty six in the Realm of England distinguished by the names of such principal Towns as were appointed for their title and denomination The names and number whereof together with the jurisdiction and preheminences proportioned to them the Reader may peruse in the Act of Parliament made in the â—6th year of King Henry the 8th No sooner was this solemnity ended but a new mandate comes for the Confirmation of Dr. Barlow in the See of Chichester and Dr Scory to the See of Hereford to which they had been severally elected in August last And though the not restoring of them to their former Sees might seem to juâ—â—ifie the late Queen Mary in their deprivation yet the Queen wanted not good reasons for their present removal not that she did consult therein her own power and profit as is thought by some but studied rather their content and satisfaction than her own concernments For Baâ—low having wasted the revenue of the Church of Wells could not with any comfort behold a place which he had so spoiled and Scory having been deprived of the See of Chichester under pretence of wanting a just title to it desired not to be put upon the hazard of a second ejction But as for Coverdale he did not only wave the acceptation of Oxon but of any other Church then vacant He was now 72 years old and desired rather to enjoy the pleasure of a private life than be disquieted in his old age with the cares of Government And somewhat might be also in it of a disaffection not to the Calling but the Habit which is to be believed the rather because he attended not at the Consecration in his Cope and Rocher as the others did but in a plain black Coat reaching down to his Ankles And now the rest of the Episcopal Sees begin to fill for on the 21 of the same December Dâ— Edmond Gâ—indall was consecrated to the See of London Dr. Râ—chard Cox to that of Ely Dr. Edwin Sandys to the Church of Worcester Dr. Rowland Merick unto that of Bangor On the 21 of January then next following Dr. Nicholas Bullingham was by the like consecration made Bishop of Lincoln the right learned Mr. John Jewel who afterwards accepted the degree of Doctor Bishop of Sarisbury Dr. Thomas Young Bishop of St. Davids and Mr. Râ—chard Davis Bishop of St. Asaph The 24th of March was honoured with the Consecration of three other Bishops that is to say of Mr. Thomas Bentham to the See of Coventry and Lichfield of Mr. Gilbert Barclay to the See of Wâ—lls and of Dr. Edmund Guest to that of Rochester On the 14th of July comes the consecration of Dr. William Alley to the Church of Exon and that of Mr John Parkhurst to the Church of Norwich on the first of September By which account we find no â—ewer than sixteen Sees to be filled with new Bishops within the compass of the year men of ability in matter of learning and suâ—h as had a good report for the integrity of their lives and conversations Nor was it long before the rest of the Episcopal Sees were supplied with new Pastors as shall be shewn hereafter in due time and place The Queens commission of sarvey had not crossed the Trent which possibly may be the reason why we find no new Bishops in the Province of York and Wâ—nchâ—ster must afford one Michaelmas rent more to the Queens Exchequer before the Lord Treasurer could give way to a new incumbent And now we may behold the face of the Church of England as it was first setled and established under Queen Elizabeth The Government of the Church by Archbishops and Bishops according to the practice of the best and happiest times of Christianity These Bishops nominated and elected according to the Statute in the 26th of King Henry the 8th and consecrated by the Ordinal confirmed by Parliament in the 5th and 6th years of King Edward the 6th never appearing publickly but in their Rochets nor officiating otherwise than in Copes at the Holy Altar The Priests not stirring out of doors but in their square Caps Gowns or Canonical Coats nor executing any divine Office but in their Surplice avestment set apart for Religious services in the Primitive times as may be gathered from St Chrysostome for the Eastern Churches and from St Hierom for the Western The Doctrine of the Church reduced unto its ancient purity according to the Articles agreed upon in Convocation Anno 1552. The Liturgy conform to the Primitive patterns and all the Rites and Ceremonies therein prescribed accommodated to the honour of God and increase of piety The Festivals preserved in their former dignity observed with their distinct Offices peculiar to them and celebrated with a Religious couâ—cuâ—â—â— of all sorts of people the weekly Fasts the holy time of Lent the Embrâ—â—◠〈◊〉 together with the Fast of the Rogation severely kept by a forbearance of all â—ind of flesh not now by vertue of the Statute as in the time oâ— King Edward but as appointed by the Church in her publick Calender before the Book of Common Prayer The Sacrament of the Lords Supper celebrated in most reverend manner the Holy Table seated in the place of the Altar the people making their due reverence at their first entrance into the Church kneeling at the Communion the Confession and the publick Prayers standing up at the Creed the Gospels and the Gloria Patri and using the accustomed reverence at the name of Jesus Musick retained in all such Churches