Serenissimam Catharinam necessario esse faciendum The twelfth and concluding Article is this We think that the pretended Matrimony of Henry King of England and Catharine the Queen hath been and is none at all being prohibited both by the Law of God and Nature CHAP. V. The Arch-Bishop visits his Diocess AFter his Sentence against Q. Katharine and confirmation of Q. Ann's Marriage one thing he did which looked as if he was not like to prove any great Friend to a Reformation For he forbad all Preaching throughout his Diocess and warned the rest of the Bishops throughout England to do the same as I have it from an old Journal made by a Monk of St. Augustine's Canterbury But this was only for a time till Orders for Preachers and the Beads could be finished it being thought convenient that Preaching at this Juncture should be restrained because now the Matter of Sermons chiefly consisted in tossing about the King's Marriage with the Lady Anne and condemning so publickly and boldly his doings against Q. Katharine the Priests being set on work by her Friends and Faction In October or November the Arch-bishop went down to Canterbury in order to a Visitation The third day of December the Arch-bishop received the Pontifical Seat in the Monastery of the Holy Trinity And soon after viz. the Ninth of the same Month began to go on Visitation throughout all his Diocess that he might have finished that Work before the Sessions of the Parliament This same Year a remarkable Delusion was discovered in the Arch-bishop's Diocess and even under his Nose the Scene being chiefly laid in Canterbury by some belonging to the Cathedral Church For a certain Nun called Elizabeth Barton by marvellous Hypocrisy mocked all Kent and almost all England For which Cause she was put in Prison in London Where she confessed many horrible things against the King and the Queen This forenamed Elizabeth had many Adherents but especially Dr. Bocking Monk of Christ's-Church in Canterbury who was her chief Author in her Dissimulation All of them at the last were accused of Treason Heresy and Conspiracy And so stood in Penance before the open Cross of S. Paul's in London and in Canterbury in the Church-yard of the Monastery of the Holy Trinity at the Sermon time they stood over the high Seat where of the Preacher they were grievously rebuked for their horrible Fact And in April the next Year she with Bocking and Dering another Monk of Canterbury were led out of Prison through all the Streets of London unto Tyburn where she and these Monks and also two Brothers of the Minors suffered with the rest upon the Gallows for Treason and Heresy In the Month of November the Arch-bishop sent a Letter to Bonner the King's Ambassador at Marseilles together with his Appeal from the Pope to be there signified as was hinted before The reason whereof was this Upon the King's Divorce from Q. Katharine the Pope had by a publick Instrument declared the Divorce to be null and void and threatned him with Excommunication unless he would revoke all that he had done Gardiner Bishop of Winton about this time and upon this occasion was sent Ambassador to the French King and Bonner soon after followed him to Marseilles Where Gardiner at the interview between the French King and the Pope now was For the King and the Council apprehended some Mischief to be hatching against the Kingdom by the Pope who was now inciting the Emperor and other Princes to make War upon us And indeed he had vaunted as the Ld Herbert declares that he would set all Christendom against the King And the Emperor in discourse had averred that by the means of Scotland he would avenge his Aunt 's Quarrel The Arch-bishop in this Juncture had secret intimation of a Design to excommunicate him and interdict his Church Whereupon as the King by Bonner Novemb 7 had made his Appeal from the Pope to the next General Council lawfully called so by the King and Council's Advice the Arch-bishop soon after did the same sending his Appeal with his Proxy under his Seal to Bonner desiring him together with Gardiner to consult together and to intimate his Appeal in the best manner they could think expedient for him And this Letter he wrote by the King 's own Commandment It was not the Hand of the Arch-bishop nor of his Secretary So I suppose it was drawn up by some of his own Lawyers and is as followeth In my right hearty manner I commend me to you So it is as you know right well I stand in dread lest our Holy Father the Pope do intend to make some manner of prejudicial Process against me and my Church And therefore having probable Conjectures thereof I have appeal'd from his Holiness to the General Council accordingly as his Highness and his Council have advised me to do Which my Appeal and Procuracie under my Seal I do send unto you herewith desiring you right-heartily to have me commended to my Ld of Winchester and with his Advice and Counsel to intimate the said Provocation after the best manner that his Lordship and you shall think most expedient for me I am the bolder thus to write unto you because the King's Highness commandeth me this to do as you shall I trust further perceive by his Grace's Letter Nothing doubting in your Goodness but at this mine own desire you will be contented to take this Pains though his Highness shall percase forget to write unto you therein Which your Pains and Kindness if it shall lie in me in time to come to recompense I wol not forget it with God's Grace Who preserve you as my self From Lambeth the xxvii th day of November Thomas Cantuar. Cranmer being now placed at the Head of the Church of England next under God and the King and the chief care of it devolved upon him his great study was conscientiously to discharge this high Vocation And one of the first things wherein he shewed his good Service to the Church was done in the Parliament in the latter end of this Year 1533. When the Supremacy came under debate and the usurped Power of the Bishop of Rome was propounded then the old Collections of the new Arch-bishop did him good service for the chief and in a manner the whole burden of this weighty Cause was laid upon his Shoulders Insomuch that he was forced to answer to all that ever the whole Rabble of the Papists could say for the defence of the Pope's Supremacy And he answered so plainly directly and truly to all their Arguments and proved so evidently and stoutly both by the Word of God and Consent of the Primitive Church that this usurped Power of the Pope is a meer Tyranny and directly against the Law of God and that the Power of Emperors and Kings is the highest Power here upon Earth Unto which Bishops Priests Popes and Cardinals ought to submit
was at a stand He was translated from this imaginary Bishoprick to be Bishop of Oxford in the Year 1541. One Iohn Hatton had the Title of Episcopus Negropont He was Suffragan under the Arch-bishop of York Iohn Thornden who was several times Commissiary of Oxon while Arch-bishop Warham was Chancellor of that University was stiled Episcopus Syrinensis And hereafter in the progress of this Book we shall meet with a Bishop of Hippolitanum who assisted Arch-bishop Cranmer at his Ordinations These were but Titulary Bishops and the use of them was to supply the Diocesans absence to consecrate Churches and Church-yards and to reconcile them to assist at Ordinations and confer Orders to confirm Children and the like Sometimes these Suffragans had no Titles at all to any place but were Bishops at large Such an one named Richard Martin is met with in an old Register at Canterbury who was Guardian of the Gray-Fryars there By his last Will made 1498 he gave a Library to the Church and Covent He was Parson of Ickham and Vicar of Lyd in Kent and writ himself in the said Will Bishop of the Vniversal Church By which the Antiquarian supposed nothing else was meant but that he was a Bishop in Name endued with Orders but not with Jurisdiction Episcopal having no particular Charge to intend but generally officiating as Bishop in any part of the Christian Church This I have writ that the Reader may not be put to a stand when he shall in these Commentaries meet with some of these Titular Bishops But proceed we now to the Bishops that were this Year Consecrated Diocesan Bishops April the 11 th Nicholas Shaxton was consecrated Bishop of Sarum in the King's Chappel of S. Stephen by our Arch-bishop Iohn Bishop of Lincoln and Christopher Sidoniens assisting Septemb. the 15 th was the Act of Confirmation and Election of Edward Fox Elect of Hereford and of William Barlow Prior of the Priory of Canons Regular of Bisham of the Order of S. Augustin Sarum for the Bishoprick of S. Asaph The Consecration of these two last are not inserted in the Register March the 18 th the Act of Confirmation and Election of George Brown D. D. Provincial of the Order of Friars Augustin in the City of London for the Arch-bishoprick of Dublin Consecrated March the 19 th by the Arch-bishop at Lambeth Nicholas Bishop of Sarum and Iohn Bishop of Rochester assisting Of this last-mentioned Bishop I shall take some further notice having been the first Protestant Bishop in Ireland as Cranmer was in England a great furtherer of the Reformation in that Land being a stirring Man and of good Parts and Confidence He was first taken notice of by Crumwel Lord Privy Seal and by his sole means preferred to this Dignity in the Church of Ireland upon the observation that was taken of him when he was Provincial of the Augustin Order in England advising all People to make their Application only to Christ and not to Saints Whereby he was recommended unto K. Henry who much favoured him When the King's Supremacy was to be brought in and recognized in Ireland which was the same Year wherein he was made Arch-bishop he was appointed one of the King's Commissioners for the procuring the Nobility Gentry and Clergy to reject the Pope and to own the King for Supream Head of the Church In which Commission he acted with that diligence that it was to the hazard of his Life such opposition was made to it in that Realm At which time in an Assembly of the Clergy George Dowdal Arch-bishop of Ardmagh made a Speech to them and laid a Curse upon those whosoever they were that should own the King's Supremacy Within five Years after this this Arch-bishop Brown caused all Superstitious Relicks and Images to be removed out of the two Cathedrals in Dublin and out of the rest of the Churches in his Diocess and ordered the Ten Commandments the Lord's Prayer and the Creed to be set up in Frames above the Altar in Christ's-Church Dublin In K. Edward VI. his Reign he received the English Common-Prayer-Book into that Realm upon the King's Proclamation for that purpose after much opposition by Dowdal And it was read in Christ's-Church Dublin on Easter Day 1551. He preached also a Sermon in Christ's-Church for having the Scripture in the Mother-Tongue and against Image-worship And for this his forwardness and conformity in Religion and the perverseness of the other Arch-bishop of Ardmagh who had violently resisted all good Proceedings the Title of Primacy was taken from him and conferred upon the Arch-bishop of Dublin And Dowdal was banished or as others say voluntarily left his Bishoprick And then Goodacre sent from England with Bale for the See of Ossory succeeded In Q. Mary's days Dowdal was restored and being a great Man in this Reign expulsed Archbishop Brown from his See for being a married Man Who two or three Years after was succeeded by Hugh Corwin a Complier in all Reigns and Brown soon after died Suffragan Bishops The first of these standing in the Register of the Arch-bishop was the Suffragan of the See of Ipswich The Bishop of Norwich according to the direction of the late Act wherein the Bishop was to nominate two for Suffragan to the King and the King was to name one of them to the Arch-bishop to receive Consecration humbly signified to the King that he was destitute of the Aid of a Suffragan and so prayed him to appoint either George Abbot of the Monastery of S. Mary's of Leyston or Thomas Mannyng Prior of the Monastery of S. Mary's of Butley to be his Suffragan without mentioning for what place And on the 7 th of March in the 27 th of his Reign he sent to the Arch-bishop to make the latter Suffragan of Gipwich Who was accordingly consecrated by the Arch-bishop and invested in insigniis Episcopalibus Nicholas Bishop of Sarum and Iohn Bishop of Rochester assisting The Date not specified but probably on the same Day with the Consecration following there being the same Assistants The said Bishop of Norwich sent to the King recommending to him to be Suffragan Thomas de Castleacre of the Cluniac Order and Iohn Salisbury Prior of S. Faiths of Horsham of the Order of S. Benet both Priors of Monasteries in Norwich Diocess The King sent to the Arch-bishop to consecrate Iohn the Prior of S. Faiths for Suffragan of Thetford Accordingly he consecrated him March the 19 th Nicholas Bishop of Sarum and Iohn Bishop of Rochester assisting CHAP. X. The Audience Court THE good Arch-bishop almost every Year met with new Opposition from the Popish Clergy The late Act for abolishing the Pope's Authority and some Acts before that for restraining of Applications to Rome served them now as a Colour to strike at one of the Arch-bishop's Courts viz. that of the Audience a Court which the Arch-bishops used to hold in
their Clients Causes It was urged also that it was a great discouragement to young Men in studying the Law when there is so little prospect of Benefit thereby Lastly That it was contrary to the Civil and Canon Law that permits any Man to be Proctor for another a few excepted But this Paper notably enough written may be read at large in the Appendix And so I leave the Reader to judg of the Expediency of this Order of the Arch-bishop by weighing the Arch-bishop's Reasons with these last mentioned Surely this his Act deserved commendation for his good Intentions thereby though some lesser Inconveniences attended which no doubt he had also well considered before he proceeded to do what he did When Queen Ann on May the 2 d was sent to the Tower by a sudden Jealousy of the King her Husband The next day the Arch-bishop extreamly troubled at it struck in with many good Words with the King on her behalf in form of a Letter of Consolation to him yet wisely making no Apology for her but acknowledging how divers of the Lords had told him of certain of her Faults which he said he was sorry to hear And concluded desiring that the King would however continue his Love to the Gospel lest it should be thought that it was for her sake only that he had favoured it Being in the Tower there arose up new Matter against Queen Ann namely concerning some lawful Impediment of her Marriage with the King and that was thought to be a Pre-Contract between her and the Earl of Northumberland Whereupon the Arch-bishops of Canterbury and York were made Commissioners to examine this Matter And she being before the Arch-bishop of Canterbury confessed certain just true and lawful Impediments as the Act in the 26 of Hen. VIII expresseth it but not mentioning what they were So that by that Act the said Marriage is declared never to have been good nor consonant to the Laws Yet the Earl of Northumberland being examined upon Oath before both the Arch-bishops denied it Upon the Truth of which he received also the Blessed Sacrament And the Lord Herbert saw an Original Letter to Secretary Crumwel to the same import But her Confession of it so far prevailed with the King that he would be divorced from her and with our Arch-bishop that he performed it by due Order and Process of Law And an Act passed that the Marriage between the King and Queen Ann was null and void and the Issue illegitimate The Arch-bishop granted a Licence dated Iuly the 24 th with the full Consent of Richard Withipol Vicar of Walthamstow in Essex to George Monoux Alderman of London and Thomas his Son to have the Sacrament administred in his Chappel or Oratory in his House De Moones now a Farm near Higham-hill in the said Parish of VValthamstow Indulging therein to the Wife of the said Thomas to be purified or churched in the same Chappel I the rather mention this that it may serve to recal the Memory of that pious and charitable Citizen and Draper Sir Geo. Monoux who built the fair Steeple of that Parish-Church and allowed a Salary for ever for ringing the great Bell at a certain Hour in the Night and Morning the Winter half Year He built also the North Isle of the said Church in the Glass-windows whereof is yet remaining his Coat of Arms. In the Chancel his Body was interred under a fair Altar-Monument yet standing In the Church-yard he founded an Hospital and Free-School and very liberally endowed it though now the Endowments are sadly diminished He also made a Causeway over Walthamstow-Marsh to Lockbridg over the River Lee for the conveniency of Travellers from those Parts to London and left wherewith to continue and keep it in Repair but that also is lost and the Ruins now only to be seen But enough of that The Germans conceived great hope of good to befal the Church by Cranmer's Influence and Presidency in England and took their opportunities of addressing to him This Year Martin Bucer published a large Book in Folio upon the Epistle to the Romans intituled Metaphrasis Enâ—rratio and dedicated it in a long Epistle to the Arch-bishop Wherein are sundry Expressions which will shew how well known abroad the Arch-bishop was already among the Protestants and what an excellent Bishop they looked upon him to be and how fixed their Eyes were upon him for doing great things towards a Reformation in England For thus he writ in this Epistle Te omnes praedicant animo praeditum Archiepiscopo tanti sicque ad gloriam Christi comparati regni Primate digno c. That all Men proclaimed him endowed with a Mind worthy of an Arch-bishop and Primate of so great a Kingdom and so disposed to the Glory of Christ. That he had so attained to this high Estate in Christ by his spiritual Wisdom Holiness of Life and most ardent Zeal to render Christ's Glory more illustrious that gathering together the Humble and taking pity upon the Sheepfold being indeed dispersed and scattered abroad he always sought and saved that which was lost and brought back Christ's poor Sheep to his Fold and the Pastures of everlasting Life when they had been before most miserably harassed by the Servants of Superstition and the Emissaries of the Roman Tyranny And after speaking of the King 's rooting out the Usurpation of the Pope and his pretended Jurisdiction by taking to himself the Supremacy the said Learned Man excited Cranmer to a further Reformation by telling him How easy now it would be for him and the other Arch-bishops and Bishops who were endued with the Spirit and Zeal of Christ from the remainders of the Ecclesiastical Administration to retain what might contribute to the true edifying of Consciences the saving Instruction of Youth and to the just Discipline and Polity of the whole Christian People For when the Enemies were once removed out of the way there could not then happen among us any extraordinary great Concussion of Religion and Ecclesiastical Discipline or any dashing one against another as among them in Germany of necessity came to pass striving so many Years for the Church of Christ against such obstinate Enemies The Consecrations this Year were these Diocesan Bishops Iune the 10 th Richard Sampson Doctor of Decrees and Dean of the King's Chappel was elected and confirmed Bishop of Chichester by Resignation of Robert Sherburn who was now very old No Consecration set down in the Register Iune William Rugg a Monk was consecrated Bishop of Norwich This is omitted also if I mistake not in the Register Probably he was consecrated with Sampson Iuly the 2 d Robert Warton Abbot of Bermondsey was consecrated Bishop of S. Asaph at Lambeth by the Arch-bishop Iohn Bishop of Bangor and William Bishop of Norwich assisting Suffragan Bishops Octob. 20. William More B. D. consecrated Suffragan of Colchester by Iohn Bishop of
so much that the Bishops and Priests grew for this Cause as well as for their Cruelty into great dislike with the People This more at large is shewed in a short Manuscript Treatise I have made by a certain Person nameless imprisoned for Religion intitled thus All sorts of People of England have just Cause of displeasure against the Bishops and Priests of the same There was this Year April 2 a new Parliament that the last Year being dissolved Great was the Sadness that now possessed the Hearts of the English Nation even of Papists themselves the most considerate and wisest part of them seeing the great Slavery the Kingdom was like to be ensnared in by what the Parliament was now in doing that is to say restoring the Pope's Tyranny here in England that had been so long and happily cast out and allowing the Queen's matching with Prince Philip whereby a Spaniard should become King of England Which when P. Martyr had signified in a Letter from Strasburgh to Calvin May 8 he told him Tanta est rerum perturbatio ut nullo pacto explicari queat That it could not be told what a Disturbance there now was and that all good Men that could fled away from their own Country from all Parts of the Land Mentioning three noble Knights to be come lately to Strasburg not less famous for Piety then Learning Morisin Cheke and Cook At this Parliament wherein the Mass was set up and confirmed by an Act all that were suspected to favour the Truth were turned out of the House Which made Hoper out of Prison in one of his Letters write Doubtless there had not been seen before our Time such a Parliament as this that as many as were suspected to be Favourers of God's Word should be banished out of both Houses In this Parliament a strong and certain Report went that the bloody Act of the Six Articles should be revived and put in execution This created abundance of Terror in Mens Hearts There was nothing but Sighs and Lamentations every where and a great many were already fled out of the Realm unto whom this Rumor had reached Iohn Fox a Learned and Pious Man who had an excellent pathetick Stile was now set on work Who took his Pen in his Hand and in the Name of the Protestant Exiles wrote a most earnest expostulatory Letter to the Parliament to disswade them from restoring this Law again He told them they had a Queen who as She was most Noble so She was ready to listen to sound and wholesome Counsel And that they had a Lord Chancellor that as he was Learned so of his own Nature he was not Bad were it not for the Counsels of some But that as among Animals some there were that were born to create Trouble and Destruction to the other so there were among Mankind some by Nature cruel and destructive some to the Church and some to the State The Letter is worthy the Reading Which I have therefore placed in the Appendix as I transcribed it out of a Manuscript Collection of Fox's Letters There was indeed such a Design in the House of Commons of bringing again into force that Act of the Six Articles but whether it were by the importunity of this and other Petitions or that the Court thought it not convenient so much to countenance any of K. Henry's Acts this Business fell And this Parliament was short-liv'd for in May it was dissolved by reason of a Bill for confirming Abby-Lands to the present Possessors which it seems gave offence to the Court. CHAP. X. Arch-bishop Cranmer disputes at Oxon. A Convocation of the Clergy now met in S. Paul's but was adjourned the Prolocutor Dr. Weston Dean of Westminster and some other of the Members being sent to Oxon and it was generally thought the Parliament would remove thither too to dispute certain Points of Religion in Controversy with three of the Heads of the Protestant Party Arch-bishop Cranmer Bishop Ridley and old Father Latimer now all Prisoners Who for that purpose in the Month of April were removed from the Tower by the Queen's Warrant to the Lieutenant towards Windsor and there taken into Custody of Sir Iohn afterwards Lord Williams who conveyed them to Oxford there to remain in order to a Disputation The Convocation while they sat at London agreed upon the Questions to be disputed and they resolved that these three pious Men should be baited by both the Universities and therefore that they of Cambridg should be excited to repair to Oxford and engage in this Disputation also The Questions were these I. In Sacramento Altaris virtute verbi divini a Sacerdote prolati praesens est realiter sub speciebus panis vini naturale corpus Christi conceptum de virgine Maria item naturalis ejus sanguis II. Post consecrationem non remanet substantia panis vini neque alia ulla substantia nisi substantia Christi Dei Hominis III. In Missa est vivisicum Ecclesiae Sacrificium pro peccatis tam vivorum quam mortuorum propitiabile These Questions the Convocation sent to the University of Cambridg requiring them seriously to weigh and deliberate upon them and if they contained true Doctrine then to approve of them Accordingly the Senate of that University met and after due deliberation found them agreeable in all things to the Catholick Church and the Scripture and the antient Doctrine taught by the Fathers and so did confirm and ratify them in their said Senate And because Cranmer Ridley and Latimer the Heads of the Hereticks that held contrary to these Articles were formerly Members of their University and being to be disputed withal at Oxford concerning these Points they decreed in the Name of all the University to send seven of their Learned Doctors to Oxford to take their parts in disputing with them and to use all ways possible to reclaim them to the Orthodox Doctrine again And accordingly the said Senate April 10. made a publick Instrument to authorize them in their Names to go to Oxford and dispute Which Instrument may be seen in the Appendix They also wrote a Letter the same Date to the University of Oxford to signify that they had appointed those Persons to repair unto them not so much to dispute Points so professedly Orthodox and agreeable to the Fathers and General Councils and the Word of God as to defend those Truths in their Names and reduce those Patrons of false and corrupt Doctrine if possible unto a sound Mind This Letter is also in the Appendix So that this coming of the Cambridg-Divines to Oxford was to seem a voluntary thing to shew their Zeal for Popery and vindication of their University against liking or approbation of Cranmer and his two Fellow-Prisoners So roundly was the University already come about to the old forsaken Religion This Oxford-Disputation was after this manner Hugh Weston S.T.P. Prolocutor of the
Willelmus Episcopus Landavensis Bishop of Landaff whose Title of Landavensis the Ignorance or Mistake of the Scribe changed into Navatensis By a like mistake very frequent in our Ancient Records the Bishop of Lincoln Lincolniensis is corruptly stiled Nicoliensis Page 37. line 6. Iohn Thornden who was often Commissary of Oxon while Archbishop Warham was Chancellor of that University was stiled Episcopus Syrinensis His Name was Iohn Thornton Many years after him Richard Thornden was Suffragan Bishop in the Diocess of Canterbury In Thornton endeth the Catalogue of Suffragan Bishops which you could find Consecrated before the time of Archbishop Cranmer being in all seven If it pleaseth God to permit me to to finish my Angliâ— Sacra I shall exhibit a perfect Succession of Suffragan Bishops in almost all the Diocesses of England for about Two hundred years before the Reformation Ibid. line 8. And hereafter we shall meet with a Bishop of Hippolitanum who assisted Archbishop Cranmer at his Ordinations It will be hard to find such a City as Hyppolitanum in the world We had in England many Suffragan Bishops who successively assumed the Title of Bishops of Hippo the See of the Great St. Austin These were wont to stile themselves Hipponenses but some of them not being so good Grammarians took the Stile of Ypolitanenses and Hippolitanenses which latter Appellation might give occasion to the mistake concerning a Bishop of Hippolitanum Page 38. line 3. ab imo The King sent to the Archbishop to make Thomas Mannyng Suffragan of Gipwich who was accordingly Consecrated by the Archbishop This Gipwich is no other than Ipswich the chief Town of Suffolk in Latin called Gipâ—svicum and Gipwicum from which place Mannyng at his Prâ—motion to the Office of a Suffragan Bishop took his Title Page 41. line 3. This choice Treasure the Original Book containing the Subscription of the Members of the Convocation to certain Articles of Religion Sir Robert Cotton afterwards procured And at the bottom of the first Page is written Robertus Cotton Bruceâ—s by Sir Robert's own hand signifying his Value of this Monument Sir Robert did not by that Subscription of his Name testify any extraordinary Value of this Volume for he wrote the same words at the bottom of the first Page of all or almost all the Manuscript Volumes of his Library Page 50. line 26. Iune Anno 1536. William Rugg was Consecrated Bishop of Norwich His Consecration is omitted in the Register Probably he was consecrated with Sampson Bishop of Chicâ—ester who was Confirmed Iune 10 th Rugg could not be Consecrated in Iune for he was not Confirmed till the 28 th of that Month and the first Sunday after that day was Iuly 2 d. Bishops were wont to be Consecrated on the next Sunday after their Confirmation So that it is most likely Sampson was Consecrated Iune 11 th and Rugg together with Warton of St. Asaph on Iuly 2 d. Page 61. line 18. ab imo Iune 24. Anno 1537. Iohn Bird was Consecrated Suffragan of the See of Penrith in Landaff Diocess and Lewis Thomas Suffragan Bishop of the See of Salop. It should have been said that Bird was Consecrated Suffragan of the Diocess of Landaff with the Title of Bishop of Penrith Bishop of Shrewsbury not Salop for Penrith is no more in Landaff Diocess than Shrewsbury is in that of St. Asaph But it may be observed That in the first Act of Parliament made in this Reign touching Suffragan Bishops certain Titles were appointed to which the said Suffragans should be Consecrated taken from several of the chief Towns in England but it was not required that the Suffragan of any particular Diocess should take his Title from some Town in that Diocess but was left at liberty to take it from any Town mentioned in that Act. Which was accordingly practised indifferently till the Promulgation of the second Act concerning Suffragans Ibid. line 2. It was now forbidden by the Parliament that the Feast of St. Thomas a Becket the pretended Martyr should be celebrated any more He is also stiled Thomas a Becket Page 70. line 21. 28. Page 92. line 4. c. This is a small Error but being so often repeated deserveth to be observed and corrected The Name of that Archbishop was Thomas Becket nor can it otherwise be found to have been written in any Authentick History Record Kalendar or other Book If the Vulgar did formerly as it doth now call him Thomas a Becket their Mistake is not to be followed by Learned men Page 62. line 8. The Reason why Archbishop Cranmer all this while that is from the first making the Act concerning Suffragans in the year 1534 to this time 1537. had nominated none for Suffragan to this See Dover till now when he nominated and consecrated Richard Yngworth in December might be because there seemed to be a Suffragan already even the same that had been in the time of Archbishop Warham namely Iohn Thornton Prior of Dover who was one of the Witnesses appointed by that Archbishop to certify what was found and seen at the opening of St. Dunstan's Tomb. Richard Thornden seems to have succeeded Yngworth in this Office St. Dunstan's Tomb was opened in April 1508 and Thornden died not till the last year of Queen Mary So that if to Thernton succeeded Yngworth and to Yngworth succeeded Thornden there will be no room for any of those three Bishops of Sidon who were before in this History pag. 36. said to have assisted the Archbishops Warham and Cranmer in the Quality of Suffragan Bishops For the very first of them Thomas Wellys was Suffragan Bishop after the year 1508. I know not when he was made Suffragan or when he died but I am certain that he survived the year 1511. As for Christopher and the other Thomas Bishops of Sidon they indeed were not the peculiar Suffragans of the Archbishops of Canterbury as I before said Page 63. line 28. March 24. 1537. Henry Holbeach was Consecrated Suffragan Bishop of Bristow in the Bishop of London's Chappel in the said Bishop's House scituate in Lambeth-Marsh by the said Bishop c. The Bishops of London never had any House scituate in Lambeth-Marsh but the Bishops of Rochester at that time had which House was soon after conveyed from the See of Rochester to the Crown and afterwards from the Crown by exchange to the See of Carlisle to which it now belongeth Page 86. line 22. ab imo In this Consecration of Bonner Bishop of London Anno 1540. the Prior and Chapter of Canterbury insisted it seems upon an Ancient Privilege of their Church which I do not find in this Register that of Archbishop Cranmer they had at other Consecrations done namely that the Consecration should be celebrated at the Church of Canterbury and at no other Church or Oratory without their allowance And so in a formal Instrument they gave their License and Consent The renewing of this their old pretended Privilege looked
Chair tho with as much Reluctancy in You as was in Him Of Your GRACE'S Endowments to qualify You for this most Eminent Station I will be wholly silent knowing how abhorrent Your Generous Nature is from Reading or Hearing Your Own Commendations Nor MY LORD is this my End in this my Dedication But this it is That You would so far Encourage these my Weak and Imperfect Labours done out of a Good Intent as to cast a Favourable Eye upon them for the sake of Your Glorious Predecessor the Subject of this Book and to repute me among the Number May it please Your GRACE Of Your most Humble and most Obedient Servants JOHN STRYPE THE PREFACE I Think it fit by way of Preface to these Memorials to admonish the Reader of a few things preparatory to the Perusal thereof As What it was put me at first upon making these Collections concerning Archbishop Cranmer and the State of the Church in his time What induced me to make them Publick And What Credit may be given to them with some other occasional matters I. As to the first I have been for a long time not a little addicted to read whatsoever I could of the Reformation of this famous Church that I might truly understand for what Reasons it was at first attempted in what Methods it proceeded by what Men it was chiefly managed and carried on and how it stood in truth as to its Doctrine Discipline and Government Reputation Learning Piety and such like in its first Establishment and the Earlier Times of it For which purpose I did not only read over what we have in Print of these Matters but for more satisfaction I was carried on to look into MSS. whether Registers Records Letters Instruments and such like A great sort of which by Providence fell into my hands And besides them I have turned over many more in Libraries and elsewhere from whence I made Transcriptions Extracts and Collections for my own use and satisfaction which swelled to no little bulk And while I was doing this I took always a more curious View into the Lives Manners and Doings Learning Virtues and Abilities of the chief leading men whether Archbishops and Bishops or other Church-men of whom we have but little Account extant tho many of them very Great and Good men little more remaining of some of them than their Names The Reverence I bore in my mind to Archbishop Cranmer the Father of the Reformation here in England and the first of that Ancient Metropolitan See that so bravely shook off the Pope and his Appendages inclined me especially to gather up what Notices I could of him Afterwards as my leisure served me out of my indigested Mass of Notes I compiled into some order Memorials of him and of the Affairs of the Church during his Primacy in which he for the most part was concerned and bore a great share with K. Henry and the Lord Cromwel his Vicegerent in Spirituals After some Years these Memorials lying by me I enlarged considerably and digested them into Annals and had thoughts of making them Publick being excited and encouraged thereunto by my Friends who were privy to these my Doings II. And indeed many Considerations induced me hereunto As in general the great Benefit of reading Histories of former Times which what that is take in the Words of Iohn Fox For the things which be first are to be preferred before those which be later And then is the reading of Histories much necessary in the Church to know what went before and what followed after And therefore not without cause History in old Authors is called The Witness of Times the Light of Verity the Life of Memory the Teacher of Life and Shewer of Antiquity Without the knowledge whereof man's Life is blind and soon may fall into any kind of Error as by manifest experience we have to see in these desolate later Times of the Church whenas the Bishops of Rome under colour of Antiquity have turned Truth into Heresy and brought in such new-found Devices of strange Doctrine and Religion as in the former Ages of the Church were never heard of And all through Ignorance of Times and for lack of True History And therefore the Use of History being so considerable Historians in some Kingdoms have been maintained by Publick Encouragement And so the Writer of the Epistle to K. Edward before Erasmus's Paraphrase Englished propounded once to that King That there should be a Publick Salary allotted to some able Persons to Translate good Books and to Write Chronicles for bestowing so great a Benefit on the Commonwealth But particularly the History of the Church and matters relating to Religion have a more special benefit as being conversant about Spiritual things which are weightier by far and concern us more a great deal than Temporal But the more is the pity in this sort of History there is a greater Defect than in the other I speak of our own Nation for tho the History of the State in the last Age was excellently done by the Pens of the Lord Herbert and Mr. Cambden yet the Matters of the Church they professedly declined or did but touch at the former saying expresly His intention was not in an History to discuss Theological Matters as holding it sufficient to have pointed at the places where they are controverted And the latter in his History as often as he came to matters of the Church tells us That he left his Readers to the Ecclesiastical Historian Which hath made me wonder at and apt to accuse the Slothfulness of that Age that during all the time of K. Henry K. Edward and Q. Mary wherein Religion was so tossed about and took up so much of those Reigns there is no one Ecclesiastical History thereof written except that of the diligent and learned Mr. Fox and during the long Reign of Q. Elizabeth and K. Iames I think none at all Till of late years when by length of time and destruction of many Original MSS. by the Civil Wars divers remarkable Transactions were buried and lost some few Learned Men employed themselves in Collecting and Publishing what Memorials of Religion and the Church they could retrieve as namely Dr. Fuller Dr. Heylin and especially Dr. Burnet now the Right Reverend Bishop of Sarum to whom the English Church must be ever beholden for his great and happy Pains contributed hereunto But yet there be good Gleanings after these Writers and many things of remark there are relating to the Church in those Three busie Reigns of Henry Edward and Mary whereof these Historians are either wholly silent or speak imperfectly or erroneously Some whereof in my Searches I have met with which I have disposed in these Memorials But besides the General Benefit of History especially Ecclesiastical this Particular History now recommended unto the English Nation may produce this good effect To make us value and esteem as we ought our Reformed Religion when we see by
Angliae quam quivis externus Episcopus That is That the Bishop of Rome hath not some greater Iurisdiction conferred upon him by God in this Realm of England than any other Foreign Bishop This was consented to by the Prior's own Hand subscribed and sixty nine of the Convent besides The Original whereof is in a Volume of the Cotton Library In another place of the same Volume is extant the Subscription of the Bishops Deans and several Abbots and after that of the University of Oxford and all the particular Colleges and after that the Names of all the subscribing Priors of England The Arch-bishop was one employed about the Act of Succession that was made the last Sessions of Parliament which was to invest the Succession to the Crown upon the Heirs of Q. Ann and that Q. Katharine should be no more called Queen but Princess Dowager In the Preamble to the Act there were certain Touches against the Pope's Supremacy and against his Power of dispensing in the King 's former Marriage with his Brother's Wife carnally known by him To this Act all Persons were to swear to accept and maintain the same upon pain of Treason The Arch-bishop of Canterbury the Ld Chancellor Audley Secretary Crumwel the Abbot of Westminster and others were the King's Commissioners appointed to tender this Oath The Nobility and Gentry took it none denying to which they set their Hands in a long List. On the 13 th of April the Commissioners sat at Lambeth to receive the Oaths of the Clergy and chiefly those of London that had not yet sworn who all took it not one excepted And a certain Doctor Vicar of Croyden that it seems made some boggle before went up with the rest of whom Sir Thomas More who then stood by made an Observation how as he past he went to my Lord 's Buttery-hatch and called for Drink and drank valde familiariter whether saith he sarcastically it were for Gladness or Driness or Quod ille notus erat Pontifici The Oath also now was taken by Dr. Wylson a great Court-Divine in those Days who for Queen Katharine's Business was a Prisoner at this time though a great while he was unsatisfied and consulted much with Sir Thomas More about the Lawfulness of taking it The same Day were conveyed hither from the Tower Bishop Fisher and Sir Thomas More the only Layman at this Meeting to tender this Oath to them Who both being separately called refused it After the Clergy were sworn and dispatched immediately Sir Thomas by himself was sent for the second time Now he had much talk with the Lords who would fain have brought him to comply They urged him to declare the Causes why he would not Swear But he excused his so doing Then they charged him with Obstinacy He said it was not Obstinacy but because he might not declare his Mind without peril of incurring the King's further Displeasure He told the Commissioners that for his part he condemned not the Consciences of any but that he was dissatisfied in his own Conscience for certain Reasons The Arch-bishop taking hold of this spake to him thus That it appeared well that Sir Thomas did not take it for a very sure thing and a certain that he might not lawfully swear but rather as a thing uncertain and doubtful But you know said my Lord for a certainty and for a thing without doubt that you be bound to obey your Soveraign Lord the King And therefore are you bound to leave off the doubt of your unsure Conscience in refusing the Oath and take the sure way in obeying of your Prince who commands you to Swear This Argument as Sir Thomas confessed in one of his Letters to his Daughter Roper seemed so subtil and with such Authority coming out of so Noble a Prelate's Mouth that he could answer again nothing thereto but only that he thought with himself that he might not so do because that in his Conscience this was one of the Causes in which he was bounden that he should not obey his Prince sith that whatsoever other Folks thought in the Matter whose Conscience or Learning as he said he would not condemn or take upon him to judg yet in his Conscience the Truth seemed on the other Side wherein he had informed his Conscience neither suddenly nor slightly but by long leisure and diligent search for the Matter In fine the farthest Sir Thomas could be brought and which he offered voluntarily that Morning was to swear to the Succession which was the main Design of the Act though not to the Preamble At parting the Lord Chancellor bad the Secretary before More take notice that More denied not but was content to swear the Succession More assented and said in that Point he would be contented so that he might see the Oath so framed as might stand with his Conscience Fisher Bishop of Rochester offered the same before this Assembly that More had done and in a Letter of his afterwards writ to the Secretary assigned the Reason why he could with a good Conscience swear to the Succession viz. because he doubted not but that the Prince of a Realm with the Assent of the Nobles and Commons might appoint his Successors according as he pleased In the Appendix this Letter will be found which Bishop Fisher writ upon occasion of the Secretary's Advice who laboured to gain him that he should write to the King to declare his Mind to him in swearing to the Succession and to petition him to let that suffice because his Conscience could not consent to the rest of the Act. The Secretary also had sent unto Fisher lying in the Tower Lee Bishop Elect of Lichfield and Coventry to whom he declared again that he would take the Oath to the Succession and moreover that he would swear never to meddle more in Disputation of the Matrimony and promised all Allegiance to the King But he told Lee his Conscience could not be convinced that the Marriage was against the Law of God because of a Prohibition in the Levitical Law See Lee's Letter in the Appendix to Secretary Crumwel The Arch-bishop soon after that meeting of the Commissioners at Lambeth retired to Croydon And being a Man not kind to his own Party and Perswasion only and fierce and bloody-minded to them that differed from him but compassionate towards all Friend and Foe his tender Spirit suggested to him to make this serve for an Occasion to intercede for More and Fisher to Crumwel shewing him in a Letter dated April the 17 th how adviseable in his Judgment it would be to be satisfied with that Oath they had offered to swear in case they would swear to maintain the said Succession against all Power and Potentates Urging to him that there would be these Advantages gained thereby First That it would be a means to satisfy the Consciences of the Princess Dowager and the Lady Mary who it seems made
Irenicum published by him from a Manuscript Volume once belonging to Arch-bishop Cranmer In this Convocation the Arch-bishop bore the great Sway and what things were agitated herein were chiefly by his Motion and Direction Some whereof were turned into Laws by the Parliament that was now sitting through his Activeness and Influence As particularly that Repeal of the Statute of the Six Articles and of some other severe Laws decreeing divers things Treason and Felony made in the former King's Reign For when the Arch-bishop in the Convocation had made a Speech to the Clergy exhorting them to give themselves to the study of the Scriptures and to consider what Things in the Church needed Reformation that so the Church might be discharged of all Popish Trash not yet thrown out Some told him that as long as the Six Articles remained it was not safe for them to deliver their Opinions This he reported to the Council Upon which they ordered this Act of Repeal By his means also another great thing moved in the Convocation was now ratified and made a Law by this Parliament which was for the Administration of the Communion under both Kinds throughout the Kingdom of England and Ireland And upon this the King appointed certain Grave and Learned Bishops and others to assemble at Windsor-Castle there to treat and confer together and to conclude upon and set forth one perfect and uniform Order of Communion according to the Rules of Scripture and the Use of the Primitive Church And this being framed it was enjoined to be used throughout the Realm by a Proclamation and all required to receive it with due Reverence I meet with a Writing of the Arch-bishop without Date consisting of Queries concerning the Mass in order to the abolishing it and changing it into a Communion Which I know not where so well to place as here now the Convocation was employed upon this Matter For it seems to have been drawn up by the Arch-bishop on purpose to be laid before the Consideration of this House The Queries were these What or wherein Iohn Fasting giving Alms being Baptized or receiving the Sacrament of the Altar in England doth profit and avail Thomas dwelling in Italy and not knowing what Iohn in England doth Whether it profit them that be in Heaven and wherein Whether it lieth in the Faster Giver of Alms Receiver of the Sacrament him that is Baptized to defraud any Member of Christ's Body of the Benefit of Fasting Alms-Deeds Baptism or Receiving of the Sacrament and to apply the same Benefit to one Person more than to another What thing is the Presentation of the Body and Blood of Christ in the Mass which you call the Oblation and Sacrifice of Christ And wherein standeth it in Act Gesture or Word and in what Act Gesture or Word Is there any Rite or Prayer and expressed in the Scripture which Christ used or commanded at the first Institution of the Mass which we be now bound to use and what the same be Whether in the Primitive Church there were any Priests that lived by saying of Mass Mattens and Even-song and praying for Souls only And where any such State of Priesthood be allowed in the Scriptures or be meet to be allowed now For what Cause were it not expedient nor convenient to have the whole Mass in the English Tongue Wherein consisteth the Mass by Christ's Institution What Time the accustomed Order began first in the Church that the Priests alone should receive the Sacrament Whether it be convenient that the same Custom continue still within this Realm Whether it be convenient that Masses Satisfactory should continue that is to say Priests hired to sing for Souls departed Whether the Gospel ought to be taught at the Time of the Mass to the understanding of the People being present Whether in the Mass it were convenient to use such Speech as the People may understand To proceed to some other Things wherein our Arch-bishop was this Year concerned In Iune the Church of S. Pauls was hanged with Black and a sumptuous Hearse set up in the Choire and a Dirige there sung for the French King who deceased the March precedent And on the next Day the Arch-bishop assisted with eight Bishops more all in rich Mitres and their other Pontificals did sing a Mass of Requiem and the Bishop of Rochester preached a Funeral Sermon A nice Matter was now put by the Council to the Arch-bishop having some other Bishops and Learned Men joined with him to the Number of Ten. The Case was Whether a Man divorced from his Wife for her Adultery might not lawfully marry again This was propounded upon the Account of a great Man in those Times namely the Brother of Queen Katherine Par Marquess of Northampton who had gotten a Divorce from his Wife the Daughter of Bourchier Earl of Essex for Adultery The Canon Law would not allow marrying again upon a Divorce making Divorce to be only a Separation from Bed and Board and not a Dissolving the Knot of Marriage This was a great Question depending among the Civilians And it being committed to the Determination of our Arch-bishop and some other Delegates tho the Marquess staid not for their Resolution but in this Interval married Elizabeth Daughter of the Lord Brook he searched so diligently into the Scriptures first and then into the Opinions of Fathers and Doctors that his Collections swelled into a Volume yet remaining in the Hands of a Learned Bishop of this Realm The Sum whereof is digested by the Bishop of Saâ—â—m Cranmer seemed to allow of Marriage in the Innocent Person He was a Means also to the Council of forbidding Processions Wherein the People carried Candles on Candlemass-day Ashes on Ash-wednesday Palms on Palm-sunday because he saw they were used so much to Superstition and looked like Festivals to the Heathen Gods So that this Year on Candlemass-day the old Custom of bearing Candles in the Church and on Ash-wednesday following giving Ashes in the Church was left off through the whole City of London He was a Member of a Committee this Winter appointed to examine all the Offices of the Church and to consider where they needed Reformation and accordingly to reform them Of this Commission were most of the Bishops and several others of the most Learned Divines in the Nation And a new Office for the Communion was by them prepared and by Authority set forth as was observed before and received all over England CHAP. V. The Arch-bishop's Catechism THIS Year the Arch-bishop put forth a very useful Catechism intituled A short Instruction to Christian Religion for the singular Profit of Children and young People This Catechism went not by way of Question and Answer but contained an easy Exposition of the Ten Commandments the Creed the Lord's Prayer and the two Sacraments The first and second Commandments were put together as one and the whole recital
because by this means all hope of ripe and compleated Learning was immaturely cut off in the very Bud and also all the Expectations of the poorer sort whose whole Time was spent in good Studies was eluded by these Drones occupying those Places and Preferments which more properly belonged unto them For Parts Learning Poverty and Election were of no strength at Home where Favour and Countenance and the Letters of Noblemen and such-like extraordinary and illegal Courses from Abroad bore all the Sway. CHAP. VII Dr. Smith and others recant AND now before I conclude this Year let me pass from more publick Matters and present the Reader with two or three Passages wherein the Arch-bishop had to do with private Men. May the 15 th Richard Smith D. D. Master of Whittington College and Reader of Divinity in Oxford a hot turbulent Man made his Recantation at Pauls Cross convinced and moved thereunto by the Pains of the Arch-bishop What his Errors were that he had publickly vented in the University and in his Writings may be known by the words of his Recantation which were these I do confess and acknowledg that the Authority as well of the Bishop of Rome whose Authority is justly and lawfully abolished in this Realm as of other Bishops and others called the Ministers of the Church consisteth in the Dispensation and Ministration of God's Word and not in making Laws Ordinances and Decrees over the People besides God's Word without the Consent and Authority of the Prince and People I say and affirm that within this Realm of England and other the King's Dominions there is no Law Decree Ordinance or Constitution Ecclesiastical in force and available by any Man's Authority but only by the King's Majesty's Authority or of his Parliament This Man had wrote two Books in favour of Popish Doctrine and those he also now disclaimed viz. A Book of Traditions and another of the Sacrifice of the Mass. In the former of which he maintained That Christ and his Apostles taught and left to the Church many things without writing which he asserted were stedfastly to be believed and obediently fulfilled under pain of Damnation In the other Book he maintained That Christ was not a Priest after the Order of Melchizedeck when he offered himself upon the Cross for our Sins but after the Order of Aaron and that when Christ did offer his Body to his Father after the Order of Melchizedek to appease his Wrath it was to be understood not of the Sacrifice of the Cross but of the Sacrifice that he made at his Maundy in form of Bread and Wine In which Book were other Errors He that is minded to see his Recantation of these his Books may have it in the Appendix as I transcribed it out of an old Book made by Becon intituled Reports of certain Men. This Recantation he not long after made at Oxon viz. in August following Where he also protested openly That he would abide in the sincere and pure Doctrine of Christ's Gospel all humane trifling Traditions set apart even unto Death though it should cost him his Life And this Recantation he also printed for further Satisfaction to the World Bishop Gardiner who was now at Winchester was very uneasy at the News of this Recantation which some took care to bring down to him He signified to the Protector That Smith was a Man with whom he had no Familiarity nor cared for his Acquaintance That he had not seen him in three Years nor talked with him in Seven He was greatly displeased with the first words of his Recantation which yet were but the words of Scripture Omnis Homo mendax Making all the Doctors in the Church as he inferred to be Liars with himself How it argued his Pride for he that sought for such Company in Lying had small Humility and that he would hide himself by that Number that his depraving of Man's Nature in that sort was not the setting out of the Authority of Scripture He said he neither liked his Tractation nor yet his Retractation That he was mad to say in his Book of Vnwritten Verities that Bishops in this Realm could make Laws wherein he said he lied loudly About this time Chadsey Standish Yong Oglethorp and divers others recanted whose Recantations Fox had by him to shew as well as Smith whom we have now before us After this Recantation he carried not himself according to it but favoured the Old Errors And in the Year 1549 offered some Affront unto Arch-bishop Cranmer opposing him in the Doctrine of the Lawfulness of Priests Marriage and endeavoured to make a Rout in Oxford to the endangering P. Martyr's Life and printed a Book the same Year against him De Votis Monasticis Whereupon incurring as he apprehended some Danger he fled into Scotland But weary of being there and willing to have his Peace made in England he wrote two Letters to the Arch-bishop from thence professing that he would out of hand by open Writing in the Latin Tongue revoke all that erroneous Doctrine which he had before taught and published and set forth the pure Doctrine of Christ. And for a Proof hereof he would straight after his return into England set forth a Book in Latin in defence of the most lawful Marriage of Priests In the Year 1550 he wrote certain Treatises against P. Martyr printed at Lovain And the same Year came out his Book against the Arch-bishop's Treatise of the Sacrament This Man was of a most inconstant as well as turbulent Spirit For in the Reign of Queen Mary he turned to the Religion then professed and was great with Bishop Boner in those Times but greatly despised for his Fickleness He once attempted to discourse with Hawks in Boner's House in London Hawks threw in his Dish his Recantation To which when he said it was no Recantation but a Declaration the other gave him this Rub To be short I will know whether you will Recant any more ere ever I talk with you or believe you and so departed from him We shall hear of him again in the Reign of Queen Elizabeth when he again complied and submitted himself to Arch-bishop Parker And last of all returned to his old Opinions and fled to Lovain Pass we from this Man to another of the same Strain with whom the Arch-bishop had to do As the Popish Clergy in the former King's Reign had made all the rudest and eagerest Opposition they dared against the Steps that were then made towards a Reformation so they ceased not to do in this King 's nay and more hoping to shelter themselves under a milder Government One Instance of this appeared in what was done by the Quondam Abbot of Tower-hill London Who for some Recompence of the loss of his Abby was made Vicar of Stepney-Church succeeding I suppose Mr. Hierom burnt to death in the Year 1540 with Dr. Barnes and Garret He being a bold Man and
Victual's sake that Fish might be uttered as well as other Meat Now as long as it goeth so politickly we ought to keep it Therefore all except those that be dispensed withal as sick impotent Persons Women with Child old Folk c. ought to live in an ordinary obedience to those Laws and not to do against the same in any wise Gardiner urged the great Inconvenience these Rhimes against Lent might occasion That they could serve for nothing but to learn the People to rail and to make others forbear to make their usual Provisions of Fish against the ensuing Year fearing Lent to be sick as the Rhime purported and like to die About these Times there arose much talk of the King 's matching The Protestants were much afraid of his marrying with some Foreign Princess Abroad that might turn his Heart from Religion But the Popishly-affected did their endeavours to perswade him to please himself with some Lady Abroad as best agreeable with Politick Ends as the enlarging of his Dominions and the Surety and Defence of his Countries Some therefore put Latimer upon giving the King Counsel in this Matter from the Pulpit So he advised the King to chuse him one that is of God that is which is of the Houshold of Faith and such an one as the King can find in his Heart to love and lead his Life in pure and chaste Espousage with Let him chuse a Wife that fears God Let him not chuse a Proud Wanton and one full only of rich Treasures and worldly Pomp. The Sentiments of the Protestant Foreigners concerning the present English State deserves a particular Remark They took such great Joy and Satisfaction in this good King and his Establishment of Religion that the Heads of them Bullinger Calvin and others in a Letter to him offered to make him their Defender and to have Bishops in their Churches as there were in England with the tender of their Service to assist and unite together This netled the Learned at the Council of Trent who came to the knowledg of it by some of their private Intelligencers and they verily thought that all the Hereticks as they called them would now unite among themselves and become one Body receiving the same Discipline exercised in England Which if it should happen and that they should have Heretical Bishops near them in those Parts they concluded that Rome and her Clergy would utterly fall Whereupon were sent two of their Emissaries from Rotterdam into England who were to pretend themselves Anabaptists and preach against baptizing Infants and preach up Rebaptizing and a Fifth Monarchy upon Earth And besides this one D. G. authorized by these Learned Men dispatched a Letter written in May 1549 from Delf in Holland to two Bishops whereof Winchester was one signifying the coming of these pretended Anabaptists and that they should receive them and cherish them and take their Parts if they should chance to receive any Checks Telling them that it was left to them to assist in this Cause and to some others whom they knew to be well-affected to the Mother-Church This Letter is lately put in print Sir Henry Sydney first met with it in Queen Elizabeth's Closet among some Papers of Queen Mary's He transcribed it into a Book of his called The Romish Policies It came afterwards into the Hands of ABp Vsher and was transcribed thence by Sir Iames Ware Let it be remembred here and noted that about this time Winchester was appointed with Ridley Bishop of Rochester to examine certain Anabaptists in Kent I find no Bishops Consecrated this Year CHAP. XVI Ridley made Bishop of London The Communion-Book reviewed RIdley Bishop of Rochester was designed to succeed Boner lately deprived in the Bishoprick of London and April 3. took his Oath an half Year being almost spent before he entred upon the Care of that See after Boner's Deprivation At his entrance he was exceeding wary not to do his Predecessor the least Injury in Goods that belonged to him He had not one Penny-worth of his moveable Goods for if any were found and known to be his he had Licence to convey them away otherwise they were safely preserved for him There was some quantity of Lead lay in the House which he used about it and the Church but Ridley paid for it as Boner's own Officers knew He continued Boner's Receiver one Staunton in his Place He paid fifty three or fifty five Pounds for Boner's own Servants common Liveries and Wages which was Boner's own Debt remaining unpaid after his Deposition He frequently sent for old Mrs. Boner his Predecessor's Mother calling her his Mother and caused her to sit in the uppermost Seat at his own Table as also for his Sister one Mrs. Mongey It was observed how Ridley welcomed the old Gentlewoman and made as much of her as though she had been his own Mother And though sometimes the Lords of the Council dined with him he would not let her be displaced but would say By your Lordships favour this Place of Right and Custom is for my Mother Boner But to see the base Ingratitude of Boner when he was restored again in Q. Mary's Reign he used Ridley far otherwise than Ridley had used him For he would not allow the Leases which Ridley had made which was in danger to redound to the utter Ruin and Decay of many poor Men. He had a Sister with three Children whom he married to one Shipside a Servant of his and provided for them This Sister Boner turned out of all and endeavoured the Destruction of Shipside had not Bishop Hethe delivered him Ridley in his Offices and in an Iron Chest in his Bed-Chamber had much Plate and considerable Quantities of other Goods all which Boner seized upon Insomuch that Ridley but a little before his Burning wrote a Supplicatory Letter to the Queen to take this into her Consideration That the poor Men might enjoy their Leases and Years renewed for that they were made without Fraud or Covin either for their Parts or his and the old Rents always reserved to the See without any kind of Dammage thereof Or at least that they might be restored to their former Leases and Years and might have rendred to them again such Sums of Money as they paid him and the Chapter as Fines for their Leases and Years taken from them Which Fines he desired the Queen would command might be made good out of the Plate and other Things he left in his House half whereof would disburse those Fines This did so much run in the good Man's Mind that at the time of his Burning he desired the Lord Williams then present to remember this his Suit to the Queen Which he promised him he would do But what Effect it had I cannot tell In the Vacancy of the Church of Rochester by the remove of Ridley the Arch-bishop committed the Spiritualities to William Cook LL. D. April 18. The Nobility and Gentry
that had the Gift of God and that they pronounced it wicked and abominable and termed it a Doctrine of Devils and the Invention of Antichrist All which Bishop Ponet in the Name of all the Protestants in his Book did utterly deny that ever they said writ or thought so This Book was indeed made by the Bishop of Winchester when he was in the Tower and he borrowed much of it from Albertus Pighius and published about that time Martin being then a Student at the University of Bourges in France it once happened in some Conversation there that Edward the King of England was commended whether it were for his Vertue or Learning or Abilities beyond his Years whereat Martin began as it seemed to eclipse the King's Honour by mentioning the Imprisonment of Winchester saying That there was a Head-Papist Prisoner in England meaning him Upon which several asked him Whether it was not the same Winchester that had set out an Hodgpodg concerning Marriage of Priests He laughing answered It was even he But that no Man ought to marvel for that VVinchester was more meet for Warlike than for Ecclesiastical Disputations Which Passage I have from Bale who was acquainted at that University with Franciscus Baldwin the Learned Professor of Law there Out of this Book Martin framed that which went under his Name with Winchester's Privity And this was well enough known to Bale and others in those Times Ponet said that Martin was abused by others who set him a-work to bear the Name and to desire the Fame of so gay a Book rather than he was the Author of it indeed The said Ponet or Poinet late Bishop of Winchester but now an Exile very learnedly answered this Book in two several Treatises The first was intitled An Apology against Tho. Martin's Blasphemies In this Treatise upon occasion of the Papists prohibition of Marriage to Priests he proved that the said Papists were Hereticks and had taken part in the most principal Parts with all the Hereticks that had corrupted the true Church of Christ. The Second Treatise replenished with great Learning he lived not to finish though some doubt whether he were the Author of this Book but the Copy falling into the Hands of Matthew Parker Arch-bishop of Canterbury he published it in the beginning of Q. Elizabeth's Reign with very large and excellent Additions of his own Ponet had thorowly studied this Point and I believe was put upon the Study of it by Arch-bishop Cranmer whose Chaplain he was For before this he put forth two Books upon this Argument viz. Of the Marriage of Ministers And a Defence of that Marriage The last thing I have to say concerning these Orders taken with the Married Clergy is That there were two things thought very Hard which were put upon those that were willing to comply and put away their Wives The one was in relation to the publick Confessions they were to make Which were put into their Mouths by others and drawn up for them in that manner as made them tell horrible Lies They must speak their own Shame in Bills of their Penance lying against themselves most vilely and most shamefully disabling their Credit and Estimation for ever And to give an Instance One such Confession which was much cried out against was made by one Sir Iohn Busby of Windsor Iune 29. in the Year 1555. Which Ponet calleth a goodly Confession of his hearty and earnest Repentance Which saith he was so finely penned and so Catholickly tracted that I warrant you it was none of the smallest Fools that forged it The other thing was that after these poor Men had thus done their Penances and spoke their Confessions the Imposers of these Penalties upon them were not so good as they pretended they would be and as the Queen's Instructions required them to be towards them Not restoring them to their Ministration Some that had been two or three Years parted from their Wives could not be admitted again to Ministration yet they must do open Penance and go by the Cross without any Redemption or Entreaty that could be made CHAP. IX Evils in this Change A Parliament BY this time the face of the Church was perfectly changed and all the Reformation that was made for twenty Years before namely from Cranmer's first ascent to the Archiepiscopal Chair to this time was unravelled in less than a Year and abolished But the Favourers of the Gospel lamented it exceedingly And Bishop Ridley writ a Treatise wherein he shewed what a deplorable Change in Religion this was by setting down at large what Religion was in K. Edward's Days and what it was at that present laying the Cause of this sore Judgment upon the vile and naughty Lives of the People so unsuitable to the good Religion professed The Professors lamented two great Evils lighting upon the People upon this turn of Religion Not only that it brought the People into error and Superstition but involved them universally in the Crime of Perjury The blame of which they laid upon the Popish Clergy For they not only had connived at but allowed and encouraged the casting off the Pope's Supremacy and made both Priests and Laity swear to the King And now they set up the Pope's Authority again in England and required all to swear to that For they compelled not only such as were Priests to perjure themselves but all the Laity Nobility Gentry Magistrates Merchants and others for hardly any were exempted the Oath of Supremacy in the former Reigns For in every Law-day the Keepers of the same were sworn to call all the Young Men of their Hundred even as they came to Years of Discretion to swear never to receive the Bishop of Rome nor no other Foreign Potentate to be Head of the People of England but only the King and his Successors Which Oath if it were unlawful as the Clergy-Men now said then all the Realm had reason of high Displeasure against them that so led them and knew it Such gross Dissembling were the Bishops guilty of to the involving the People in Guilt And this dissembling Quality the Priests still retained in this Queen's Days For when any came to some of them shewing them that his Conscience was not satisfied in the present way of Religion the Priest would tell him that he said the Truth My Conscience would he say is as yours but we must bear for a time and that he himself looked for another Change When another of a contrary Opinion came to the Priests and talked about Religion they would say to him That they had been deceived and thanks be to God said they that ye kept your Conscience all this while And even so was mine but I durst not do any otherwise but trusted that this time would come as is now thanks be to God Nay and sometimes in the same Town they would minister the Service two ways to the People to please both In
the Romish Pox and the Leprosy shewing afterward the Remedies against these Diseases For being a very facetious Man he delivered his Reproofs and Counsels under witty and pleasant Discourse He wrote also The hunting of the Romish Fox Iohn Iuel afterwards Bishop of Salisbury assisted Peter Martyr at Strasburgh in setting out his Commentaries upon the Book of Iudges Who being publick Reader of Divinity there had first read those Commentaries and had many Learned English-Men for his Auditors as Poynet Grindal Sands Sir Iohn Cheke Sir Anthony Cook and divers other Knights and Gentlemen as well as Divines And when he was removed to Zurick to succeed Pelican he took Iuel with him thither In Frankford there happening as was said before unhappy Contentions about Ceremonies and Matters of Discipline and it was feared that these Dissensions might spread themselves into the other Fraternities in Zurick and other places Iuel's great Business was to allay these Animosities partly by Letters and partly by his own verbal Exhortations That they should as Brethren lay aside Strife and Emulation especially for such small Matters That they would hereby offend the Minds of all good Men which things they ought to have a special heed of Some who seemed more complaining and uneasy at these things he exhorted to Patience admonishing That we ought not to leap from the Smoke into the Fire and that we ought to bear a part in Christ's Cross and to consider how much better it was with them than with their poor Brethren that endured Tortures in England And he would often repeat to them Bear a while then things will not endure an Age. Thomas Becon formerly a Minister in Canterbury and well known to the Arch-bishop wrote an Epistle in his Exile and sent it to certain Godly Brethren in England Declaring in it the Causes of all the Miseries and Calamities that were fallen upon England How they might be redrest and what a merciful Lord our God is to all faithful penitent Sinners that unfeignedly turn to him This Epistle was brought into England and read of the Brethren in their Religious Meetings not without Fruit. In this Epistle he added a Supplication to God at good length for the restoring of his Holy Word to the Church of England Wherein the devout Christian complaineth his Grief and Sorrow to his Lord for taking away the Light of Christ's Gospel and humbly acknowledging his Fault and worthy Punishment most heartily wisheth the Subversion of Anti-christ's Kingdom and the Restitution of Christ's most Glorious Kingdom in this Realm He wrote also an Epistle to the Massing Priests wherein he shewed what a wicked Idol the Mass was and what a Difference there was between the Lord's-Supper and that and what Popes brought in every part of the Mass and put them together as it was then used Laurence Humfrey while he was in exile wrote a Book in Latin intituled Optimates being Instructions for Noble-men in three Books It was printed at Basil by Oporinus and dedicated to Q. Elizabeth soon after her entrance upon her Kingdom The Reason of this his Discourse was out of an universal Love to Mankind and desire to better the Condition of the World whose Welfare depended so much upon the Sobriety and Vertue of those of Noble Rank and Quality Since Nobility as he wrote widely spread it self through all the Regions and Coasts of Christendom and was preferred to Places of Trust and Honour in all Princes Courts and was the very Nerve and Strength of Commonwealths and since from it issued the greatest Helps or Hindrances to the Publick Safety Pure Religion the Lives and Maners of Men Therefore he thought the Gentry and Nobility being imbued with Right and Christian Opinions not formed to the corrupt Rules of Antiquity Kings would govern better the Ministers of Ecclesiastical Matters would more faithfully perform their Functions and the common Sort would more diligently discharge all necessary Offices and the whole Common-weal might seem more healthfully to breath to live and to recover and persist in a good Constitution Beside this excellent Book both for the Matter and Elegancy of the Latin Stile he printed two or three other things at Basil and he wrote while he was abroad a Commentary upon the Prophet Isaiah But I know not whether it were published Bartholomew Traheron Library-Keeper to K. Edward and Dean of Chichester made divers Readings to the English Congregation upon the beginning of St. Iohn's Gospel and after printed them against the wicked Enterprizes of the new start-up Arians in England Iohn Fox famous to Posterity for his immense Labours in his Acts and Monuments was received by the Accurate and Learned Printer Oporinus of Basil for the Corrector of his Press He published and which I think was the first thing he published and his first-fruits a Chronological History of the Church The first Part from the first Times unto Martin Luther This Book he presented unto Oporinus with an handsom Epistle Wherein he desired to be received by him into his Service and that he would vouchsafe to be his Learned Patron under whom he might follow his Studies being one that would be content with a small Salary Promising him that if he would employ him either there at Basil or at Argentine or some University which he should rather chuse Aut me said he destituent omnia aut efficiam Christo opitulante ut omnes politioris literaturae homines intelligant quantum Operiano nomini officinae debeant While he was here employed by Oporinus at spare Hours he began his History of the Acts of the Church in Latin Which he drew out more briefly at first and before his return home into England well near finished Having here compleated the Copy which was but the first Part of what he intended but making a just Volume in Folio he sent this Work to Basil to be printed And so it was in the Year 155 It remained many Years after in those Parts in great Request and was read by Foreign Nations although hardly known at all by our own Being now in Peace and Safety at Home Fox reviewed this his Work and in the Year 1566 first published it in English very Voluminous because of those many Relations of the Persecutions in Q. Mary's Days that came to his Hands All this Work he did himself without the help of any Amanuensis nor had he any Servant to do his necessary Domestick Business being fain to be often diverted by his own private Occasions from his Work He afterwards enlarged these his Labours into three large Volumes which have since undergone many Editions But to look back to what he published in his Exile There came to his Hand all the Trials and Examinations of the Learned Martyr Ioh. Philpot Arch-deacon of Winchester drawn up by himself and finally his Death being burnt in Smithfield 1555. These things Fox put into Latin as he had an excellent Latin Stile
like some Check to the Archbishop and as tho they required of him a sort of Dependance on them now more than before and it shewed some secret Ill-will towards him This Privilege was first granted to the Prior and Chapter of Canterbury by Thomas Becket but afterwards more amply confirmed to them by St. Edmund the Archbishop in the year 1235 from which time to the present year 1540 I dare confidently â—ver That no Bishop of the Province of Canterbury had been Consecrated by the Archbishops or by any other by their Commission in any Church or Place without the Metropolitical Church of Canterbury without License first desired and obtained in writing from the Chapter of Canterbury under their Seal if we except only two or three Cases between the years 1235 and 1300 which were the occasions of great Controversies between the Archbishops Consecrating and the Bishops Consecrated on the one part and the Chapter of Canterbury on the other part which yet always ended to the advantage of the Chapter and the farther Confirmation of their Privilege herein If these Licenses be not registred in the Archbishops Registers it is not to be wondred at it being not their concern to cause those things to be enregistred which were not essential to the Confirmation or Consecration of the Bishops of their Province but related merely to the Privileges of the Chapter of Canterbury But they are all enregistred and may be found in the Registers of that Chapter If therefore the Prior and Convent of Canterbury did at this time require Boner to take out such a License before his Consecration they thereby gave no more evidence of any sinister Design or Ill-will against the Archbishop than they had done at any time before to him or any of his Predecessors for 300 years whensoever any Bishop of the Province was to be Consecrated out of their Church Page 95. line 18. Robert King Titular Bishop Reonen Suffragan to the Bishop of Lincoln was this year 1541. Consecrated Bishop of Oxford The Date or his Consecrators I cannot assign the Act being omitted in the Archbishop's Register Whensoever a Suffragan Bishop was promoted to any real Bishoprick he had no need of any new Consecration the Character and Order of Bishop having been all along as full valid and effectual in him as in any Bishop whatsoever So that in such a Promotion no other Form was observed than in the Translation of any Bishop from one Diocess to another viz. Election and Confirmation But in this case not so much as that was necessary for the Bishoprick of Oxford being then newly erected King the first Bishop of it was to be put in Possession of it not by any Act of the Archbishop's but by Letters Patents of the King the Founder of it which Letters were not issued out until the first day of September in the following year Page 111. line 13. The names of the chief Actors of a Conspiracy against the Archbishop were Thornden who lived in the Archbishop's Family and eat at his Table and with whom he used to converse most familiarly So also Pag. 121. line 12. Thornton who was Suffragan of Dover the Archbishop made Prebendary of his Church and whom he always set at his own Mess. Page 120. line 5. Dr. Thornton who was very great with the Archbishop but secretly false to him Page 304. line 7. ab imo This had the Suffragan of Dover Dr. Thornton done In these and other Passages of this History the Names and Persons of Dr. Thornton and Dr. Thornden both Suffragans of the Diocess of Canterbury are confounded Iohn Thornton Prior of Dover was Suffragan to Archbishop Warham and died in his time Richard Thornden was Monk of Christ-Church Canterbury and at the dissolution of that Monastery in 1539 or 1540 and Conversion of it into a College of Secular Canons was constituted the first Prebendary of it and soon after made Suffragan of the Diocess with the Title of Bishop of Dover in which Office he continued till his death ultimo Mariâ— He never lived in the Archbishop's Family but in the Monastery till the Dissolution of it and after that constantly resided upon his Prebend and other Benefices which he held in the Diocess You might perhaps find it noted That the Archbishop always set him at his own Mess which might give you occasion to think that he sometimes lived in the Archbishop's Family whereas indeed no more was meant thereby than that the Archbishop was wont to shew to him extraordinary Respect whensoever he attended him for in those days Suffragan Bishops however usual were treated with Contempt enough not wont to be admitted to dine at the Archbishops own Table in the Hall of the Archbishop's Palace There were generally three Tables spread in the Archbishops Hall and served at the same time The Archbishops Table at which ordinarily sate none but Peers of the Realm Privy-Counsellors and Gentlemen of the greatest Quality The Almoners Table at which sate the Chaplains and all Guests of the Clergy beneath Diocesan Bishops and Abbots The Stewards Table at which sate all other Gentlemen The Suffragan Bishops then were wont to fit at the Almoners Table and the Archbishop in admitting his Suffragan Thornden to his own Table did him an unusual Honour which was therefore noted to aggravate the Ingratitude of the man conspiring against the Archbishop Page 126. line 13. About this time 1544. it was I conjecture that the King changed the Archbishop's Coat of Arms for unto the year 1543 he bore his Paternal Coat of Three Cranes Sable as I find by a Date set under his Arms yet remaining in a Window in Lambeth-House Those Arms of Archbishop Cranmer here mentioned to remain in a Window in Lambeth-House together with the Arms of the other Archbishops succeeding to him since the Reformation and placed in the same Window were painted at the cost of and set up by my Lord Archbishop Sancroft not many years since Page 141. med One of the very first things that was done in K. Edward's Reign in relation to the Church was That the Bishops c. should be made to depend intirely upon the King and his Council c. and should take Commissions from him for the exercise of their Office and Jurisdiction and those to last only during the King's Pleasure In this I suppose the Archbishop had his hand And therefore he began this Matter with himself Petitioning for such a Commission which was granted to him Feb. 7. 1546. This Matter was not now first begun or done The Archbishop and all the Bishops of England had taken Commissions from K. Henry in the very same Form mutatis mutandis in the year 1535. Page 161. med An English Exile naming himself E. P. in Q. Mary's days published again the Archbishop's Book against Vnwritten Verities and prefixed to it a Preface of his own I will add one Passage taken out of this Book about the middle whereby it may be seen what
I had omitted in their Places not meeting with them in Cranmer's Register The former I suppose was consecrated with Shaxton in April as the latter might be with Fox and Barlow in September his Temporalties having been restored to him in the beginning of October This Hilsey was a great Assistant to Archbishop Cranmer and a learned man He wrote a Book of Prayers with Epistles and Gospels in English I suppose which he dedicated to the Lord Crumwel by whose command it was published P. 57. l. 17. After Him add But he could not see his Desire effected by these men till it was happily done by other hands P. 75. l. 7. r. Superstitions P. 58. l. 6. * f. Three or four r. Four or five P. 59. l. 14. del Some years after came forth c to thâ— end of the Paragraph P. 77. l. 4. * After Winton Whereas I had said That the Bishop of Winchester was not in a Commission there specified it appears by Crumwel's Speech set down by the Bishop of Sarum that that Bishop was then indeed a Commissioner Here my MS. deceived me But be it noted what the L. Paget testified before the Commissioners at that Bishop's Trial in 1549 namely That because he was so wilful in his opinion and addicted to the Popish part the King left him out of the Commission for Compiling the last Book of Religion And what that Book was I know not unless the Necessary Erudition P. 78. l. 13. * after Hands dele the Period P. 85. l. 21. * Remove thâ— Close of the Parenthesis after That P. 94. l. 8. * r. Translation P. 95. l. 13. after Bulkley insert was Consecrated P. 97. l. 4. * r. Abused P. 104. l. 17. * r. one P. 109. l. 16. r. Archbishop's Endeavour P. 126. l. 13. * After Arms Whereas it was conjectured there that the King changed Archbishop Cranmer's Coat of Arms about 1544 it must have been several years before For his New Coat of the Pelicans may be seen in the Frontispiece of the great English Bible printed 1540. And how long before that time I know not P. 135. l. 16. * r. Church living P. 146. l. 7. * f. Counties r. Episcopal Sees P. 149. l. 25 26. These words When the old Order was broken and a New brought in by Homilies to be within a Parenthesis Ibid. l. 5. * after and add said P. 151. l. 17. dele and. Ibid. after Charge add was P. 153. l. 4. r. Protectors P. 154. l. 17. after them instead of a Period make a Colon. P. 186. l. 16. f. them r. it P. 196. l. 15. * r. Bucer P. 197. l. 4. in the Marg. r. Vit. P. 219. l. 8 9 10 11. dele the Comma's on the sides P. 220 l. 1. r. Augmentations P. 226. l. 4. r. Wreaked P. 234. l. 25. r. Strangers P. 235. l. 7. r. Embark P. 237. l. 12. of the Marg. r. Extent P. 238. l. 14. * dele the Comma's before Leave P. 239. l. 4. r. Strasburgh P. 243. l. 14. r. Glastenbury P. 266. l. 22. r. Superstitious P. 268. l. 5. r. Counsil P. 270. l. 12. * add in the Margent The Sweating Sickness P. 271. l. 12. r. two P. 286. l. 12. f. were r. was P. 306. l. 23. r. other Ibid. l. â—5 dele the Comma P. 307. l. 16. * r. Hand P. 311. l. 14. r. one P. 314. l. 14. * r. Joh. Ibid. l. ult after Humfrey make a Comma P. 315. l. 24. â— r. convince P. 349. l. 19. after all add and. P. 351. l. 11. * r. Conversation P. 352. l. 5. * after it add in P. 354. l. 25. r. Corpus P. 378. l. ult r. but. P. 395. l. 10. f. Contrived r. Composed P. 396. l. 21. del With a Preface P. 394 395 396 397 398 399 400. on the Top of each Margent del An. 1555. P. 411. l. 10. r. was P. 421. l. 21. * after him add be P. 422. l. 1â— f. Flesh r. Fish P. 424. l. 4. * r. one Ibid. l. 3. * f. John r. Thomas P. 425. l. 2. after two add to P. 427. l. 20. after appointed add a. P. 437. l. 9. * f. Historiae r. Historia P. 444 l. 18. * f. 1538 or 1539. r. 1537 or 1538. P. 448. l. 1. f. that r. the. Ibid. l. 9. * r. Sanctuary P. 461. l. 5. f. infringing r. incurring Ibid. l. 28. after about add with P. 464. l. 22. f. is r. was Errata in the Appendix PAge 7. in the Margent for Sir W. S. read Sir W H. P. 8. l. 10. * r. Popes P. 45. l. 9. * r. Controversiam P. 46. l. 13. * r. Oecolampadio Ibid. l. 3. * r. nec P. 55. l. 9. dele the Colon. P. 56. l. 13. r. Concedant Ibid. r. concessit P. 116. l. 18. after Parcyalyte add as P. 131. l. 18. r. Circumcision And so P. 132. l. 21. and l. 29. and l. 31. P. 143. l. 15. * r. praeponenda P. 180. l. 6. * r. Decanatu P. 183. l. 18. after Verbo add a Comma and after Consentientibus dele the Comma l. 19. after Authoritatibus add a Comma P. 188. l. 18. after Liberantes instead of the Period make a Semicolon Ibid. l. 20. after Legati dele the Period P. 190. l. 22. before dam add quibus Ibid. l. 6. * Draw the Comma after Eos before it P. 191. l. 12. r. Procedetur P. 193. l. 10. * r. deterrimo carcere P. 194. l. 13. * f. ita r. ira P. 195. l 17. r. Bernher P. 197. l. 6. * f. quin r. quum P. 199. l. 5. Cognoscentiae perhaps for Ignoscentiae Ibid. l. 11. * r. imbuerat P. 212. l. 3. r. your P. 222. l. 14. Remove the Comma after Abripere before it P. 224. l. 20. * r. punitus P. 232. l. 20. r. habes P. 237. l. 16. * r. angustijs P. 238. l. 17. f. 1552. r. 1553. P. 251. l. 9. r. Appointment MEMORIALS OF Arch-Bishop CRANMER BOOK I. CHAPTER I. Cranmer's Birth Education and Rise THE Name of this most Reverend Prelate deserves to stand upon Eternal Record having been the first Protestant Arch-Bishop of this Kingdom and the greatest Instrument under God of the happy Reformation of this Church of England In whose Piety Learning Wisdom Conduct and Blood the Foundation of it was laid And therefore it will be no unworthy Work to revive his Memory now though after an hundred and thirty Years and upwards I pretend not to write a compleat Narrative of his Life and Death that being scarce possible at such a distance of Time and in the want of full Intelligence and Information of the various Matters that passed through his Hands and the Events that befel him All that I attempt by this present Undertaking is to retrieve and bring to light as many Historical Passages as I can concerning this Holy Prelate by a careful and long search not only into printed Books of History but the best Archives and many most precious and inestimable Manuscripts
that have fallen into my hands I shall pass over in a few words his earlier Days because I have so much to say of him in his riper Years Aslacton a Town in the County of Nottingham was the Place of his Birth and the second Day of Iuly in the Year 1489 was the Day of it He was the Son of Thomas Cranmer Esq a Gentleman of a right ancient Family whose Ancestor came in with the Conqueror And for a long Series of Time the Stock continued in good Wealth and Quality as it did in France for there were extant of his Name and Family there in the Reign of Henry the Eighth One whereof came then into England in company with the French Ambassador To whom for Relation-sake our Bishop gave a noble Entertainment Our Youth was put to learn his Grammar of a rude Parish-Clerk in that barbarous Age. Under whom he learn'd little and endured much from the harsh and curst Disposition of his School-master Though his Father were minded to have his Son educated in Learning yet he would not he should be ignorant of Civil and Gentleman-like Exercises Insomuch that he used himself to Shoot And many times his Father permitted him to Hunt and Hauk and to ride rough Horses So that when he was Bishop he feared not to ride the roughest Horses that came into his Stables which he would do very comely As otherwise at all times there was not any in his House that would become an Horse better And after his Studies when it was time for Recreation he would both Hauk and Hunt the Game being prepared for him And sometimes he would shoot in the Long-Bow and many times kill the Deer with his Cross-Bow though his Sight was not perfect for he was pore-blind But to return to his younger Days He lost his Father early but his Mother at the Age of fourteen Years Anno 1503 sent him to study at Cambridg Where he was nursled in the grossest kind of Sophistry Logick Philosophy Moral and Natural Not in the Text of the old Philosophers but chiefly in the dark Riddles of Duns and other subtile Questionists And in these he lost his Time till he came to two and twenty Years of Age. After that he gave himself to the reading of Faber Erasmus good Latin Authors four or five Years together unto the Time that Luther began to write And then considering what great Controversy was in Matters of Religion not only in Trifles but in the chiefest Articles of our Salvation he bent himself to try out the Truth herein And forasmuch as he perceived he could not judg indifferently in such weighty Matters without the Knowledg of the Holy Scriptures therefore before he was infected with any Man's Opinions or Errors he applied his whole Study three Years therein After this he gave his Mind to good Writers both New and Old not rashly running over them for he was a slow Reader but a diligent Marker of whatsoever he read seldom reading without Pen in Hand And whatsoever made either for the one Part or the other of things in Controversy he wrote it out if it were short or at least noted the Author and the Place that he might find it and write it out at leisure which was a great help to him in debating of Matters ever after This kind of Study he used till he was made Doctor of Divinity which was about the Thirty-fourth Year of his Age and about the Year 1523. But before this being Master of Arts and Fellow of Iesus College he married a Gentleman's Daughter And then leaving the College he read the Common Lecture in Buckingham College before that called Monks College because Monks studied there but now Magdalen College But in a Year after his Wife travailing with Child both she and the Child died And being now single again immediately the Master and Fellows of his old College chose him in Fellow again where he remained During his Residence here divers of the ripest and solidest sort of Scholars were sought out of this University of Cambridg to be transplanted into Cardinal Wolsey's new College in Oxon to be Fellows there Our Cranmer was nominated for one by Dr. Capon to whom that Matter was as it seems intrusted by the Cardinal And tho the Salary was much more considerable there and the way to Preferment more ready by the Favour of the Cardinal to such as were his own Scholars yet he refused to go chusing rather to abide among his old Fellow-Collegians and more closely to follow his Studies and Contemplations here though he were not without danger for his incompliance with this Invitation giving them that were concerned great Offence hereat But of those that went from Cambridg at this time who were all Men pick'd out for their Parts and Learning these were the chief Clark Friar afterwards Doctor of Physick Sumner Harman afterwards Fellow of Eaton Betts afterwards Chaplain to Queen Ann. Cox afterwards School-master to King Eâ—ward Frith afterwards a Martyr Baily Godman Drum afterwards one of the six Preachers at Canterbury Lawney afterwards Chaplain to the Duke of Norfolk All these were cast into Prison for suspicion of Heresy and divers through the hardship thereof died So that well it was for Cranmer that he went not Soon after he took his Degree of Doctor of Divinity and became the Reader of the Divinity-Lecture in his own College And out of the value the University had of his Learning he was appointed one of the Examiners of such as commenced Batchelors and Doctors in Divinity According to whose Approbations the University allowed them to proceed In which Place he did much Good for he used to examine these Candidates out of the Scriptures And by no means would let them pass if he found they were unskilful in it and unacquainted with the History of the Bible So were the Friars especially whose Study lay only in School-Authors Whom therefore he sometimes turned back as insufficient advising them to study the Scriptures for some Years longer before they came for their Degrees it being a shame for a Professor in Divinity to be unskilled in the Book wherein the Knowledg of God and the Grounds of Divinity lay Whereby he made himself from the beginning hated by the Friars Yet some of the more ingenuous sort of them afterward rendred him great and publick Thanks for refusing them whereby being put upon the Study of God's Word they attained to more sound Knowledg in Religion One of these was Dr. Barat a White Friar who lived afterwards in Norwich Not long after this King Henry being perswaded that the Marriage between him and Q. Katharine Daughter to K. Ferdinand of Spain was unlawful and naught by Dr. Longland Bishop of Lincoln his Confessor and other of his Clergy he sent to six of the best learned Men of Cambridg and as many of Oxford to debate this Question Whether it were
stuff their Histories with strange Prophecies and Falshoods mixed with some Truth And I suppose the Matter might be no more than this This grave and sober Arch-Bishop was sensible of the gross Encroachments of the Bishops of Rome upon the Authority of the Kings of this Realm in their own Dominions and his Judgment stood for the restoring of this Imperial Crown to its antient Right and Soveraignty and for the abridging the Papal Power And knowing how learned a Man Dr. Thomas Cranmer was and perceiving what an able Instrument he was like to prove in vindicating the King 's Right to the Supremacy in his own Kingdoms the Arch-Bishop upon these Accounts might think him the fittest to succeed in the Archiepiscopal Chair and might have some reason to believe that the King intended him thereunto And that Arch-Bishop Warham was of this Judgment it may appear if we trace some Footsteps of him In the Year 1530 when all the Clergy were under a Praemunire and a Petition was drawing up in the Convocation for that Cause the King in the said Petition was addressed to by the Title of Supream Head of the Church and Clergy of England At this Title when the Arch-Bishop found some of the Clergy to boggle who were yet afraid openly to declare their disallowance of it he took the opportunity of their Silence to pass the Title by saying That Silence was to be taken for their Consent In the last Synod wherein this Arch-Bishop was a Member and the main Director many things were debated about Abolishing the Papacy This Synod was prorogued from April 26 to October 5. In the mean time he died But had he lived and been well unto the next Sessions some further Steps had been made in evacuating the Bishop of Rome's Usurpations as may be guessed by what was done under his influence the last Sessions when the Supremacy of that foreign Prelate was rejected Something more of this Arch-Bishop's Endeavours of restoring the King to his Supremacy appears by what Arch-Bishop Cranmer said to Brooks Bishop of Glocester before a great Assembly not long before his Burning Brooks had charged him for first setting up the King's Supremacy To which Cranmer replied That it was Warham gave the Supremacy to Henry VIII and that he had said he ought to have it before the Bishop of Rome and that God's Word would bear it And that upon this the Universities of Cambridg and Oxford were sent to to know what the Word of God would allow touching the Supremacy Where it was reasoned and argued upon at length and at last both agreed and and set to their Seals and sent it to the King That he ought to be Supreme Head and not the Pope All which was in Arch-Bishop Warham's Time and while he was alive three quarters of a Year before ever Cranmer had the Arch-Bishoprick of Canterbury as he also added in that Audience So that these things considered we may conclude that Warham did think that none would be so fit to come after him as Cranmer a Learned and diligent Man to carry on this Cause which he before him had begun and so might speak of him as the properest Person to be advanced to this See To this I will add the Sense of an Ingenious and Learned Friend of mine concerning this Passage in Harpsfield's History Which the Author also of the Athenae Oxonienses hath made use of to the good Arch-Bishop's Discredit and which Somner also had unluckily selected though without design to hurt his good Name and is all he writes of him But may it not be considered saith he that the pretended Martyr Thomas Becket though he died in vindication of the Privileges of the Church yet he was the first betrayer of the Rights of his See He made the greatest Breach upon the Authority of the Primacy of Canterbury by resigning the Arch-Bishoprick into the Pope's Hands and receiving it again from him as the Pope's Donation But it is the Honour of the blessed Martyr Thomas Cranmer that he was the first who began to claim the Primacy and retrieve the Rights of his See from being slavishly subjected to the Roman Power Indeed little credit is to be given to the Author who first published this Story considering what a Violent Man he was and how much prejudiced against Cranmer and interessed in the Popish Cause and coming into the Arch-Deaconry of Canterbury by the deprivation of the Arch-Bishop's Brother Cranmer Noluit Episcopari had no mind to be Arch-Bishop He loved his Studies and affected Retirement and well knew the Dangers and Temptations of a publick Station But especially he could not induce his Mind to take his Office from the Pope and to swear Fidelity to him as well as to the King whereby he should ensnare himself in two contrary Oaths Wherefore when the King sent for him home from his Embassy in Germany with a design to lay that honourable Burden upon him he guessing the Reason first endeavoured to delay his coming by signifying to the King some Matters of Importance that would require his tarrying there somewhat longer for the King's Service Hoping in that while the King might have bestowed the Place upon some other In fine our Historians say he stayed abroad one half Year longer But I find him in England in the Month of November which was not much more than a quarter of a Year after Warham's Death Then the King was married to the Marchioness of Pembroke and Cranmer was present So that the King must have sent for him home in Iune two or three Months before the Arch-Bishop's Death probably while he was in a declining dying Condition But after when that which Cranmer seemed to suspect of certain Emergences in those parts wherein the English State might be concerned fell not out the King again commanded his return Home Now more perfectly knowing by some of his Friends the King's Intentions to make him Arch-Bishop he made means by divers of his Friends to shift it off desiring rather some smaller Living At length the King brake his Mind to him that it was his full Purpose to bestow that Dignity upon him for his Service and for the good Opinion he conceived of him But his long disabling himself nothing disswaded the King till at last he humbly craved the King's Pardon for that he should declare to him and that was That if he should accept it he must receive it at the Pope's Hand which he neither would nor could do for that his Highness was the only Supream Governour of the Church of England as well in Causes Ecclesiastical as Temporal and that the full Right of Donation of all manner of Benefices and Bishopricks as well as any other temporal Dignities and Promotions appertained to him and not to any other Foreign Authority And therefore if he might serve God him and his Countrey in that Vocation he would accept it of his Majesty and of no Stranger
of two Houses of Religious Persons namely that of Christ's-Church Canterbury and that of Rochester Towards the latter end of this Year several new Bishopricks were founded out of old Monasteries and several Deaneries and Colleges of Prebends out of divers Priories belonging to Cathedral Churches Herein as Crumwel so Cranmer had a great Hand Who laboured with the King that in these New Foundations there should be Readers of Divinity Greek and Hebrew and Students trained up in Religion and Learning From whence as a Nursery the Bishops should supply their Diocesses with honest and able Ministers And so every Bishop should have a College of Clergy-men under his Eye to be preferred according to their Merits For it was our Arch-bishops regret that the Prebendaries were bestowed as they were This Complaint Bishop Burnet tells us he saw in a long Letter of Cranmer's own hand Bishops Confirmed In Arch-bishops Cranmer's Register I find these Bishops Confirmed their Consecrations being omitted August the 11 th Iohn Bell LL. D. brought up in Baliol College and Arch-deacon of Glocester was Confirmed Bishop of Worcester upon the Resignation of Bishop Latimer in the Chappel of Lambeth He is stiled in the Register the King's Chaplain and Councellor November the Iohn Skyp D. D. Arch-deacon of Dorset and once Chaplain to Queen Ann Boleâ— was Confirmed Bishop of Hereford The King's Letter to the Archbishop to consecrate him bears date November 8. CHAP. XX. The Arch-bishop in Commission THE next Year viz. 1540. The Arch-bishop lost his great Friend and Assistant in carrying on the Reformation I mean the Lord Crumwel And when he was by Popish Craft and Malice taken off their next Work was to sacrifice Cranmer And many were the Accusations that were put up against him and Trial was made many ways to bring him to his Death or at least to bring him in disgrace with the King And first they thought to compass their Ends against him by occasion of a Commission now issued out from the King to a select Number of Bishops whereof the Arch-bishop was one which Commission was confirmed by Act of Parliament for inspecting into Matters of Religion and explaining some of the chief Doctrines of it These Commissioners had drawn up a set of Articles favouring the old Popish Superstitions And meeting together at Lambeth they produced them and vehemently urged that they should be established and that the Arch-bishop would yield to the Allowance of them especially seeing there was a signification that it was the King's Will and Pleasure that the Articles should run in that Tenour But they could not win the Arch-bishop neither by Fear nor Flattery No though the Lord Crumwel at this very time lay in the Tower There was not one Commissioner now on his part but all shrank away and complied with the Time and even those he most trusted to viz. Bishop Hethe of Rochester and Bishop Skip of Hereford The Arch-bishop as he disliked the Book already drawn up by them so he presented another Book wherein were divers Amendments of theirs After much arguing and disputing nor could the Arch-bishop be brought off Hethe and Skip with a Friend or two more walked down with him into his Garden at Lambeth and there used all the Perswasion they could urging to him that the King was resolved to have iâ— so and the Danger therefore of opposing it But he honestly persisted in his constancy telling them That there was but one Truth in the Articles to be concluded upon which if they hid from his Majesty by consenting unto a contrary Doctrine his Highness would in process of Time perceive the Truth and see how colorably they had delt with him And he knew he said his Grace's Nature so well that he would never after credit and trust them And they being both his Friends he bad them beware in time and discharge their Consciences in maintenance of the Truth But though nothing of all this could stir them yet what he said sufficiently confirmed the Arch-bishop to persist in his Resolution The Arch-bishop standing thus alone went himself to the King and so wrought with him that his Majesty joined with him against all the rest of them and the Book of Articles past on his side When indeed this stifness of Canterbury was the very thing his Enemies desired thinking that for this Opposition the King would certainly have thrown him into the Tower and many Wagers were laid in London about it So that this ended in two good Issues that the Arch-bishop's Enemies were clothed with Shame and Disappointment and a very good Book chiefly of the Arch-bishop's composing came forth for the Instruction of the People known by the Name of A necessary Erudition of any Christian Man A particular Account whereof may be read in the History of the Reformation This vexed Winchester to the Heart that his Plot took no better Effect but he put it up till he should find other Opportunities to attack him which after happened as we shall see in the sequel of this Story But this Matter deserves to be a little more particularly treated of The King had as was said before appointed several of the Eminent Divines of his Realm to deliberate about sundry Points of Religion then in Controversy and to give in their Sentences distinctly And that in regard of the Germans who the last Year had sent over in Writing the Judgment of their Divines respecting some Articles of Religion and had offered his Majesty to appoint some of their Divines to meet some others of the King 's in any Place he should assign or to come over into England to confeâ— together And also in regard of a more exact review of the Institution of a Christian Man put forth about two or three Years before and now intended to be published again as a more perfect Piece of Religious Instruction for the People The King therefore being minded thorowly to sift divers Points of Religion then started and much controverted commanded a particular number of Bishops and other his Learned Chaplains and Dignitaries to compare the Rites and Ceremonies and Tenets of the present Church by the Scriptures and by the most Ancient Writers and to see how far the Scripture or good Antiquity did allow of the same And this I suppose he did by the instigation of Arch-bishop Cranmer The Names of the Commissioners were these Cranmer ABp of Canterbury Lee ABp of York Boner Bishop of London Tunstal Bishop of Durham Barlow Bishop of S. David's Aldrich Bishop of Carlisle Skyp Bishop of Hereford Hethe Bishop of Rochester Thirleby Bishop Elect of Westminster Doctors Cox Robinson Day Oglethorp Redman Edgeworth Symonds Tresham Leyghton Curwen Crayford Where we may wonder not to see the Name of the Bishop of Winton But if we consider the Reason the King gave why he left him out of the Number of his Executors viz. because as he told several
themselves a decent Cope as every Suffragan of the Church of Canterbury according as his Profession was ought to give to the same Church by Right and ancient Custom and the Rights Liberties Privileges and other Customs of the said Church always and in all things being safe The renewing of this their old pretended Privilege look'd like some check to the Arch-bishop and as though they required of him a sort of dependence on them now more than before and it shewed some secret Ill-will towards him which brake out more openly not long after as we shall shew in the Process of our Story In the Register is also recorded Boner's Oath of Fidelity to the King against the Bishop of Rome Which I will add here that Men may see with what little Affection to the Pope this Man was let into the Bishoprick which he afterwards made so much use of for him and his Usurpations though thereby he stands upon Record for ever for Perjury But the Oath was this Ye shall never consent nor agree that the Bishop of Rome shall practise exercise or have any manner of Authority Jurisdiction or Power within this Realm or any other the King's Dominions but that ye shall resist the same at all times to the uttermost of your Power And that from henceforth ye shall accept repute and take the King's Majesty to be the only Supream Head in Earth of the Church of England c. So help you God and all Saints and the Holy Evangelists Signed thus ✚ In fidem praemissorum Ego Edm. Boner Elect. Confirmat Londoniens huic praesenti chart a subscripsi By the Arch-bishop's Letters bearing date May 20. he made Robert Harvey B. LL. his Commissary in Calais and in all the other Neighbouring Places in France being his Diocess A Man surely wherein the good Arch-bishop was mistaken or else he would never have ventured to set such a Substitute of such bigotted cruel Principles in that place This Harvey condemned a poor labouring Man of Calais who said he would never believe that any Priest could make the Lord's Body at his pleasure Whereupon he was accused before the Commissary who roundly condemned him to be burnt inveighing against him and saying He was an Heretick and should die a vile Death The poor Man said He should die a viler shortly And so it came to pass for half a Year after he was hang'd drawn and quartered for Treason He seemed to have succeded in the room of a Man of better Principles called Sir Iohn Butler Who was deprived of his Commissariship by some Bishops Commissioners from the King for the examining several Persons suspect of Religion in Calais The Council there had about the Year 1539 complained of him as a maintainer of Damplip a learned and pious Preacher there So he was sent for into England and charged to favour Damplip because he preached so long there and was not restrained nor punish'd by him He answered warily and prudently that the Lord Lisle Lord Deputy and his Council entertained and friendly used him and countenanced him by hearing him preach so that he could not do otherwise than he did After long attendance upon the King's Commissioners he was discharged and returned home but discharged also of his Commissary's place too And having been an Officer of the Arch-bishop's I will add a word or two more concerning him About the Year 1536 he was apprehended in Calais and bound by Sureties not to pass the Gates of that Town upon the Accusation of two Souldiers that he should have said in contempt of the Corporal Presence That if the Sacrament of the Altar be Flesh Blood and Bone then there is good Aqua vitae at John Spicer's Where probably was very bad This Butler and one Smith were soon after brought by Pursevants into England and there brought before the Privy-Council in the Star-Chamber for Sedition and Heresy which were Charges ordinarily laid against the Professors of the Gospel in those Times and thence sent to the Fleet and brought soon after to Bath-place there sitting Clark Bishop of Bath Sampson Bishop of Chichester and Reps Bishop of Norwich the King's Commissioners And no wonder he met with these Troubles For he had raised up the hatred of the Friars of Calais against him by being a Discoverer and Destroyer of one of their gross Religious Cheats There had been great talk of a Miracle in S. Nicolas Church for the conviction of Men that the Wafer after Consecration was indeed turned into the Body Flesh and Bones of Christ. For in a Tomb in that Church representing the Sepulchre there were lying upon a Marble Stone three Hosts sprinkled with Blood and a Bone representing some Miracle This Miracle was in writing with a Pope's Bull of Pardon annexed to those I suppose that should visit that Church There was also a Picture of the Resurrection bearing some relation to this Miracle This Picture and Story Damplip freely spake against in one of his Sermons saying that it was but an Illusion of the French before Calais was English Upon this Sermon the King also having ordered the taking away all superstitious Shrines there came a Commission to the Lord Deputy of Calais to this Sir Iohn Butler the Arch-bishop's Commissary and one or two more that they should search whether this were true and if they found it not so that immediately the Shrine should be plucked down and so it was For breaking up a Stone in the corner of the Tomb instead of the three Hosts the Blood and the Bone they found souldered in the Cross of Marble lying under the Sepulchre three plain white Counters which they had painted like unto Hosts and a Bone that is in the tip of a Sheep's Tail This Damplip shewed the next Day being Sunday unto the People and after that they were sent to the King by the Lord Deputy But this so angred the Friars and their Creatures that it cost Damplip his Life and Commissary Butler much trouble and the loss of his Office After Harvey Hugh Glazier B. D. and Canon of Christ's-Church Canterbury succeeded in the Office of Commissary to the Arch-bishop fo◠Calais He was once a Friar but afterwards favoured the Reformation He was put up to preach at Paul's Cross the first Lent after King Edward came to the Crown and then asserted the observation of Lent to be but of human Institution This Year the Cathedral Church of Canterbury was altered from Monks to Secular Men of the Clergy viz. Prebendaries or Canons Petticanons Choristers and Scholars At this Erection were present Thomas Cranmer Arch-bishop the Lord Rich Chancellor of the Court of the Augmentation of the Revenues of the Crown Sir Christopher Hales Knight the King's Attorney Sir Anthony Sentleger Knight with divers other Commissioners And nominating and electing such convenient and fit Persons as should serve for the Furniture of the said Cathedral Church according to the
Possession of Arch-bishop Parker From whence he published the Book in the Year 1571 intituling it Reformatio Legum Ecclesiasticarum c. Which was printed again in the Year 1640. Both these Manuscript Draughts were diligently compared together by Iohn Fox and the main Difference seemed to consist in putting the latter into a new Method and placing the Titles differently For in this Matter Cranmer was much busied in King Edward's Reign also being greatly desirous to bring that good Work to perfection For he thought it greatly inconvenient when the Pope's Power was abrogated that his Laws should remain in Force holding it highly necessary that the Nation might have a Body of wholsome Laws for the good Administration of Justice in the Spiritual Courts Wherefore he procured in the fifth Year of that King Letters Commissional to him and seven more diligently to set about the perusal of the old Church-Laws and then to compile such a Body of Laws as should seem in their Judgments most expedient to be practised in the Ecclesiastical Courts and Jurisdictions These seven were Thomas Goodrick Bishop of Ely Richard Cox the King's Almoner Peter Martyr William May Rowland Taylour Iohn Lucas and Richard Goodrick But the Matter was in effect wholly intrusted by the King to the Arch-bishop who associated to himself in the active part of this Work Taylour Martyr and Haddon The Method they observed in managing this Affair was that after they had finished a Title and drawn it up it was then sent to Dr. Haddon who was a Civilian and an accurate Latinist to peruse And if any thing was less elegantly expressed to correct it So I find at the Title De Decimis these words writ by Cranmer This is finished by us but must be over-seen again by Dr. Haddon Thus for instance I observe these Corrections by Haddon's Pen in the Chapter intituled De Commodis quae perveniunt à Sacris ritibus instead of Gratiarum actionis mulierum a partu he corrected it Levatarum puerperarum And in another place Cuicunque hoc Praerogativum est instead of hoc Praerogativum he put Hoc peculiare jus tribuitur quod Praerogativum vocant But his Corrections are very few and but of words less proper The Work and Words were mainly Cranmer's own But all this great and long Labour of the Arch-bishop came to no effect by reason of the King 's untimely Death and it may be the secret opposition of Papists At the same time that he being at Hampton-Court dealt with the King concerning the Reformation of the Canon-Laws he also gave him an Account of a Business his Majesty had imployed him in and with him also Heth and Day Bps of Worcester and Chichester and some other of his Chaplains and Learned Men whom he had of late appointed with the Arch-bishop to peruse certain Books of Service delivered by the King to them wherein there were many Superstitions fit to be amended Which the Arch-bishop in the Name of the rest at this time acquainted the King with As namely the Vigil and ringing of Bells all the Night long upon Alhallow-Night and the covering of Images in the Church in the time of Lent with the lifting the Vail that covereth the Cross on Palm-Sunday and kneeling to the Cross at the same time He moved the King in his own Name and the Name of the rest that these things might be abolished and the Superstitions and other Enormities and Abuses of the same And that because all other Vigils which in the beginning of the Church were godly used yet for the manifold Superstitions and Abuses which did after grow by means of the same were many Years past taken away throughout Christendom and there remained nothing but the Name of the Vigil in the Calendar saving only upon Alhallow-Day at Night he moved that it might be observed no more And because creeping to the Cross was a greater Abuse than any of the other for there the People said Crucem tuam adoramus Domine And the Ordinal saith Procedant Clerici ad Crucem adorandum nudis pedibus and it followeth in the said Ordinal Ponatur Crux ante aliquod Altare ubi à Populo adoretur Which by the Bishop's Book intituled A necessary Instruction is against the second Commandment therefore he desired of the King that the creeping to the Cross might also cease hereafter These superstitious Usages were allowed in the Articles of Religion put forth Anno 1536. Cranmer then not having Interest enough to procure the laying them aside or thinking it then not a fitting season to attempt it as being in vain to oppose what the King himself at that time approved of But now the King listned to the Arch-bishop and bad him confer with the Bishop of Worcester and send to him their Thoughts what course they would advise him to take for Redress The Arch-bishop accordingly consulted with the said Bishop who then went along with Cranmer in the Reformation The Effect of which was as the Arch-bishop wrote to the King soon after from Bekesbourn That his Majesty should send his Letters to both the Arch-bishops to reform these Superstitions and they to send in the King's Name to all the Prelates within their respective Provinces to the same purpose The Arch-bishop withal sent to the King the Minutes of a Letter to be sent to him the said Arch-bishop to that intent He also advised the King that at the same time that this Alteration was commanded to be made he should set forth some Doctrine which should declare the Cause of the abolishing these Usages for the Satisfaction of the Consciences of the People For he knew well as he wrote that the People would think the Honour of Christ was taken away when this honouring of the Cross was taken away And therefore that they should need some good Instruction herein He nominated the Bishops of Worcester and Chichester and some other his Graces Chaplains for the preparing this And this he said would make the People obey him without murmuring nay be thankful to him for shewing them the Truth And it would be a Satisfaction to other Nations when they should see the King do nothing but by the Authority of God's Word and for the setting forth of God's Honour and not the diminishing thereof This Letter of the Arch-bishop to the King is extant in the Paper-Office whence the Bishop of Sarum extracted a Copy These things were agitated in the Bishop of VVinchester's Absence whom the King had sent Ambassador this Year with the Bishop of VVestminster to Charles the Emperor about the Mediation of a Peace between England and France The Arch-bishop took this occasion to move the King in these good Purposes for a further Reformation of Abuses in Religion towards the which the King appeared to be in so good a Mind VVinchester being absent who if he had been at Home would undoubtedly have done his Endeavour to put a Check to these Attempts But it
of the Second omitted according to the use in those Times But that Commandment is explained under the first The Substance of this Book is grave serious and sound Doctrine It is said in the Title Page to be overseen and corrected by the Arch-bishop Indeed it was a Catechism wrote originally in the German Language for the use of the younger Sort in Norinberg Translated into Latin by Iustus Ionas Junior who now was entertained by the Arch-bishop in his Family and thence turned into our Vulgar Tongue by the said Arch-bishop or his special Order But 't is certain so great a Hand he had therein that in the Arch-bishop's first Book of the Sacrament he said that it was translated by himself and set forth Bishop Gardiner in his Book against the Arch-bishop takes advantage of two things in this Catechism against him as though he himself when he put it forth was of the Opinion of the Corporal Presence The one was a Picture that stood before the Book where was an Altar with Candles lighted and the Priest apparelled after the old Sort putting the Wafer into the Communicant's Mouth The other is an Expression or two used somewhere in the Book That with our bodily Mouths we receive the Body and Blood of Christ And that in the Sacrament we receive truly the Body and Blood of Christ. And this we must believe if we will be counted Christen Men. But to both Cranmer in his next Book against Gardiner made answer That as for the Picture it was that was set before the Dutch Edition of the Book and so none of his doing but that he afterwards caused the Popish Picture to be altered into a Picture representing Christ eating his last Supper with his Disciples As for the Expressions he said he taught that we in the Sacrament do receive the Body and Blood of Christ spiritually and that the words Really and Substantially were not used but Truly And in his Answer to Dr. Richard Smith's Preface wrote against the said Arch-bishop who it seems had twitted him also with this Catechism he spake largely of these his Expressions in his own Vindication There was another Book of the Arch-bishop's against Vnwritten Verities which I do by Conjecture place here as put forth under this Year or near this Time Which I suppose Dr. Smith nibbled at in his Book of Traditions which this Year he recanted The Book was in Latin and consisted only of Allegations out of the Bible and Ancient Writers In Queen Mary's Days the Book was again published by an English Exile naming himself E. P. The Title it now bore was A Confutation of Vnwritten Verities by divers Authorities diligently and truly gathered out of the Holy Scripture and Ancient Fathers By Tho. Cranmer late Arch-bishop and burned at Oxford for the Defence of the true Doctrine of our Saviour Translated and set forth by E. P. Before it is a Preface of the Translator to his Country-men and Brethren in England In it he lamented the woful State of Things in England by the Restoring of Popery and the Persecution of Protestants there and shewed what a kind of Man the chief Bishop then in England viz. Cardinal Pool was who in the last King's Reign went from Prince to Prince to excite them to make War against his own Prince and Country This Treatise is but a bare Collection of places of Holy Scripture and Ancient Fathers to prove That the Canon of the Bible is a true and sound and perfect Doctrine containing all Things necessary to Salvation That neither the Writing of the Old Fathers without the Word of God nor General Councils nor the Oracles of Angels nor Apparitions from the Dead nor Customs can be sufficient in Religion to establish Doctrine or maintain new Articles of Faith Then Reasons are given against Unwritten Verities and the places of Holy Scripture and other Writers which the Papists bring to maintain Unwritten Verities are answered At last the Objections of the Papists are confuted in a concluding Chapter Which last part was not writ by the Arch-bishop but by the Translator For relating here the Story of the Holy Maid of Kent he saith she was examined by Tho. Cranmer Arch-bishop of Canterbury And at last he saith I have plainly and fully answered to all that I remember the Papists do or can allege by Writing Preaching or Reasoning for the Defence of their Unwritten Verities on which they build so many detestable Idolatries and Heresies But yet if any be able to answer so plainly and truly to the Scriptures Authorities and Reasons rehearsed by me as I have done to theirs and to prove their Doctrines by as plain Testimonies and Reasons as I have done mine I shall not only acknowledg my Ignorance and Error but I shall gladly return into England recant my Heresies c. Hence it is plain that the Conclusion of the Book as well as the Preface was writ by the Translator I will add one Passage taken out of this Book about the middle whereby it may be seen what a Clergy was now in England Having quoted the Canons of the Apostles Let not a Bishop or Deacon put away his Wife c. He makes a heavy complaint against the frequent practice of beastly Sins in the Priests Adultery Sodomy c. and that they never were punished And in my Memory as he proceeds which is above thirty Years and also by the Information of others that be twenty Years elder than I I could never learn that one Priest was punished This is some Account of the Care he took for the Church in general as Metropolitan But he had a particular Care of his own Diocess now his Power was not checked as it was in the former Reign especially of the City of Canterbury which had been formerly the backwardest in Religion of any other Place of his Diocess He supplied this City with store of excellent Learned Preachers Turner the two Ridleys Becon Besely and Iohn Ioseph who this Year went along with the King's Visitors as one of their Preachers These converted not a few to sincere Religion as may appear by those Numbers of Canterbury that in Queen Mary's Reign suffered the Torment of Fire for their Profession of the Gospel But in that Reign all the Preachers fled so that there was scarce one remaining in the City Which was looked upon as a particular Sign of God's Displeasure against that Place because the Professors there and others reformed not themselves according to those Opportunities of Grace which God had put into their Hands And so I find in a Letter to them wrote by some eminent Person in Prison in Queen Mary's Reign Alas how few faithful Servants hath the Lord of Life in these troublesome Days within Canterbury to whom above all other People in comparison of multitude he hath sent most plenteously his Word in the Mouths of most excellent Preachers But even as the People were Negligent Hard-hearted nothing willing
addicted to the old Superstition would commonly disturb the Preachers in his Church when he liked not their Doctrine by causing the Bells to be rung when they were at the Sermon and sometimes beginning to sing in the Choir before the Sermon were half done and sometimes by challenging the Preacher in the Pulpit For he was a strong stout Popish Prelat Whom therefore the Godly-disposed of the Parish were weary of and especially some of the eminentest Men at Limâ—hurst whose Names were Driver Ive Poynter March and others But they durst not meddle with him until one Vnderhil of the Band of Gentlemen-Pensioners of a good Family and well respected at Court came to live at Limehurst He being the King's Servant took upon him to reprehend this Abbot for these and such-like his Doings and by his Authority carried him unto Croyden to the Arch-bishop there the Persons above-named going along as Witnesses In fine the mild Arch-bishop sent him away with a gentle Rebuke and bad him to do no more so This Lenity offended Vnderhil who said My Lord methinks you are too gentle unto so stout a Papist To which Cranmer replied Well we have no Law to punish them by No Law my Lord said the other If I had your Authority I would be so bold to unvicar him or minister some sharp Punishment upon him and such other If ever it come to their Turn they will shew you no such Favour Well said the good Arch-bishop if God so provide we must abide it Surely replied the other again God will never con you Thanks for this but rather take the Sword from such as will not use it upon his Enemies And so they parted And this indeed was the constant Behaviour of the Arch-bishop towards Papists and such as were his Enemies For which he was now and at other times taxed by Men of hotter Spirits but his Opinion was that Clemency and Goodness as it was more agreeable to the Gospel which he laboured to adorn so was more likely to obtain the Ends he desired than Rigour and Austerity The Arch-bishop did one thing more this Year of good Conducement to the promoting true Religion and exposing False and that was in countenancing and licensing an earnest Preacher in the South-West Parts named Thomas Hancock a Master of Arts whose Mouth had been stopped by a strict Inhibition from Preaching in the former King's Reign The Arch-bishop saw well what a useful Man he had been in those parts of England where he frequented having been a very diligent Preacher of the Gospel and Declaimer against Papal Abuses in the Diocesses of two bigotted Bishops Gardiner of Winchester and Capon of Sarum In this first Year of the King many zealous Preachers of the Gospel without staying for publick Orders from Above earnestly set forth the Evangelical Doctrine in confutation of the Sacrifice of the Mass and the Corporal Presence in the Sacrament and such like And of the Laity there were great numbers every where especially in populous Towns of such as did now more openly shew their Heads and their good Inclinations to the New Learning as it was then called In Southampton of the Diocess of Winchester in Salisbury Pool and Dorset of the Diocess of Sarum did this Hancock chiefly converse and officiate in the latter end of K. Henry When he was suspended à Celebratione Divinorum by Dr. Raynold Commissary under Dr. Steward then Chancellor to Bp Gardiner upon pretence of the Breach of the Act of Six Articles because he had taught out of the Ninth to the Hebrews That our Saviour Christ entred once into the Holy Place by the which he obtained unto us everlasting Redemption That he once suffered and that his Body was once offered to take away the Sins of many People And that one only Oblation sufficed for the Sins of the whole World And though all this was but mere Scripture yet they found it to contradict their Notions and therefore they thought convenient to suspend him But as these Bishops did what they could to stifle all Preaching of God's Word so the Arch-bishop's Principle was to encourage and send forth Preachers So Hancock notwithstanding his former Suspension obtained a Licence from our Arch-bishop to preach Now to follow this Preacher a little after his Licence obtained At Christ-Church Twinham in the County of Southampton where he was born as I take it from his own Narration he preached out of the Sixteenth Chapter of S. Iohn The Holy Ghost shall reprove the World of Sin of Righteousness c. because I go to the Father The Priest being then at Mass Hancock declared unto the People That that the Priest held over his Head they did see with their bodily Eyes but our Saviour Christ doth here say plainly that we shall see him no more Then you saith he that do kneel unto it pray unto it and honour it as God do make an Idol of it and your selves do commit most horrible Idolatry Whereat the Vicar Mr. Smith sitting in his Chair in the face of the Pulpit spake these words Mr. Hancock you have done well until now and now have you plaid an ill Cow's part which when she hath given a good Mess of Milk overthroweth all with her Foot and so all is lost And with these words he got him out of the Church Also in this first Year of the King the same Person preached in S. Thomas Church at Salisbury Dr. Oking Chancellor to Bishop Capon and Dr. Steward Chancellor to Bishop Gardiner being present with divers others of the Clergy and Laity His place was Every Plant which my Heavenly Father hath not planted shall be rooted out Whence he inveighed against the Superstitious Ceremonies Holy Bread Holy Water Images Copes Vestments c. And at last against the Idol of the Altar proving it to be an Idol and no God by the First of S. Iohn's Gospel No Man hath seen God at any time with other places of the Old Testament But that the Priest held over his Head they did see kneeled before it honoured it and so made an Idol of it And therefore they were most horrible Idolaters Whereat the Doctors and certain of the Clergy went out of the Church Hancock seeing them departing charged them They were not of God because they refused to hear the Word of God But when the Sermon was ended Thomas Chaffen the Mayor set on as is likely by some of the Clergy came to him laying to his Charge the Breach of a Proclamation lately set forth by the Lord Protector That no Nick-names should be given unto the Sacrament as Round-Robin or Iack in the Box. Whereto he replied That it was no Sacrament but an Idol as they used it But for all this Excuse the Mayor had committed him to Jail had not Six honest Men been bound for his Appearance the next Assizes to make his Answer As Dr. Ieffery about this time had committed two to Prison for the like
Young Chaunter after Arch-bishop of York who pulled down the great Hall in the Palace there for lucre of the Lead and Rowland Mericâ— one of the Canons after Bishop of the said See of S. Davids and Father to Sir Gilly Merick that came to an untimely Death by being in the Business of the Earl of Essex These two having been before Commissaries of this Diocess had spoiled the Cathedral Church of Crosses Chalices and Censors with other Plate Jewels and Ornaments to the value of five hundred Marks or more and converted them to their own private Benefit and had sealed many Blanks Sede Vacante without the King's Licence or Knowledg Whereupon the Bishop issued out his Commission to his Chancellor for visiting the Chapter as well as the rest of the Diocess But the Commission was it seems drawn up amiss by the said Chancellor to whom the Bishop left the forming the Draught For it ran in the old Popish Form and so the King's Supremacy not sufficiently acknowledged therein though he professed to visit in the King's Name and Authority This these two in Combination with his own ingrateful Register George Constantine whom he had preferred took their Advantage of not only to disobey the said Commission but to accuse the poor Bishop of a Praemunire For which he was sain to go down from London whither they had before brought him up to answer at the Assizes of Carmarthen And when by reason of the Molestations they gave him and their detaining him in London he could not be so exact in paying in the Tenths and First-Fruits and Subsidies due from the Clergy of his Diocess they took hold of this as another Crime to lay to his Charge And hereupon in fine he was kept in Prison a long time and so remained when Queen Mary entred upon the Government Upon which Occasion he fell into the Hands of the Pope's Butchers Who at last for maintaining the Truth sent him into his Diocess and burnt him at a Stake And thus these Men became the Instruments of his Death In their vexatious Suits against this good Bishop undertaken the better to conceal their own Faults our Arch-bishop seemed to be engaged giving too much credit to the ill Reports that Farrar's Enemies raised against him in a great heap of frivolous and malicious Articles exhibited to the King's Council Who appointed Sir Iohn Mason and Dr. VVotton to examine them Though I suppose our pious Arch-bishop afterwards saw through this Malice and forbore any further to give Influence to those that prosecuted this honest Man Understanding by Letters which that afflicted Man sent both to him and Bishop Goodrick Lord Chancellor his unjust Vexations wrought by his Adversaries One whereof I mean his Register remained Register to that very Popish Bishop that succeeded him nay and was assistant at his Trial and Condemnation In short hear what one writes that lived nearer those Times and might therefore be presumed to know more of these Matters This was a Conspiracy of his Enemies against him and of wicked Fellows who had robbed the Church kept Concubines falsified Records and committed many other gross Abuses To conclude I find by a private Letter written to Iohn Fox that these Men knowing how they had wronged the good Bishop came to him before his Death and asked him Forgiveness and he like a good Christian forgave them and was reconciled to them CHAP. X. The Arch-bishop answers the Rebels Articles THE Commons this Year brake out into a dangerous Rebellion and though they were once or twice appeased and scattered in some Places yet they made Insurrections in others And chiefly in Devon where they were very formidable for their Numbers The Reason they pretended was double The one was the Oppression of the Gentry in enclosing of their Commons from them The other the laying aside the old Religion which because it was Old and the Way their Forefathers worshipped God they were very fond of The Ld Russel Ld Privy-Seal who was sent against them offering to receive their Complaints the Rebels sent them to him drawn up under 15 Articles As before they had sent their Demands in seven Articles and a Protestation that they were the King 's Body and Goods In Answer to which the King sent a Message to them that may be seen in Fox They sent also a Supplication to the King To the which an Answer was made by the King 's Learned Counsel I shall take notice only of the fifteen Articles unto which our Arch-bishop drew up an excellent Answer at good length For no Man was thought so fit as he to open and unravel these Mens Requests and to unfold the unreasonableness of them and to shew what real Mischief they would pluck down upon themselves and the Nation should all the Decrees of our Forefathers and the Six Articles be revived again and what great Injury Religion would receive should the Latin Masses and Images and the worshipping the Sacrament and Purgatory and Abbies be restored and Cardinal Pole come Home and the English Bible be called in and such-like things which their Demands consisted of This Answer of the Arch-bishop I judg worthy preserving and therefore though somewhat long I have laid in the Appendix because it will shew his Wisdom Learning and the Knowledg of the State of the Kingdom that he was furnished with I met with these Writings in the Manuscript Librarary of Benet College being the rough Draught of them all under the Arch-bishop's own Hand He charged them with Ignorance in putting up such Articles And concluded them not to be their own Minds to have them granted had they understood them but that they were indeed devised by some Priests and rank Papists and Traitors to the Realm which he would not so much as think of them So that he gently told them that he must use the same expression to them that Christ did to Iames and Iohn They asked they wot not what The Arch-bishop wrot this Answer after the Rout at Exeter given them by the Lord Russel and the taking Prisoners divers of their Captains and Priests and between the Condemnation and Execution of Humphrey Arundel and Bray Mayor of Bodmin Whom he prayed God to make penitent before their Deaths to which they were adjudged For which two the Rebels in one of their Articles had required safe Conduct to make their Grievances known to the King As they had in another Article demanded two Divines of the same Popish stamp to be sent to them to preach namely Moreman and Crispin Who both seemed now being Priests of that Country to be under Restraint upon suspicion Men as the Arch-bishop told them ignorant of God's Word but of notable Craft Wilfulness and Dissimulation and such as would poison them instead of feeding them Of Crispin I find little but that he was once Proctor of the University of Oxon and Doctor of the Faculty of Physick and of
them obliquely therewith And in fine he wrote that He and those with him knew more than they did to whom they writ Probably he meant that he knew that this Anger against the Duke arose from the private Malice of some of them or their Hatred of the Reformation notwithstanding all the fair Pretences of their Care of the King and the Protector 's Misgovernment This Letter the Lords from Ely-house answered Charging and commanding the Arch-bishop and those with him to have a continual earnest watch of the King's Person and that he be not removed from Windsor-Castle as they would answer the same at their utmost Perils They wondred much they said that they would suffer the King's Royal Person to remain in the Guard of the Duke's Men and that Strangers should be Armed with the King's Armour and be nearest about his Person For it seems many of the King's Servants in this Fear were removed away They advised the Arch-bishop and the Lord Paget to come over to their Side and to leave the poor Duke alone Upon this the Arch-bishop and the others wrote a second Letter dated October the 10 th Wherein they assured the Lords that they could whensoever they pleased to require it give such very good Reasons for their so often mentioning Cruelty in their other Letter as they questioned not they would be well satisfied with And so upon the Lord 's propounding a Meeting with the King and them they accorded thereunto in great prudence willing for Peace and Quietness in that dangerous Time so to do These Letters are recorded in the History of the Reformation The Common-Prayer-Book and Administration of the Sacraments by the great care and study of the Arch-bishop was now finished and settled by Act of Parliament which would not down with a great many But upon the taking up of the Duke of Somerset in the Month of October and laying him in the Tower it was generally said that now the old Latin-Service should come in again the common Opinion being that the Common-Prayer was peculiarly of his procuring And that there were such Designs among Somerset's Enemies who were generally favourers of the old Religion it is not improbable The good Arch-bishop thought it now time to interpose in this thing and to obtain from the Privy-Council somewhat to confirm the Book of Common-Prayer So there was in Decemb. 25. a general Letter drawn up to all the Bishops of England Letting them understand That there was no intention of bringing in again Latin-Service conjured Bread and Water nor any such abrogated Ceremonies And that the abolishing of these and the setting forth of the Book of Common-Prayer was done by the whole State of the Realm That the Book was grounded upon the Holy Scripture and was agreeable to the Order of the Primitive Church and much to the edifying of the Subject And therefore that the changing of that for the old Latin-Service would be a preferring of Ignorance to Knowledg Darkness to Light and a preparation to bring in Papistry and Superstition again The Bishops therefore were bid with all speed to command their Deans and Prebendaries and all Parsons Vicars and Curates to bring to such Places as the Bishops should appoint all Antiphoners Missals c. and all other Books of Service and that they be defaced and abolished that they be no let to that Godly and uniform Order set forth And to commit to Ward any stubborn and disobedient Persons that brought not the said Books and to certify the Council of their Misbehaviour That they should make search if any of these Superstitious Books were withdrawn or hid That whereas there were some Persons who refused to contribute to the buying of Bread and Wine for the Communion according to the Order of the Book whereby many-times the Holy Communion was fain to be omitted to convent such Persons before them and admonish them and if they refused to do accordingly to punish them by Suspension Excommunication or other Censure This was signed by the Arch-bishop and the Lord Chancellor Rich and four more CHAP. XIII The Arch-bishop entertains learned Foreigners THE Arch-bishop had now in his Family several Learned Men. Some he sent for from beyond Sea and some in pity he entertained being Exiles for Religion Among the former sort was Martin Bucer a Man of great Learning and Moderation and who bore a great part in the Reformation of Germany While he and the rest abode under his Roof the Arch-bishop still employed them sometimes in learned Conferences and Consultations held with them sometimes in writing their Judgment upon some Subjects in Divinity Here Bucer wrote to the Lady Elizabeth a Letter bearing Date the 6 th of the Calends of September commending her Study in Piety and Learning and exciting her to proceed therein incited so to do I make no doubt by the Arch-bishop whom Bucer in that Letter makes mention of and stileth Patrem suum benignissimum hospitem Hence also he wrote another Letter to the Marquess of Northampton who was a Patron of Learning and a Professor of Religion in the behalf of Sleidan who was promised a Pension by the King to enable him to write the History of the Progress of Religion beginning at Luther A part of the Letter translated into English ran thus Therefore if we should not take care that this so great Act of Divine Goodness towards us viz. the Reformation began in the Year 1517 should be most diligently written and consecrated to Posterity we should lie under the Crime of the neglect of God's Glory and most foul Ingratitude Therefore Iohn Sleidan a very Learned and Eloquent Man five Years ago began to compile an History of this Nature as the Work he had published did witness But after he was much encouraged in this Undertaking and well furnished with Matter the Calamities that befel Germany for our own Deserts intercepted the pious Attempts of this Man so very useful to the Church Nor doth it appear now from whence besides the King's Majesty we may hope that some small Benignity may be obtained for Sleidan since the Salaries which he received for this purpose from the German Princes failed and he was poor That Iohn Alasco Dr. Peter Martyr and he considering these things and weighing how the truly Christian King Edward was even born with a desire of illustrating the Glory of Christ and what need there was to set Sleidan again upon finishing the History of the Gospel restored to us they had therefore presumed to supplicate the King in his behalf and intreated the Marquess to promote and forward their Supplication and to vouchsafe to contribute his Help also We shall hear more of this hereafter I find also Annotations writ by the said Bucer upon S. Matthew reaching as far as the eighth Chapter and there ending in this method There is the Latin Translation with large Notes added in the Margin and at the end of each Chapter common
Places collected from thence in the nature of Inferences and Observations Which I conclude the Arch-bishop put him upon doing while he was now with him The Work was looked over and examined by the Arch-bishop Notes and Corrections of his own Hand being here and there inserted Also the Gospel of S. Mark is handled in the same method by another of the Arch-bishop's Guests Which Writing hath this Inscription by Cranmer's Hand Petrus Alexander in Marcum At this time therefore there were at the Arch-bishop's House besides Bucer Alasco Peter Martyr Paulus Phagius Peter Alexander Bernardine Ochin Mat. Negelinus after a Minister of Strasburgh who accompanied Bucer and Fagius into England and others whose Names do not occur Three of these were soon after preferred to publick Places of Reading in the Universities Peter Alexander was of Artois and lived with the Arch-bishop before Bucer came into England He was a Learned Man but had different Sentiments in the Matter of the Eucharist enclining to the belief of a Corporeal Presence with the Lutherans Though some Years after he came over to a righter Judgment as his Companion Peter Martyr signified to Calvin in a Letter wrote from Strasburgh Peter Martyr coming about the beginning of the Year 1549 unto the University of Oxford his first Readings were upon the eleventh Chapter of the first Epistle to the Corinthians In which Chapter is some Discourse of the Lord's Supper The Professor when he came so far took occasion to expatiate more largely upon that Argument and the rather that he might state it aright in the midst of those hot Contests that were then about it among Learned Men. These Lectures on the Sacrament he soon after printed at London for the Benefit of the World as they were two Years after done at Zurick and dedicated them to his Patron the Arch-bishop And that partly to give a publick Testimony of his Sense of the Arch-bishop's great Humanity and Benefits towards him Which were so large that he must do nothing else but tell of them to be sufficiently thankful for them And known it was to all as he said how obligingly he received and how liberally he entertained both himself and many other Strangers of his Rank and Condition And partly that by his Authority he would protect and defend what he should find in his Book to be consonant to the Holy Scriptures and agreeable to the King's Laws For he had he said Skill and Industry enough to do it who had himself often both in Publick and Private conflicted with the Adversaries and with admirable Learning accuracy of Wit and Dexterity vindicated the Truth from the spinous and confused Cavils of Sophisters Nor did he want Will to stand up for Sound and Christian Doctrines as all good Men knew who saw how earnest he was in his Labours of restoring Religion that for that Cause he drew upon himself many Enmities and threatning Dangers The first Occasion of Bucer's Call into England was thus He had wrote to Iohn Hales a learned English-man his Acquaintance the sad Estate of Germany and that he could scarce stay any longer in the Place where he was This Hales acquainted the Arch-bishop with which made a great Impression upon his compassionate Soul and he brake out into those words of the Psalmist Mirifica misericordias tuas qui salvos facis sperantes in te a resistentibus dexterae tuae And forthwith writ to Brucer a Letter in October 1548 to come over to this Realm which should be a most safe Harbour for him urging him to become a Labourer in the Lord's Harvest here begun and using other Arguments with him to move him hereunto in the most obliging Stile possible calling him My Bucer And that he might come over the safer from Harms and Enemies the Arch-bishop recommended him to one Hills an English-Merchant to provide for his Passage The Arch-bishop's Letter may be found in the Appendix To this Letter Bucer wrote an Answer seeming upon some Considerations to decline the Arch-bishop's Invitation This Letter coming to the Arch-bishop's Hands he shewed to Peter Alexander who by the Arch-bishop's Order wrote back to Bucer in the said Arch-bishop's and the Protector 's Name to call him again over which Letter was dated March 24 from Lambeth telling him withal that the good old Man Latimer saluted him Letters I suppose of the same Import were also dispatched to the Learned Fagius Bucer and Fagius who were thus honourably invited into England by repeated Letters of the Lord Protector and Arch-bishop Cranmer were by them also nominated for Publick Professors in the University of Cambridg the one of Divinity the other of the Hebrew Tongue This was looked on by their Friends as a notable piece of God's good Providence that when these two eminent Champions of the true Religion were in so much present Danger in Germany so seasonable a Refuge was provided for them elsewhere They both arrived safe in England in the end of April and abode with the Arch-bishop above a quarter of a Year until towards the end of the long Vacation the Arch-bishop intending they should be at Cambridg when the Term should begin in order to their Reading During this Interval while they continued at Lambeth they were not idle being every day busied in some Study and Exercise agreeable to their Function as was hinted before But the main of their Thoughts were taken up in preparing for their University-Lectures Which of what Subject-Matter they should be the Arch-bishop himself directed As it had been a great while his pious and most earnest Desire that the Holy Bible should come abroad in the greatest Exactness and true Agreement with the original Text. So he laid this Work upon these two Learned Men. First That they should give a clear plain and succinct Interpretation of the Scripture according to the Propriety of the Language And Secondly Illustrate difficult and obscure Places and reconcile those that seemed repugnant to one another And it was his Will and his Advice that to this End and Purpose their publick Readings should tend This pious and good Work by the Arch-bishop assigned to them they most gladly and readily undertook For their more regular carrying on this Business they allotted to each other by consent their distinct Tasks Fagius because his Talent lay in the Hebrew Learning was to undertake the Old Testament and Bucer the New The Leisure they now enjoyed with the Arch-bishop they spent in preparing their respective Lectures Fagius entred upon the Evangelical Prophet Esaias and Bucer upon the Gospel of the Evangelist Iohn And some Chapters in each Book were dispatched by them But it was not long but both of them fell Sick which gave a very unhappy stop to their Studies Fagius his Distemper proved mortal who was seized at first with a very acute Fever And notwithstanding Physick and Attendance remaining very ill he had a great desire to remove to Cambridg to
his Charge appointed him hoping the Change of Air might help him He made a shift to travel thither leaving his dear Colleague sick behind him But Fagius still declining in his Health ardently desired Bucer's Company Who on the fifth of November came to Cambridg And ten Days after Fagius deceased aged about forty five Years to the extraordinary Loss of that University and the Grief of all pious Men that wished well to Religion and which was most to be lamented before he had given any Specimen of his Learning and Abilities in England though he had already given many to the World all shewing what a Master he was in Hebrew and Rabbinical Learning His published Labours of this nature all within the space of six Years may be seen in the Appendix Which I have placed there for the preserving the Memory of that Learned Professor which our University of Cambridg was once honoured with The good Arch-bishop troubled at the sudden Death of this Learned Man from whom he had promised himself some great Good to accrue to the University sent a Letter November the last unto his sorrowful Companion Bucer desiring him among other things as from him to comfort Fagius's Widow and to let her know that he had sent her by the Carrier seven and twenty Pounds which was part of the Stipend due out of the Exchequer to her Husband Which although it were not yet pay'd into Cranmer's Hands yet he thought good to send her the Money so soon that it might be some alleviation of her present Sorrow There were fifty Pounds due for his Readings reckoning from Lady-day last when his Pension began but three Pounds were disbursed for Charges in taking out the Patent and twenty Pounds the Arch-bishop had sent him before Bucer above all lamented the loss of his Mate and wrote a sorrowful Letter ad Fratres Symmystas to his Brethren and fellow-Ministers in Germany upon this Subject And in a Letter to P. Martyr then at Oxon he not only complained of this heavy Loss but as if himself were like to follow him of several things that made him uneasy at Cambridg where he was now placed as of the want of a convenient House of a Body impatient of Cold which the Time of the Year made him begin to feel need of Necessaries That the Letters Patents were not yet signed for his Salary and the slow and uncertain paiment of his Pension But Cranmer out of that high respect he had for him was not wanting in his diligence in due time to make all easy to him and to have so useful and grave a Man well provided for But the next Year the last Day of February he followed his Companion to the other World But not before he had made himself and his Learning known to the University Which to qualify him to moderate at the publick Disputations at the Commencement had given him the Degree of Doctor as a peculiar Honour done him without the common Rites and Forms ordinarily used in those Cases Yet he chose to do his Exercises responding the first Day of the Commencement and opposing the second with great Learning and no less Satisfaction of the University CHAP. XIV Peter Martyr disputes in Oxford being Challenged thereunto THE Papists in both Universities were resolved to try the Metal and Learning of their new Professors being exceedingly nettled at their coming and offended at their Readings PETRUS MARTYR VERMILIUS S.S. Theologiae apud Oxonienses â—rofessor Regius Natus Florentiae Sept. 8 Anno MD Obijt Nov 12. MDLXII Being come to the Chair he gently told his Adversaries in a modest Speech to them That he refused not to dispute but that at that time he came to read and not to dispute And so themselves yielding to it he proceeded to his Lecture which he performed with much constancy and undauntedness without the least disturbance of Mind or change of Countenance or Colour or hesitation in his Speech notwithstanding the Murmur and Noise of the Adversaries Which got him much Credit and Applause As soon as he had done his Reading the Adversaries began to make loud Cries that he should Dispute and especially Smith the Champion But he modestly refused it and said He would do it at another time and that he was not then prepared because they had so studiously concealed the Propositions to be disputed of and had not propounded them publickly according to the accustomed manner and that he knew nothing of them till that very Day But they told him He could not be unprepared who had read so much of the Lord's Supper whatsoever Arguments they propounded in this Matter They still rudely urging him he said He would do nothing in such a Matter without the King were first made privy to it especially when the thing tended to Sedition Moreover for a lawful Disputation it was requisite he said that certain Questions be propounded Judges and Moderators constituted and publick Notaries be present that might impartially and faithfully write down the Arguments and Speeches on both Sides In fine the Matter came to that pass that fearing a Tumult the Vice-chancellor decided the Controversy after this manner That both P. Martyr and Smith with some Friends should meet in his House and should appoint the Propositions to be disputed of the Time the Order and Manner of Disputation And so the Vice-chancellor the Beadle making him way went to the Pulpit where the Professor was and took him by the Hand and led him down through the Crouds to his own House his Friends going along with him and among the rest Sidal and Curtop then vigorous Defenders of the Truth but after in Q. Mary's Days revolting Smith also and his Friends Cole Oglethorp and three more repaired to the Vice-chancellor where it was agreed after some jangling That Martyr should observe the same Order in Confuting as he did in Teaching and abstaining from strange barbarous and ambiguous Words wont to be used in the Schools he said he would use only Carnaliter and Corporaliter Realiter and Substantialiter because the Scripture useth only the words Flesh and Body Res or Substantia And so it was agreed and the Day set was the fourth of May ensuing And it was agreed also on both Sides That all this whole Matter should be signified to the Council that they might have Cognizance of the thing And by them the Day of the Disputation was appointed when some from the King as Judges and Keepers of Peace would be present at it The Papists reported falsly That he having appointed the Time of the Disputation to be ten Days hence in the mean time got the Magistrates acquainted with this Affair that they might stop and forbid it which they did indeed proroguing it till some Months after the first Challenge And that afterwards when the Professor saw his Opportunity he provoked to a publick Disputation offering to dispute of his Questions formerly propounded and thought
of old Popish Curats The Letter is dated the 23 d of Iuly and is extant in Fox In London by the Connivance and Remisness of the Bishop many neglected the Divine Service then established and others did in secret Places of the Diocess often frequent the Popish Mass and other Superstitious Rites not allowed by the Laws of England The Sins of Adultery greatly encreased The Churches and particularly the Mother-Church of S. Paul's ran into Dilapidations the Glass was broken and the Ornaments and other Buildings belonging to Churches neglected Many refused to pay Tithes to their Curates probably of both sorts such as were Papists to those Curats as more diligently preached Reformation and obeyed the King's Laws and such as were not so to such Curats as were more backward thereunto Bishop Boner also himself now seldom came to Church seldomer preached and celebrated the English Communion Wherefore the Council sent certain private Injunctions to Boner for the redress of these things That he should preach in his own Person at Paul's Cross and declare certain Articles relating to the before-mentioned Neglects which the Council now sent to him to redress That he should preach once in a Quarter and exhort the People to Obedience and that he should be present at every Sermon at Paul's Cross that he should on the principal Feasts celebrate the Communion and at all times that his Predecessors used to Celebrate and sing High Mass. That he should call before him all such as did not frequent the Church and Common-Prayer and the Holy Communion and punish them as also Adulterers and that he should look to the Reparation of S. Paul's and other Churches and that the People pay their Tithes The Adulteries before hinted which the Council thought fit to recommend to the Bishop to take particular cognizance of makes me add that about this time the Nation grew infamous for this Crime It began among the Nobility and so spread at length among the inferior sort Noblemen would very frequently put away their Wives and marry others if they liked another Woman better or were like to obtain Wealth by her And they would sometimes pretend their former Wives to be false to their Beds and so be divorced and marry again such whom they fancied The first occasion of this seemed to be in the Earl of Northampton divorcing himself from his first Wife Anne Daughter to the Earl of Essex and after marrying Elizabeth Daughter to the Lord Cobham In like manner Henry Son of William Earl of Pembroke put away Katharine Daughter to Henry the Duke of Suffolk and married Mary the Daughter of Sir Henry Sidney These Adulteries and Divorces encreased much yea and marrying again without Divorce which became a great Scandal to the Realm and to the Religion professed in it and gave much Sorrow and Trouble in good Men to see it In so much that they thought it necessary to move for an Act of Parliament to punish Adultery with Death This Latimer in a Sermon preached in the Year 1550 signified to the King For the Love of God saith he take an order for Marriage here in England This is some Account of the Retardation of Religion On the other hand the Endeavors of those that wished well to it were not wanting Now the Protestants began more freely to put forth Books and to disperse such as were formerly printed beyond Sea in the behalf of Religion against Popery and concerning such as had suffered under the Cruelties of the Church of Rome Bale about these Days dispersed his Books One was The Image of both Churches applying the Divine Prophecy of the Revelations to the Apostate Church of Rome Another was a Vindication of the Lady Anne Ascue who suffered the cruel Death of Burning about the end of King Henry's Reign Whose Cause the Papists studiously had rendred bad This Book he intitled The Elucidation of Anne Ascue's Martyrdom Which was this Year exposed publickly to sale at Winchester and the Parts thereabouts as a Reproach to the Bishop of Winchester who was the great Cause of her Death Four of these Books came to that Bishop's own Eyes being then at Winchester they had Leaves put in as Additions to the Book some glewed and some unglewed which probably contained some further Intelligences that the Author had gathered since his first writing of the Book And herein some Reflexions were made freely according to Bale's Talent upon some of the Court not sparing Paget himself though then Secretary of State Another of Bale's Books that went now about was touching the Death of Luther Therein was a Prayer of the Duke of Saxony mentioned which the Bishop of Winchester gladly took hold on Wherein that Duke as to the justness of his Cause remitted himself to God's Judgment to be shewed on him here in this World if the Cause he undertook were not Just concerning Religion and desired God if it were not Good to order him to be taken and spoiled of his Honors and Possessions Since which the Duke was taken Prisoner and at the very time of his taking the Papists made an Observation that the Sun appeared so strangely in England as the like had not been seen before So apt are Men to interpret Events according to their own preconceived Opinions But at this Winchester took much Advantage Whereas indeed the Issues of God's Providence in this World are not favourable always even to the best Causes The keeping of Lent was now called into Controversy and asserted that it was not to be observed upon a religious Account And this was done the rather because the Papists placed so much Religion in the bare Fast. In the Pulpit it began to be cried down Tongue and Ioseph two great Preachers in London said That Lent was one of Christ's Miracles which God ordained not Men to imitate or follow And that it was an insupportable Burden There was a set of Rhimes now made about the burial of Lent which was called Iack of Lent 's Testament and publicly sold in Winchester Market therein Steven Gardiner the Bishop was touched who was a great Man for keeping it For in the Ballad Stephen Stockfish was bequeathed in this Will to Stephen Gardiner Of this he made a long Complaint to the Protector But yet this Neglect of Lent was not encouraged by the Superiors For it was kept at Court and Preparations for the King's Diet were made accordingly this Lent by the Protector The Protestants indeed were for keeping it and an Order was issued out for that purpose tho not upon a Religious but Politick Account But the greater part of the ordinary People would not be brought to it by this Distinction So that the Preachers were fain to be employed Latimer preached That those that regard-not Laws and Statutes were despisers of Magistrates There be Laws made of Diet he said what Meats we shall eat at all times And this Law is made in Policy as I suppose for
would do in them it not being reasonable he should subscribe them in Prison This being reported to the Council Iuly 15 it was agreed that he should be sent for before the whole Council and examined Whether he would stand at this Point Which if he did then to denounce the Sequestration of his Benefice for three Months with intimation if he reformed not in that space to deprive him This Order was Signed by Somerset Wilts Bedford Clynton Paget Wyngfield Herbert Iuly 19. The Bishop of VVynton was brought before the Council and there the Articles before mentioned were read unto him distinctly Whereunto he refused either to subscribe or consent Answering in these words That in all things his Majesty would command him he was willing and most ready to obey but forasmuch as there were divers things required of him which his Conscience would not bear therefore he prayed them to have him excused And thereupon Secretary Petre by the Council's Order proceeded to read the Sequestration Thus fairly and calmly was this Bishop dealt with by the King and his Council from Iune 8. to Iuly 19. And notwithstanding this Sentence the Council favorably ordered that the Bishop's House and Servants should be maintained in their present State until the expiration of the three Months and that the Matter in the mean time should be kept secret The three Months expired Octob. 19. but with such Clemency was he used that it was November 23 before his Business was renewed And then considering the time of his Intimation was long sithence expired it was agreed that the Bishop of Ely Mr. Secretary Petre Dr. May and Dr. Glynne all Learned in the Civil Law should substantially confer upon the Matter and upon Tuesday next the 26 th day of this present to certify unto the Council what was to be done duly by order of the Law in this Case And now the Arch-bishop of Canterbury began to be concerned in this troublesome Business A Commission dated Decemb. 12 was issued out from the King to the said Arch-bishop and to the Bishops of London Ely Lincoln to Sir VVilliam Petre Sir Iames Hales and some other Lawyers to call the said Bishop of VVinchester before them and continuing in his Contempt to proceed to deprive him December 14. The Lieutenant of the Tower was ordered to bring the Bishop on Monday next to Lambeth before my Lord of Canterbury and other Commissioners upon his Cause and likewise upon their Appointment to bring him thither from day to day at times by them prefixed December 15 was the day of VVinchester's first Appearance The Business done this Session was the opening and reading the Commission and after that divers Articles against the Bishop Who then made a Speech Wherein first He protested against these his Judges and excepted against their Commission and required this his Protestation to be entred into the Acts of the Court. Then desiring a Copy of the Commission it was granted him together with that of the Articles too to make his Answers to Next the Archbishop gave him his Oath to make true Answer Which he took still with his Protestation Then the Bishop desiring Counsel the Arch-bishop and the rest not only granted his Request but allowed him whomsoever he should name Which was the next Day allowed also by an Order of Council Certain honourable Persons were deposed and sworn for Witnesses as Sir Anthony Wingfield Controller of the Houshold Sir William Cecyl Secretary Sir Rafe Sadleir Sir Edward North Dr. Cox Almoner and others The Bishop also protested against them and the Swearing of them At this first Sessions he had also said in the hearing of a great Multitude present concerning the Duke of Somerset and some other Privy-Counsellors sent to him in the Tower That they had made an end with him before for all the matters for which he was committed In so much that he verily thought he should never have heard any more of it This coming soon to the Ears of these Nobles highly offended them as reporting falsely of them So that to justify themselves in as publick a manner the next Sessions they sent their Letter dated December 17 signed by the Duke of Somerset the Earls of Wiltshire and Bedford and Sir Edward North wherein they denied any such Matter saying That the Bishop defended his Cause with Untruths and that upon their Fidelities and Honours his Tale was false and untrue For that their coming to him in the Tower was to do their endeavour to reclaim him And they prayed the Commissioners that for their Vindication they would cause this their Letter to be publickly read Which was accordingly done though the Bishop thinking how this would reflect upon him under his former Protestation laboured hard that he might first be heard and that he had something to propose why it should not be read Which notwithstanding they would not grant Ianuary 19. The Council sitting at Greenwich the Bishop's Servants came and desired that certain of them might be sworn upon certain Articles for Witness on his behalf And if they might not be sworn that upon their Honours as they would answer before God they would witness truly according to their Conscience and as effectually as if they were sworn upon a Book And they were allowed The Bishop to make his Cause the more plausible as though he were the publick Defender of the Roman Catholick-Church in England at this time laboured to make it believed that he fell into all this Trouble for the Defence of the Real Presence in the Sacrament and for maintaining the Catholick Doctrine in a Sermon before the King and that he made his Book to vindicate himself therein And therefore in one of his Appearances before the Commissioners openly in the Court delivered them his Book against Arch-bishop Cranmer printed in France and to make it suit the better he had altered some lines in the beginning of his Book so as to make it to relate to his present Case But in truth Gardiner had wrote and finished his Book before This Cranmer unvailed in his Answer to this Book of Gardiner's Saying there That he made his Book before he was called before the Commissioners as he could prove by a Book under his own Hand-writing and that he was called before the Commissioners by his own Suit and Procurement and as it were inforcing the Matter But indeed the true Cause was That he was called to Justice for his manifest Contempt and continual Disobedience from time to time or rather Rebellion against the King's Majesty and was deprived of his State for the same In short after a greal deal of Pains and Patience the Bishop was by the Arch-bishop and the rest of the Commissioners deprived after no less then two and twenty Sessions held at divers places that is from the 15 th of December to the 14 th of February though Stow falsely nameth but seven The Bishop when he saw the
for there was that which would comfort him when he should be in such a case as he was then in One asked him concerning the Doctrine of the School-Doctors that Bread remained not after Consecration He replied There was none of the School-Doctors knew what Consecratio did mean And pausing a while said It was Tota actio The whole Action in ministring the Sacrament as Christ did institute it After the Conference with him was ended Yong retiring into another Chamber said to Wilks that Dr. Redman so moved him that whereas he was before in such Opinion of certain things that he would have burned and lost his Life for them now he doubted of them But I see said he a Man shall know more and more by process of time and by reading and hearing others And Mr. Dr. Redman's saying shall cause me to look more diligently for them Ellis Lomas Redman's Servant said he knew his Master had declared to King Henry that Faith only justifieth but that he thought that Doctrine was not to be taught the People lest they should be negligent to do good Works All this I have related of this Divine that I may in some measure preserve the Memory of one of the Learnedest Men of his Time and lay up the dying Words of a Papist signifying so plainly his dislike and disallowance of many of their Doctrines The Sweating-sickness breaking out this Year in great violence whereby the two Sons of the Duke of Suffolk were taken off Letters from the Council dated Iuly 18 were sent to all the Bishops to perswade the People to Prayer and to see God better served It being enacted 1549 That the King might during three Years appoint sixteen Spiritual Men and sixteen Temporal to examine the old Ecclesiastical Laws and to compile a Body of Ecclesiastical Laws to be in force in the room of the old this third Year Octob. 6. a Commission was issued out to the same number of Persons authorizing them to reform the Canon Laws that is to say to eight Bishops eight Divines eight Civil Lawyers and eight Common Whose Names as they occur in an Original are as follow BISHOPS The Arch-bishop of Canterbury the Bishops of London Winchester Ely Exeter Glocester Bath Rochestre DIVINES Mr. Taylor of Lincoln Cox Almoner Parker of Cambridg Latimer Cook Sir Anthony I suppose Peter Martyr Cheke Ioannes a Laseo CIVILIANS Mr. Peter Cecyl Sir Tho. Smith Taylor of Hadeligh Dr. May Mr. Traheron Dr. Lyel Mr. Skinner LAWYERS Justice Hales Justice Bromly Goodrick Gosnal Stamford Carel Lucas Brook Recorder of London It was so ordered that this number should be divided into four distinct Classes or Companies each to consist of two Bishops two Divines to Civilians and two Common-Lawyers And to each Company were assigned their set parts Which when one Company had finished it was transmitted to the other Companies to be by them all well considered and inspected But out of all the number of two and thirty eight especially were selected from each rank two viz. out of the Bishops the Arch-bishop and the Bishop of Ely out of the Divines Cox and Martyr out of the Civilians Taylor and May out of the Common-Lawyers Lucas and Goodrick To whom a new Commission was made Novemb. 9 for the first forming of the Work and preparation of the Matter And the Arch-bishop supervised the whole Work This Work they plied close this Winter But lest they should be straitned for time the Parliament gave the King three Years longer for accomplishing this Affair So Feb. 2. A Letter was sent from the Council to make a new Commission to the Arch-bishop and to the other Bishops and Learned Men Civilians and Lawyers for the establishment of the Ecclesiastical Laws according to the Act of Parliament made in the last Session This was a very noble Enterprize and well worthy the Thoughts of our excellent Arch-bishop Who with indefatigable Pains had been both in this and the last King's Reign labouring to bring this Matter about and he did his part for he brought the Work to perfection But it wanted the King's Ratification which was delayed partly by Business and partly by Enemies Bishops Consecrated August the 30 th Iohn Scory Ponet being translated to Winchester was consecrated Bishop of Rochester at Croyden by the Arch-bishop of Canterbury assisted by Nicolas Bishop of London and Iohn Suffragan of Bedford Miles Coverdale was at the same time and place Consecrated Bishop of Exon all with their Surplices and Copes and Coverdale so habited also CHAP. XXVII The Articles of Religion OUR Arch-bishop and certain of the Bishops and other Divines but whom by Name I find not were this Year chiefly busied in composing and preparing a Book of Articles of Religion which was to contain what should be publickly owned as the Sum of the Doctrine of the Church of England This the Arch-bishop had long before this bore in his Mind as excellently serviceable for the creating of a Concord and Quietness among Men and for the putting an End to Contentions and Disputes in Matters of Religion These Articles the Arch-bishop was the Penner or at least the great Director of with the assistance as is very probable of Bishop Ridley And so he publickly owned afterwards in his Answer to certain Interrogatories put to him by Queen Mary's Commissioners viz. That the Catechism the Book of Articles and the Book against Winchester were his Doings These Articles were in number Forty two and were agreed to in the Convocation 1552. And in the Year 1553 they were published by the King's Authority both in Latin and English After they were finished he laboured to have the Clergy subscribe them but against their Wills he compelled none though afterwards some charged him falsly to do so Which he utterly denied as he declared before the said Queen's Commissioners But to enter into some Particulars concerning so eminent a Matter Ecclesiastical as this was In the Year 1551 the King and his Privy-Council ordered the Archbishop to frame a Book of Articles of Religion for the preserving and maintaining Peace and Unity of Doctrine in this Church that being finish'd they might be set forth by Publick Authority The Arch-bishop in obedience hereunto drew up a set of Articles which were delivered to certain other Bishops to be inspected and subscribed I suppose by them Before them they lay until this Year 1552. Then May 2. a Letter was sent from the Council to our Arch-bishop to send the Articles that were delivered the last Year to the Bishops and to signify whether the same were set forth by any Publick Authority according to the Minutes The Arch-bishop accordingly sent the Articles and his Answer unto the Lords of the Council In September I find the Articles were again in his Hands Then he set the Book in a better Order and put Titles upon each of the Articles and some Additions for the better perfecting of the Work and supply
first complained of to the King And being brought up the Arch-bishop and other Ecclesiastical Commissioners were commanded to examine him upon certain Articles But by the secret Favour of the Arch-bishop and his own prudent Answers he was then discharged Soon after upon some false Reports told of him King Henry was so offended that he sent for the Arch-bishop willing him to have him whipt out of the Country But the Arch-bishop pacified the King and sent him Home the second time Afterwards a third time his old Enemies the Popish Clergy got him convented before the Privy-Council and committed for Doctrines preached by him before he came into Kent The Arch-bishop being then down in his Diocess Turner was sent back to him with an Order to recant To whom when his fast Friend and Patron Mr. Morice had applied himself in his behalf the Arch-bishop himself being now under some Cloud dared not to interpose because as he then said it had been put into the King's Head that he was the great Favourer and Maintainer of all the Hereticks in the Kingdom Morice then that he might prevent this Recantation if possible which would have been such a Reflection to the Doctrine he before had preached addrest his Letters to Sir Anthony Denny Gentleman of the King's Bed-Chamber and Sir William Butts his Physician relating at large Turner's Casâ— And by their means the King became better informed of the Man and in fine commanded him to be retained as a faithful Subject This Story is at large related by Fox And this I judg to be that Turner whom the Arch-bishop nominated for Ireland having lived long in his Diocess and so well known to him and whom he had I suppose removed to Canterbury to a Prebend or some other Preferment there Here he did this remarkable and bold piece of Service that when about three Years past the Rebels were up in Kent he then preached twice in the Camp near Canterbury for which the Rebels were going to hang him But God preserved him In Queen Mary's time he fled to Basil where he expounded upon S. Iames the Hebrews and the Ephesians to the Exiles there when Iames Pilkington expounded Ecclesiastes and both Epistles of of Peter and the Galatians And Bentham the Acts of the Apostles Thomas Rosse or Rose was also as memorable a Man very eminent both for his Preachings and Sufferings He was a West-country Man but by Providence was removed into Suffolk And at Hadley had preached against Purgatory and worshipping Images about the time that Bilney and Latimer did the like in Cambridg which was five and twenty or thirty Years past whereby he had brought many to the knowledg of the Truth in that Town About the Year 1532 when certain Persons out of their Zeal against Idolatry had stolen by Night the Rood out of the Church at Dover-court in Essex for which being found guilty of Felony they were hanged Rose seemed to have been privy hereunto For with the Rood they conveyed away the Slippers the Coat and the Tapers belonging to it which Coat Rose burnt Whether for this or some other thing he was complained of to the Council and brought before them and by the Bishop of Lincoln was committed to Prison Where he lay for some Days and Nights with both his Legs in an high pair of Stocks his Body lying along on the Ground Thence he was removed to Lambeth in the Year that Cranmer was Consecrated which was 1533 who set him at liberty Afterward he was admitted by Crumwel to be his Chaplain that thereby he might get a Licence to preach After various tossings from Place to Place for safety of his Life he fled into Flanders and Germany and came to Zurick and remained with Bullinger and to Basil where he was entertained by Grineus After some time he returned back into England But was glad to fly beyond Sea again Three Years after in his Voyage back to his own Country again he was taken Prisoner by some French and carried into Diep where he was spoiled of all he had His Ransom was soon after paid by a well-disposed Person who also brought him over into England Then the Earl of Sussex received him and his Wife and Child privately into his House But when this was known the Earl sent him a secret Letter to be gone And so he lurked in London till the Death of King Henry VIII King Edward gave him the Living of VVest-Ham near London in Essex Being deprived upon Queen Mary's coming to the Crown he was sometime Preacher to a Congregation in London But was taken at one of their Meetings in Bow-Church-yard Which I suppose was in the Year 1555. For then he was in the Tower and thence in the Month of May by the Council's Letters he was delivered to the Sheriff of Norfolk to be conveyed and delivered to the Bishop of Norwich and he either to reduce him to recant or to proceed against him according to Law Much Imprisonment and many Examinations he underwent both from the Bishops of Winchester and Norwich but escaped at last by a great Providence beyond Sea where he tarried till the Death of Queen Mary And after these his Harassings up and down in the World he was at last in Queen Elizabeth's happy Reign quietly settled at Luton in Bedfordshire where he was Preacher and lived to a very great Age. The fourth was Robert Wisdome a Man eminent as the rest both for his exemplary Conversation and for his Preaching together with his Sufferings attending thereon In Henry the Eighth his Reign he was a Person of Fame among the Professors of the Gospel in the South Parts of the Nation whence after many painful Labours and Persecutions he fled into the North as did divers other Preachers of the pure Religion in those Times There in Staffordshire he was one of those that were entertained by Iohn Old a pious Professor and Harbourer of good Men and Thomas Becon was another who was taken up with Bradford in the beginning of Queen Mary's Reign and committed to the Tower Of this Old the said Becon in a Treatise of his printed in Edward the sixth his Reign gives this Character That he was to him and VVisdom as Iason was to Paul and Silas He received us joyfully into his House and liberally for the Lord's Sake ministred to our Necessities And as he begun so did he continue a right hearty Friend and dearly loving Brother so long as we remained in the Country While VVisdom was here he was ever vertuously occupied and suffered no Hour to pass without some good Fruit employing himself now in Writing as he had before in Preaching Besides other Books formerly writ by him he penned here a very godly and fruitful Exposition upon certain Psalms of David Of the which he translated some into English Metre There is one of them and I think no more still remaining in our ordinary singing Psalms namely the hundred twenty fifth
to bring the same more easily to pass some have abused the Name of Me Thomas Arch-bishop of Canterbury bruting abroad that I have set up the Mass at Canterbury and that I offered to say Mass before the Queen's Highness and at Paul's Church and I wot not where I have been well exercised these twenty Years to suffer and bear evil Reports and Lies and have not been mych grieved thereat and have born all things quietly Yet when untrue Reports and Lies turn to the hindrance of God's Truth they be in no wise to be tolerate and suffered Wherefore these be to signify to the World that it was not I that did set up the Mass at Canterbury but it was a false flattering lying and dissembling Monk which caused the Mass to be set up there without my Advice or Counsel And as for offering my self to say Mass before the Queen's Highness or in any othea Place I never did as her Grace knoweth well But if hâ—r Grace will give me leave I shall be ready to prove against all that will say the contrary and that the Communion-Book set forth by the most innocent and godly Prince K. Edward VI in his High Court of Parliament is conformable to the Order which our Saviour Christ did both observe and command to be observed and which his Apostles and Primitive Church used many Years Whereas the Mass in many things not only hath no Foundation of Christ his Apostles nor the Primitive Church but also is manifest contrary to the same and containeth many horrible Blasphemies in it And altho many either unlearned or maliciously do report that Mr. Peter Martyr is unlearned yet if the Queen's Highness will graunt thereunto I with the said Mr. Peter Martyr and other four or five which I shall choose will by God's Grace take upon us to defend that not only our Common-Prayers of the Churches Ministration of the Sacraments and other Rites and Ceremonies but also that all the Doctrine and Religion by our said Soveraign Lord K. Edward VI is more pure and according to God's Word than any that hath been used in England these thousand Years so that God's Word may be the Judg and that the Reason and Profes may be set out in writing To th entent as well all the World may examine and Judg them as that no Man shall start back from their Writing and what Faith hath been in the Church these fifteen hundred Years we will joyne with them in this Point and that the Doctrine and Usage is to be followed which was in the Church fifteen hundred Years past And we shall prove that the Order of the Church set out at this present in this Church of England by Act of Parliament is the same that was used in the Church fifteen hundred Years past And so shall they never be able to prove theirs Some Copies of this Declaration soon fell into the Hands of certain Bishops who brought them to the Council The Council sent a Copy to the Queen's Commissioners Who soon after ordered him to appear before them and to bring in an Inventory of his Goods The reason as is alledged of his being ordered to bring in this Inventory was because it was then intended that he should have a sufficient Living assigned him and to keep his House and not meddle with Religion So on the Day appointed which was August 27 the Arch-bishop together with Sir Thomas Smith Secretary of State to K. Edward and May Dean of S. Pauls came before the Queen's Commissioners in the Consistory of Pauls and the Arch-bishop brought in his Inventory We are left to guess what he was now cited for I suppose it was to lay to his charge Heresy and his Marriage What more was done with him at this time I find not He retired to his House at Lambeth where he seemed to be confined For about the beginning of August as may be collected from a Letter of the Arch-bishop's to Cecyl he was before the Council about the Lady Iane's Business without all question And then with the severe Reprimands he received was charged to keep his House and be forth-coming At that time he espied Cecyl who was in the same Condemnation and would fain have spoken with him but durst not as he told him in a Letter dated August 14 as it seems out of his Love and Care of him lest his very talking with Cecyl might have been prejudicial to that Pardon which he now lay fair for But by Letter he desired him to come over to him to Lambeth because he would gladly commune with him to hear how Matters went and for some other private Causes Cecyl being now at Liâ—erty September 13 following the Arch-bishop was again summoned to appear that Day before the Queen's Council Then he appeared and was dismissed but commanded to be the next Day in the Star-Chamber And so he was The effect of which appearance was that he was committed to the Tower partly for setting his Hrnd to the Instrument of the Lady Iane's Succession and partly for the publick Offer he made a little before of justifying openly the Religious Proceedings of the deceased King But the chief Reason was the inveterate Malice his Enemies conceived against him for the Divorse of K. Henry from the Queen's Mother the blame of which they laid wholly upon him though Bishop Gardiner and other Bishops were concerned in it as deep as he In the Tower we leave the good Arch-bishop a while after we have told you that soon after the Queen coming to the Tower some of the Arch-bishop's Friends made humble suit for his Pardon and that he might have access to her but She would neither hear him nor see him Holgate also the other Arch-bishop about the beginning of October was committed to the Tower upon pretence of Treason or great Crimes but chiefly I suppose because he was Rich. And while he was there they rifled his Houses at Battersea and Cawood At his former House they seized in Gold coined three hundred Pounds in Specialties and good Debts four hundred Pounds more in Plate gilt and Parcel gilt sixteen hundred Ounces A Mitre of fine Gold with two Pendants set round about the sides and midst with very fine pointed Diamonds Saphires and Balists and all the Plain with other good Stones and Pearls and the Pendants in like manner weighing one hundred twenty five Ounces Six or seven great Rings of fine Gold with Stones in them whereof were three fine blew Saphires of the best an Emerald very fine a good Turkeys and a Diamond a Serpent's Tongue set in a Standard of Silver gilt and graven the Arch-bishop's seal in silver his Signet an old Antick in Gold The Counterpane of his Lease of Wotton betwixt the late Duke of Northumberland and him with Letters Patents of his Purchase of Scrowby Taken from Cawood and other Places appertaining to the Arch-bishop by one Ellis Markham First in ready Money nine hundred
deprived of their Receits somewhat after the day with the which their Fruits to the Queen's Majesty should be contented And in general the Deprivations were so speedy so hastily so without warning c. The Bishops saith another Writer and Sufferer in these Days that were Married were thrust out of the Parliament-House and all Married Deans and Arch-deacons out of the Convocation many put out of their Livings and others restored without Form of Law Yea some Noble-men and Gentlemen were deprived of those Lands which the King had given them without tarrying for any Law lest my Lord of VVinchester should have lost his Quarter's Rent Many Churches were changed many Altars set up many Masses said many Dirges sung before the Law was repealed All was done in post haste Nor was their Deprivation all they endured but they together with many other Professors of the Religion were taken up very fast For VVinchester did resolve to make quick Work to reduce if he could the Realm to the old Religion So that they came into the Marshalsea thick and three-fold for Religion sent by him thither And that they might be sure to suffer Hardship enough when the Bishop's Almoner Mr. Brook's he who was I suppose after Bishop of Glocester came to this Prison with his Master's Alms-Basket he told the Porter named Britain that it was his Lord's Pleasure that none of the Hereticks that lay there should have any part of his Alms. And that if he knew any of them had any part thereof that House should never have it again so long as he lived To which the Porter replied That he would have a care of that he would warrant him and that if they had no Meat till they had some of his Lordship's they should be like to starve And so he bad him tell his Lord and added That they should get no favour at his Hand These Sufferings P. Martyr now gotten out of England took notice of in a Letter to Calvin dated Novemb. 3. Where having related to him how the two Arch-bishops of Canterbury and York the Bishops of Worcester and Exon and many other Learned and Pious Preachers were in Bonds for the Gospel and together with them many other godly Persons were in extream Danger he proceeded to mention two things to Calvin to mitigate the Trouble he knew he conceived for this ill News The own was That although the Infirmity of some betrayed them yet great was the constancy of far more than he could have thought So that he doubted not England would have many famous Martyrs if Winchester who then did all should begin to Rage according to his Will The other was That it was the Judgment of all that this Calamity would not be long And therefore said Martyr let us pray to God that he would quickly tread down Satan under the Feet of his Church The same Learned Man speaking in another Letter concerning the good Forwardness of Religion at the first coming of Queen Mary to the Crown said That he had many Scholars in England Students in Divinity not to be repented of whose Harvest was almost ripe Whom he was forced to see either wandring about in uncertain Stations or remaining at home unhappily subverted And that there was in this Kingdom many Holy as well as Learned Bishops that were then in hard Confinement and soon to be dragged to the extremest Punishments as if they were Robbers And that here was the foundation of the Gospel and of a Noble Church laid and by the Labours of some Years the holy Building had well gone forward and daily better things were hoped for But that unless 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 God from above came to the succour of it he thought there would not be a Footstep of Godliness left at last as to the external Profession All the Matters of the Church the Queen left wholly to the management of the Bishop of Winchester whom She now advanced from a Prisoner in the Tower to be Lord High Chancellor of England And indeed the Governance of the whole Realm was committed to him with a few other He ruled Matters as he would and that all England knew and saw plainly Nay the Consent of the whole Parliament followed his Head and his Will So that against their Wills and against the Wills of many thousand true Hearts in the Realm as they of the Parliament well knew they condescended unto him and what he could not do in one Parliament that he did in another So that in a Year and an half he had three Parliaments During which time many things the Parliament condescended unto against their Wills As that the Queen should Marry with a Foreign Prince that the Service in the English Tongue should be taken away that the Bishop of Rome should have his old ejected Authority here again as one of the Divines in those Times had intended to have told Winchester to his Face had he been permitted Speech October 1. The Queen was Crowned at the Abby-Church at Westminster And then was proclaimed a Pardon but not over-gracious For all the Prisoners in the Tower and Fleet were excepted and sixty two besides whereof the Printers of the Bible Grafton and Whitchurch were two Most of these excepted were of the chief Professors of the Gospel No Pardon for them At the Coronation among other triumphal Showes Paul's Steeple bare top and top Gallant like a Ship with many Flags and Banners and a Man stood triumphing and danceing on the top Whereat one Vnderhill a Gentleman that sat on Horse-back there to see the Show said to those about him At the Coronation of King Edward I saw Paul's Steeple lay at Anchor and now She wears top and top Gallant Surely the next will be Ship-wrack or it be long And indeed there followed a Ship-wrack of the Church The Service established in K. Edward's Days did not cease upon Queen Mary's grasping the Scepter But the Ministers performed the Worship of God and celebrated the Holy Sacrament and used the Common-Prayer diligently and constantly And the People frequented the same with more seriousness than before They foresaw what Times were coming which made them meet often together while they might Lamenting bitterly the Death of K. Edward and partaking of the Sacrament with much Devotion It was the Bishop of Winchester's Resolution to redress this in London For he was purposed to stifle the Religion as speedily and as vigorously as he could And one way he had to do this was to send his Spies into all the Churches in London And these would come into the Churches and disturb the Ministers with rude Words and Actions in their very Ministration and then go to the Bishop and make their Informations And so the Ministers were fetch'd up by the Officers before him and then committed unless they would comply And this in the very beginning of the Queen's Reign when the Preachers did
first made an Oration directed unto the Arch-bishop at the opening of his Commission Next Dr. Martin made a short Speech and being with Dr. Story appointed the King's and Queen's Attorneys he offered unto the said Bishop their Proxy sealed with the Broad-Seal of England and then presenting himself to be Proctor on their behalf After that he proceeded to exhibit certain Articles against the Arch-bishop containing Adultery and Perjury the one for being Married the other for breaking his Oath to the Pope Also he exhibited Books of Heresy made partly by him and partly by his Authority published And so produced him as a Party principal to answer to his Lordship After this having leave given him the Arch-bishop beginning with the Lord's Prayer and Creed made a long and learned Apology for himself Which is preserved to Posterity in the Acts and Monuments By his Discourse before the Commissioners it appeared how little he was taken with the splendor of worldly Things For he professed That the loss of his Promotions grieved him not He thanked God as heartily for that poor and afflicted State in which he then was as ever he did for the Times of his Prosperity But that which stuck closest to him as he said and created him the greatest Sorrow was to think that all that Pains and Trouble that had been taken by K. Henry and himself for so many Years to retrieve the Antient Authority of the Kings of England and to vindicate the Nation from a Foreign Power and from the Baseness and infinite Inconveniences of crouching to the Bishops of Rome should now thus easily be quite undone again And therefore he said all his Trouble at that time and the greatest that ever he had in his Life was to see the King and Queen's Majesties by their Proctors there to become his Accusers and that in their own Realm and Country before a Foreign Power For that if he had transgressed the Laws of the Land their Majesties had sufficient Authority and Power both from God and the Ordinance of the Realm to punish him Whereunto he would be at all times content to submit himself At this time of his Trial several Interrogatories were administred unto him to make answer to As concerning his Marriage Concerning his setting abroad Heresies and making and publishing certain Books of Heresy To which he confessed That the Catechism and the Book of Articles and the Book against Bishop Gardiner were of his doing Concerning subscribing those Articles and his compelling Persons to subscribe Which he denied but that he exhorted them that were willing to subscribe he acknowledged Concerning his open maintaining his Errors in Oxon Whereas they brought him to the Disputation themselves Concerning his being noted with the Infamy of Schism and that he moved the King and Subjects of his Realm to recede from the Catholick Church and See of Rome Which he acknowledged but that their Departure or Recess had in it no matter of Schism Concerning his being twice sworn to the Pope And Dr. Martin then shewed a Copy of his Protestation against the Pope at his Consecration under a publick Notary's Hand That he took upon him the See of Rome in consecrating Bishops and Priests without Leave or Licence from the said See To which he answered That it was permitted to him by the Publick Laws of the Realm Concerning his standing out still to subscribe to the Pope's Authority when the whole Nation had This being done a publick Notary entred his Answers Then the Bishop of Glocester made another Speech at breaking up of this Meeting and Dr. Story another reflecting upon what Cranmer had said with Reviling and Taunts The last thing they did at this Meeting was to swear several Persons who were the next Day to declare what they knew or could remember against this Reverend Father And these were Dr. Marshal Dean of Christ's-Church a most furious and zelotical Man and who to shew his spight against the Reformation had caused Peter Martyr's Wife who deceased while he was the King's Professor to be taken out of her Grave and buried in his Dunghil Dr. Smith Publick Professor who had recanted most solemnly in K. Edward's Days and to whom the Arch-bishop was a good Friend yet not long afterwards he wrote against his Book and was now sworn a Witness against him Dr. Tresham a Canon of Christ-Church who was one of the Disputers against Cranmer and had said in his Popish Zeal That there were 600 Errors in his Book of the Sacrament Dr. Crook Mr. London a Relation I suppose of Dr. London who came to shame for his false Accusation of Cranmer and others in K. Henry's Reign and now this Man 't is like was willing to be even with Cranmer for his Relation's sake Mr. Curtop another Canon of Christ's-Church formerly a great Hearer of P. Martyr Mr. Ward Mr. Serles the same I suppose who belonged to the Church of Canterbury and had been among the number of the Conspirators against him in K. Henry's Days And these being sworn the Arch-bishop was allowed to make his Exceptions against any of them Who resolutely said He would admit none of them all being perjured Men having sworn against the Pope and now received and defended him And that therefore they were not in Christian Religion And so the good Father was remitted back for that time to Prison again I know not what the Depositions of these Witnesses were given in against him the next Day For Fox relates nothing thereof nor any other as I know of Doubtless they were some of the Doctrines that he preached or taught or defended in Canterbury formerly or more lately in his Disputations in the Schools or in his Discourses in his Prison or at Christ's-Church where he sometimes was entertained But to all that was objected against him he made his Answers And the last thing they of this Commission did was to cite him to appear at Rome within eighty Days to make there his Answer in Person Which he said He would be content to do if the King and Queen would send him And so he was again remanded back to durance where he still remained And an account of what these Commissioners had done was dispatched to Rome forthwith From whence the final Sentence was sent in December next Then Pope Paul sent his Letters Executory unto the King and Queen and to the Bishops of London and Ely to degrade and deprive him and in the end of those fourscore Days he was declared Contumax as wilfully absenting himself from Rome when he was summoned to go though he was detained in Prison which might have been a lawful and just Excuse But these Matters must proceed in their Form whatsoever Absurdity or Falsehood there were in them By these Letters Executory which are in the first Edition of Fox but omitted in all the rest we may collect how the Process went against Cranmer at Rome which I shall here briefly set down
would deal sincerely with him without Fraud or Craft and use him as they would wish to be used in the like case themselves Bidding them remember that with what Measure they meet it should be measured to them again Therefore to make himself some amends for all this foul Dealing his last Refuge was an Appeal Whereof he seriously bethought himself when and in what manner to make it The Causes for his resolving upon it besides those already mentioned were because he remembred Luther once did so in such a Case and that he might not seem rashly to cast away his own Life and because he was bound by his Oath never to receive the Pope's Authority in this Realm and because the Commissioners had broken their Promise with him as above was said and because he thought the Bishop of Rome was not an indifferent Judg in this Cause which was his own Cause for all the Arch-bishop's Troubles came upon him for departing from him He therefore wrote privately to a trusty Friend and Learned in the Law then in the University to instruct him in the Order and Form of an Appeal and whether he should first Appeal from the Judg-Delegate to the Pope or else from that Judg immediately to a General Council And so earnestly entreated him to lay aside all other Studies and to take this in Hand presently because he was summoned to make his Answer at Rome the sixteenth Day of this Month that is of February There was one reason more moved him to Appeal which must not be omitted namely that he might gain Time to finish his Answer to Marcus Antonius He feared after all they would not admit his Appeal But he did not much pass and desired God's Will might be done So that God might be glorified by his Life or Death He thought it much better to die in Christ's Quarrel than to be shut in the Prison of the Body unless it were for the advancement of God's Glory and the Profit of his Brethren This Letter of the Arch-bishop being writ with so much Strength and Presence of Mind and shewing so much Prudence and Wit is happily preserved in Fox's Monuments where it may be read This Appeal when the Arch-bishop had produced and preferred to the Bishop of Ely he told him That they could not admit of it because their Commission was to proceed against him Omni Appellatione remota Cranmer replied That this Cause was not every private Man's Cause but that it was between the Pope and him immediately and none otherwise and that no Man ought to be Judg in his own Cause And therefore they did him the more Wrong So at last Thirlby received it of him and said If it might be admitted it should And so after this Interruption they proceeded to degrade him taking off the rest of his Habits And then put him on a poor Yeoman-Beadle's Gown threadbare and a Towns-man's Cap. And Boner told him He was no Lord any more and so was sent to Prison CHAP. XX. Cranmer Writes to the Queen AND now having undergone these Brunts with all this Gravity Discretion Learning and Courage he next resolved to give the Queen a true and impartial Account of these Transactions to prevent Misreports and to justify himself in what he had said and done Two Letters therefore he wrote to her but thought not fit to entrust them with the Commissioners since Weston had served him such a Trick in the like Case before In these Letters he related the reason of his refusing the Bishop of Glocester for his Judg and of his Appeal For as he thought it his Duty at that juncture to declare himself in that publick manner against the Bishop of Rome so he reckoned he ought to declare himself also to the Supream Magistrate And therefore before the Bishop of Glocester and the Commissioners he said That as he had thus discharged his own Conscience towards the World so he would also write his Mind to her Grace touching this Matter He wrote to her That the twelfth Day of that Month he was cited to appear at Rome the eightieth Day after And that it could not but grieve the Heart of a natural Subject to be accused by the King and Queen of his own Country and before any outward Judg as if the King and Queen were Subjects within their own Realm and were fain to complain and require Justice at a Stranger 's Hand against their own Subject being already condemned to Death by their own Laws As though the King and Queen could not have or do Justice within their own Realm against their own Subjects but they must seek it at a Stranger 's Hand in a strange Land Then he proceeded to shew her why he refused the Pope's Authority when Brooks Bishop of Glocester came to try him namely Because he was sworn never to consent that the Bishop of Rome should have or exercise any Authority or Jurisdiction in the Realm of England Another reason why he denied his Authority was Because his Authority repugned to the Crown Imperial of this Realm and to the Laws of the same For the Pope saith all manner of Power both Temporal and Spiritual is given unto him of God and that Temporal Power is given to Kings and Emperors to use it under him Whereas contrary to this Claim said the Arch-bishop the Imperial Crown of this Realm is taken immediately from God to be used under him only and is subject to none but God alone Moreover to the Imperial Laws of this Realm all the Kings in their Coronations and all Justices when they receive their Offices are sworn and all the whole Realm bound to defend them But contrary hereunto the Pope he said made void and commanded to blot out of our Books all Laws and Customs repugnant to his Laws Then he proceeded to shew how contrary the Laws of the Realm and the Pope's Laws were And therefore that the Kings of this Realm had provided for their Laws by the Premunire So that if any Man let the execution of the Law by any Authority from the See of Rome he fell into the Premunire And to meet with this the Popes had provided for their Law by Cursing He supposed that these things were not fully opened in the Parliament-house when the Pope's Authority was received again For if they were he could not believe that the King and Queen the Nobles and Commons would again receive a Foreign Authority so hurtful and prejudicial to the Crown and to the Laws and State of this Realm He rebuked the Clergy who were the main Movers of this at the Parliament for their own Ends. For they desired to have the Pope their chief Head to the intent that they might have as it were a Kingdom and Laws within themselves distinct from the Laws of the Crown and live in this Realm like Lords and Kings without damage or fear of any Man And then he glanced at some of the Clergy probably
I find in a Supplication made to Queen Elizabeth by Ralph Morice that had been his Secretary for the space of twenty Years During which time he was employed by that most Reverend Father in writing for him about the serious Affairs of the Prince and Realm committed unto him by those most noble and worthy Princes King Henry VIII and King Edward VI concerning as well the Writings of those great and weighty Matrimonial Causes of the said K. Henry VIII as also about the extirpation of the Bishop of Rome his usurped Power and Authority the Reformation of corrupt Religion and Ecclesiastical Laws and Alteration of Divine Service and of divers and sundry Conferences of Learned Men for the Establishing and Advancement of sincere Religion with such like Wherein he said he was most painfully occupied in writing of no small Volumes from time to time CHAP. XXIII The Arch-bishop's Regard to Learned Men. FROM these truly Noble and Useful Exercises of his great Knowledg and Learning let us descend unto the Respect he bare to good Letters Which appeared from his Favour to Places of Learning and Men of Learning We shewed before what were the Applications of the University of Cambridg to him and what a gracious Patron he was to it and its Members Among whose good Offices to that University besides those already mentioned it must not be omitted that he was the great Instrument of placing there those two very Learned Foreign Divines Paulus Fagius and Martin Bucer By his frequent Letters to them then at Strasburg urging them with the distracted and dangerous State of Germany he first brought them over into England in the Year 1548 and having entertained them in his Family the next Year he preferred them both in Cambridg Fagius to be publick Professor of the Hebrew Tongue and Bucer of Divinity And beside the University-Salary he procured for each of them from the King in the third Year of his Reign Patents for an Honorary Stipend of an hundred Pounds per Annum each De gratiâ speciali Domini Regis to be paid by the Hands of the Clerk of the Hanaper or out of the Treasury of the Court of Augmentations Durante beneplacito Domini Regis As I find by King Edward the Sixth's Book of Sales formerly mentioned Which Patents bare date Septemb. 26. Anno 1549. and their Salaries payable from the Feast of the Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin By the way I do not see any where in the said Book of Sales that Peter Martyr placed Professor of Divinity in the other University of Oxon enjoyed any such Royal Salary though he also had been invited over by Canterbury with the King's Knowledg and Allowance and placed there by that Arch-bishop's Means Yet he and his Companion Ochinus had their Annual Allowances from the King and so I suppose had all other Learned Foreigners here Melancthon also who was now expected over was intended some more extraordinary Gratuity Unto this Noble Christian Hospitality and Liberality Latimer the great Court-Preacher excited the King in one of his Sermons before him The Passage may deserve to be repeated I hear say Master Melancthon that great Clerk should come hither I would wish him and such as he is two hundred Pounds a Year The King should never want it in his Coffers at the Year's end There is yet among us two great Learned Men Petrus Martyr and Bernard Ochin which have an hundred Mark a piece I would the King would bestow a thousand Pounds on that Sort. These Matters I doubt not were concerted between Latimer and our Arch-bishop before at whose Palace he now was for the most part As I find by one of his Sermons wherein he speaks of his taking Boat at Lambeth and in another Place he mentioneth a Book he met with in my Lord of Canterbury's Library and elsewhere of many Suitors that applied to him at my Lord of Canterbury's that interrupted his Studies there The use I make of this is that it is a fair Conjecture hence that this and the many other excellent Things so plainly propounded by this Preacher to King Edward happened by the Counsel and Suggestion of the Arch-bishop But to return There was one Dr. William Mowse a Civilian and probably one of his Officers whom for his Merits and Learning our Arch-bishop for many a Year had been a special Benefactor to Sir Iohn Cheke also bare him a very good Will Upon the removal of Dr. Haddon to some other Preferment this Dr. Mowse succeeded Master of Trinity-hall in Cambridg And in the Year 1552 the Arch-bishop valuing his Worth and Integrity was a Suitor at Court for some further Preferment for him whatever it were which the Study of the Civil Law had qualified him for writing his Letters on Mowse's behalf to Secretary Cecyl who was then with the King in his Progress not to forget him And accordingly he was remembred and obtained the Place For which the Arch-bishop afterwards gave him his most hearty Thanks And Dr. Mowse also sent the same Secretary a Letter of Thanks from Cambridg for the Preferment he had obtained by his Means The main Drift thereof was to excuse himself for his Neglect in that he had not sooner paid his Acknowledgments Which as it seems the Secretary had taken some notice of having expected to be thanked for the Kindness he had done him This Letter because there is therein mention made of our Arch-bishop's singular Munificence and Cheke's Affection towards him and Mowse himself once making a Figure in that University I have thought it not amiss to insert in the Appendix Though this Man seemed to be none of the steadiest in his Religion For I find him put out of his Mastership of Trinity-Hall in the beginning of Queen Mary's Reign for having been a Protestant and to make way for the Restoration of Dr. Gardiner Bishop of Winchester who had been outed before Upon whose Death that Mastership falling void and Mowse having complied with the Romish Religion he became Master there again And soon after in Queen Elizabeth's Reign he was deprived by her Commissioners for being a Papist and one Harvey came in his Room Dr. Mowse's Fickleness appeared that upon the first tidings that fled to Cambridg of Queen Mary's Success against the Lady Iane's Party he with several other temporizing University-Men changed his Religion and in four and twenty Hours was both Protestant and Papist The Truth is his Judgment varied according to his worldly Interest And being one of those that came about so roundly he was appointed by the complying Party of the University to be one of the two Dr. Hatcher being the other that should repair unto Dr. Sands then the Vice-Chancellor to demand of him without any colour of Reason or Authority the University-Books the Keys and such other things as were in his keeping And so they did And my Author makes an Observation of his Ingratitude as well as of
Aless turned into Latin and published for the Consolation of the Churches every where in those sad Times as it ran in the Title If any desire to look backward unto the more early Times of this Man the first Tidings we have of him was about the Year 1534. When upon a sharp Persecution raised in Scotland he with other Learned Men fled thence into England and was received into Crumwel's Family And it is said that he became known to and grew into such Favour with King Henry that he called him his Scholar But after Crumwel's Death in the Year 1540 he taking one Fife with him went into Saxony where both of them were for their great Learning made Professors in the University of Leipzig In the Year 1557. I find this Man at Leipzig where he was Professor of Divinity as was said before Hither this Year Melancthon sent to him from Wormes giving him some Account of the Preparations that were making by the Roman Catholick Party in order to a Conference with the Protestants At which the said Aless was to be present and make one of the Disputants on the Protestant side And ten Years before this viz. 1547 he was the Publick Moderator of Divinity both in the Schools and Pulpits of Leipzig or some other University Besides this Aless there were four other pious and learned Persons Foreigners who bringing along with them Letters of Recommendation from the said Melancthon were courteously received and freely entertained by our hospitable Arch-bishop all of them in the Year 1548 at which time the Persecution grew hot upon the Interim One of these was Gualter another Scot by Nation A second was one named Francis Dryander an Acquaintance of Melancthon's of long continuance Whom as he told the Arch-bishop he had tried and known inwardly and found him endowed with excellent Parts well furnished with Learning that he judged rightly of the Controversies altogether free from all wild and seditious Opinions and that he would soon perceive the singular gravity of his Manners after some few Days knowledg of him motioning withal to the Arch-bishop his fitness to be preferred in either of our Universities As he did also to K. Edward in Letters brought at this time to him by the said Dryander Wherein he recommended him to that King as one that would prove a very useful Person either in his Universities or elsewhere in his Kingdom This Recommendation had so much Force that this Man seemed soon after to be sent and placed at Oxon and there remained till in the beginning of Queen Mary's Reign when all Strangers were commanded to depart the Realm he went hence to Paris and from thence to Antwerp Whence he wrote a Letter to one Crispin a Doctor of Physick in Oxon therein relating to him a Passage concerning the coarse Entertainment which the Divines of Lovain gave Gardiner Bishop of Winchester upon the Scandal they took against him for his Book De vera Obedientia Which Letter is extant in Fox The third was Eusebius Menius the Son of Iustus Menius Which Iustus was a Person of great Fame and Esteem both for his Learning in Philosophy and Divinity and for the Government of the Churches within the Territories of Iohn Frederick Duke of Saxony Of this Eusebius his Son Melancthon writ to our Arch-bishop That he had good Preferments in Germany but he could not bear to behold the Calamities of his poor Country which made him seek for a Being in Foreign Parts He recommended him to his Grace desiring him to cherish him Adding That in the Gothick Times what remained of the Church and of right Doctrines were preserved in our Island and that Europe being now in a Combustion it were to be wish'd that some peaceable Harbour might be for Learning He doubted not but that many flocked hither but that it was the part of Piety and Goodness especially to help the Youth of Excellent Men and the Sons of such as had well deserved of the Church especially when they themselves also were eminent for their Parts and Learning And since this Eusebius was a good Mathematician and had read Mathematicks in one of their Schools he propounded him to the Arch-bishop to be a fit Person for the Profession of that Science in our University The fourth was Iustus Ionas the Son also of a great German Divine of the same Name and who was one of the Four that in the Year 1530 came to Augsburgh upon a Diet appointed by the Emperor for Religion with the Elector of Saxony Melancthon Agricola and Georgius Spalatinus being the other Three The Son came over with Letters commendatory from Melancthon as the others did He commended his excellent Parts and his Progress in all kind of Philosophy and good Manners and especially his Eloquence which he said he had a Nature divinely framed to To which it may not be amiss to subjoin what Melancthon somewhere else did observe of his Family Namely That his Grandfather was a Person of Fame for Oratory and Civil Prudence His Father endowed with such Parts as naturally made him an Orator in respect of his fluency of Words and gracefulness of Delivery And this Felicity of Nature he improved by a great accession of Learning Which made him tell our Iustus that he was born in Oratoria Familia And such care did he take of him when he was young that he took the pains to write him a long Letter containing Instructions for his Improvement in the Grounds of Learning This Man the Arch-bishop was very kind to gave him Harbour and admitted him freely into his Society and Converse Insomuch that Iustus Ionas the Father entreated Melancthon That he would take particular notice to the Arch-bishop of his great Favour shewed to his Son Among the Discourses the communicative Prelat held with Ionas while he was with him one happened concerning a noted Question in Divinity Where launching out into free communication with him upon that Point he desired him to impart to Melancthon the Substance of what he had discoursed and that he should signify to him that the Arch-bishop requested his Judgment thereof Which accordingly Ionas did And Melancthon in a Letter to the Arch-bishop stiles it non obscarae Quaestio and that it had already much shaken the Church and says he Concutiet durius shall shake it yet more Giving his Reason for this Conjecture Because those Governours meaning I suppose the Papal Clergy did not seek for a true Remedy to so great a Matter It doth not appear to me what this Question was that the Arch-bishop was so earnest to confer with this great Divine about whether it were concerning the necessity of Episcopal Government and Ordination or concerning the Use of Ceremonies in the Church or about the Doctrine of the Sacrament this last I am apt to believe But either of them hath according to Melancthon's Prediction sufficiently shaken the Churches of Christ. But to
return to Ionas He had written some Pieces and presented them to the King for which he intended to reward him And being now ready to go to France for the improvement of his Knowledg and so after a time to return into England again for which he had a great Affection he besought Secretary Cecyl in a well-penned Letter That whatsoever the King intended to bestow on him he would do it out of hand for the supply of his travelling Necessity This Letter for the Antiquity of it and the Fame of the Man I have inserted in the Appendix In which is also contained an Extract of part of Ionas the Father's Letter to his Son concerning the Miseries of Germany CHAP. XXIV Melancthon and the Arch-bishop great Friends THESE Occasions of the frequent mention of Melancthon do draw us into a relation of some further Passages between him and our Arch-bishop In the Year 1549 happened several Disputations chiefly concerning the Doctrine of the Lord's Supper before the King's Commissioners in both Universities In Oxford they were managed chiefly by Peter Martyr And in Cambridg Ridley then Bishop of Rochester and a Commissioner was the chief Moderator Soon after Martin Bucer in this University defended three Points one of the Sufficiency of the Scripture another concerning the Erring of Churches and the last concerning Works done before Iustification against Pern Sedgwick and Yong. They on the Popish Side pretended much in their Disputations to have Antiquity and the Fathers for them These Disputations did our most Reverend Prelate together with his own Letter convey to Melancthon by the Hand of one Germanicus a German Who probably might be one of those Learned Strangers that the Arch-bishop hospitably entertained The Reflection that that Divine in an Answer to his Grace in the Year 1550 made upon perusal of these Papers was That he was grieved to see that those who sought so much for the Antient Authorities would not acknowledg the Clearness of them Nor was there any doubt what the sounder Men in the Antient Church thought But that there were new and spurious Opinions foisted into many of their Books Into that of Theophylact most certainly for one And that there was some such Passage in the Copy that Oecolampadius made use of when he translated Theophylact which he liked not of but yet translated it as he found it But this was wholly wanting in the Copy that Melancthon had That the same happened in Bede's Books which he supposed might be found more incorrupt among us Bede being our Country-Man The same Melancthon with this his Letter sent our Arch-bishop a part of his Enarration upon the Nicene Creed for this end that he might pass his Judgment thereon As he also did for the same purpose to A Lasco Bucor and Peter Martyr all then in England The beginning of this Learned German's Acquaintance with our Prelat was very early For the Arch-bishop's Fame soon spred abroad in the World beyond the English Territories Which was the Cause of that Address of Melancthon mentioned before in the Year 1535 and in the Month of August when he sent a Letter and a Book to him by Alexander Aless. In the Letter he signified what a high Character both for Learning and Piety he had heard given of him by many honest and worthy Men and That if the Church had but some more such Bishops it would be no difficult Matter to have it healed and the World restored to Peace congratulating Britain such a Bishop And this seems to have been the first entrance into their Acquaintance and Correspondence PHILIP MELANCTHON In the Year 1548 Cranmer propounded a great and weighty Business to Melancthon and a Matter that was likely to prove highly useful to all the Churches of the Evangelick Profession It was this The ABp was now driving on a Design for the better uniting of all the Protestant Churches viz. by having one common Confession and Harmony of Faith and Doctrine drawn up out of the pure Word of God which they might all own and agree in He had observed what Differences there arose among Protestants in the Doctrine of the Sacrament in the Divine Decrees in the Government of the Church and some other things These Disagreements had rendred the Professors of the Gospel contemptible to those of the Roman Communion Which caused no small grief to the Heart of this good Man nearly touched for the Honour of Christ his Master and his true Church which suffered hereby And like a Person of a truly publick and large Spirit as his Function was seriously debated and deliberated with himself for the remedying this Evil. This made him judg it very adviseable to procure such a Confession And in order to this he thought it necessary for the chief and most Learned Divines of the several Churches to meet together and with all freedom and friendliness to debate the Points of Controversy according to the Rule of Scripture And after mature deliberation by Agreement of all Parties to draw up a Book of Articles and Heads of Christian Faith and Practice Which should serve for the standing Doctrine of Protestants As for the Place of this Assembly he thought England the fittest in respect of Safety as the Affairs of Christendom then stood And communicating this his purpose to the King that Religious Prince was very ready to grant his Allowance and Protection And as Helvetia France and Germany were the chief Countries abroad where the Gospel was prosessed so he sent his Letters to the most eminent Ministers of each namely to Bullinger Calvin and Melancthon disclosing this his pious Design to them and requiring their Counsel and Furtherance Melancthon first of all came acquainted with it by Iustus Ionas junior to whom the Arch-bishop had related the Matter at large and desired him to signify as much in a Letter to the said Melancthon and that it was his Request to him to communicate his Judgment thereupon This Ionas did and Melancthon accordingly writ to our Arch-bishop on the Calends of May this Year to this purpose That if his Judgment and Opinion were required he should be willing both to hear the Sense of other Learned Men and to speak his own and to give his Reasons 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Perswading and being perswaded as ought to be in a Conference of good Men letting Truth and the Glory of God and the Safety of the Church not any private Affection ever carry away the Victory Telling him withal That the more he considered of this his Deliberation than which he thought there could be nothing set on foot more Weighty and Necessary the more he wish'd and pressed him to publish such a true and clear Confession of the whole Body of Christian Doctrine according to the Judgment of Learned Men whose Names should be subscribed thereto That among all Nations there might be extant an illustrious Testimony of Doctrine delivered by grave Authority and
Apostles of Iesus Christ. And wished heartily that the Christian Conversation of the People were the Letters and Seals of their Offices as the Corinthians were to St. Paul who told them that They were his Letters and the Signs of his Apostleship and not Paper Parchment Lead or Wax Great indeed and painful was his Diligence in promoting God's Truth and reforming this Church Insomuch that he raised up against himself the Malice and Hatred of very many thereby These Memorials before related do abundantly evince the same The Words of Thomas Becon in an Epistle Dedicatory deserve here to be transcribed In plucking up the Enemies Tares and in purging the Lord's Field that nothing may grow therein but pure Wheat your most godly and unrestful Pains most Reverend Father are well known in this Church of England and thankfully accepted of all faithful Christen Hearts Insomuch that very many do daily render unto God most humble and hearty Thanks for the singular and great Benefits which they have received of him through your vertuous Travel in attaining the true Knowledg of Justification and of the Sacrament of Christ's Body and Blood those two things especially he laboured to retrieve and promote a true Knowledg of and such other Holy Mysteries of our Profession And albeit the Devil roar the World rage and the Hypocrites swell at these your most Christian Labours which you willingly take for the Glory of God and the Edifying of his Congregation yet as you have godly begun so without ceasing continue unto the end And so he did to the effusion of his Blood not many Years after For he was very sensible of the gross Abuses and Corruptions into which the Christian Church had sunk Which made him labour much to get it purged and restored to its Primitive Constitution and Beauty And this he ceased not to make King Henry sensible of putting him upon the Reformation of the English Church as he could find Occasion and Convenience serve him to move him thereunto Which found at last that good effect upon the King that towards the latter Years of his Reign he was fully purposed to proceed to a regulating of many more things than he had done But the subtilty of Gardiner Bp of Winton and his own Death prevented his good Designs While the aforesaid Bishop was Ambassador Abroad employed about the League between the Emperor and the English and French Kings our Arch-bishop took the opportunity of his Absence to urge the King much to a Reformation and the King was willing to enter into serious Conference with him about it And at last he prevailed with the King to resolve to have the Roods in every Church pulled down and the accustomed Ringing on Alhallow-Night suppress'd and some other vain Ceremonies And it proceeded so far that upon the Arch-bishop's going into Kent to visit his Diocess the King ordered him to cause two Letters to be drawn up prepared for him to sign The one to be directed to the Arch-bishop of Canterbury and the other to the Arch-bishop of York Who were therein to be commanded to issue forth their Precepts to all the Bishops in their respective Provinces to see those Enormities redressed without delay Which our Arch-bishop accordingly appointed his Secretary to do And the Letters so drawn up were sent by the Arch-bishop up to Court But the King upon some Reasons of State suggested to him in a Letter from Gardiner his Ambassador beyond Sea being by some made privy to these Transactions suspended the signing of them And that put a stop to this Business for that time till some time after the King at the Royal Banquet made for Annebault the French King's Ambassador leaning upon him and the Arch-bishop told them both his Resolution of proceeding to a total Reformation of Religion signifying that within half a Year the Mass both in his Kingdom and in that of France should be changed into a Communion and the usurped Power of the Bishop of Rome should be wholly rooted out of both and that both Kings intended to exhort the Emperor to do the same in his Territories or else they would break off the League with him And at that time also he willed the Arch-bishop to draw up a Form of this Reformation to be sent to the French King to consider of This he spake in the Month of August a few Months before his Death This his Purpose he also signified to Dr. Bruno Ambassador here from Iohn Frederick Duke of Saxony some little time after saying That if his Master's Quarrel with the Emperor was only concerning Religion he advised him to stand to it strongly and he would take his part But the King's Death prevented all And as for this King 's next Successor King Edward the Arch-bishop had a special Care of his Education Whose Towardliness and zealous Inclination to a Reformation was attributed to the said Arch-bishop and three other Bishops viz. Ridley Hoper and Latimer by Rodulph Gualter of Zurick Who partly by his living sometime in England and partly by his long and intimate Familiarity and Correspondence with many of the best Note here was well acquainted with the Matters relating to this Kingdom Of the great Influence of one of these upon this King viz. the Arch-bishop the former Memorials do sufficiently shew CHAP. XXXIII Arch-bishop Cranmer procures the Use of the Scriptures THE Arch-bishop was a great Scripturist and in those darker Times of Popery was the chief Repairer of the Reputation of the Holy Scriptures Urging them still for the great Standard and Measure in all controverted Matters relating to Religion and the Church By these he disintangled King Henry VIII his great Matrimonial Cause when all his other Divines who had the Pope's Power and Laws too much in their Eyes were so puzzled about it Shewing how no Humane Dispensation could enervate or annul the Word of God And in the Course he took about the Reforming of Religion the Holy Scripture was the only Rule he went by casting by School-men and the Pope's Canons and Decretals and adhering only to the more sure Word of Prophecy and Divine Inspiration And so Roger Ascham in a Letter to Sturmius in the Year 1550 when they were very busy in the Reformation writes Thaâ—â—uch was the Care of their Iosiah meaning King Edward the Arch-bishop of Canterbury and the whole Privy-Council for true Religion that they laboured in nothing more than that as well the Doctrine as Discipline of Religion might be most purely drawn out of the Fountain of the Sacred Scriptures and that that Roman Sink whence so many Humane Corruptions abounded in the Church of Christ might be wholly stopped up This his high Value of the Scriptures made him at last the happy Instrument of restoring them to the Common People by getting them after divers Years opposition printed in the English Tongue and set up in Churches for any to read that would for
thereof according to Equity and Justice Thus favourable he was to Religion and good Men in the two former Kings Reigns But when Queen Mary succeeded he could no longer be a Sanctuary or Succour unto them unless it were to comfort them by Words and to pray for them as was said before The Arch-bishop added That he was for his part now utterly unable either to help or counsel being in the same Condemnation that they were But that the only thing that he could do he would not omit and that was to pray for them and all others then in Adversity But he entreated Cecyl who by this time seemed to have gotten his Pardon or at least to be in good assurance of it and so in a better Capacity to raise up Friends to those honest Men to use what Means possible he could for them This was all he could do now for the Prisoners of Christ. But while he was in Place and Capacity of succouring such distressed Persons as he was in King Edward's Days he gave them Countenance Entertainment at his House and Table Preferment Recommendation to the King and Protector And indeed there was great need of some such Patrons of poor Protestants the Persecutions in Italy in Spain in France in Germany and other Places being abâ—â—t this Time extreamly hot Which occasioned the flight of great Numbers into this Nation Which some of them stiled Christi Asylum A Sanctury for Christ In the Year 1549 the Persecution in France grew very warm Which was partly occasioned upon the Inauguration of King Henry II and his Entrance into Paris for that Purpose For the burning of Martyrs in several Streets of the City where and when the King was to pass by made a barbarous part of the Solemnity In this Year many French Protestants who had been Imprisoned for Religion in their own Country were either banished or secretly made their escape into this Kingdom These applied to some French Ministers entertained as it seems in the Arch-bishop's Family with Bucer Peter Martyr and others Which Ministers delivered the Condition of these poor Men to the Arch-bishop And having a Petition to present to the Lord Protector declaring their miserable State and requiring Relief he appointed the French Ministers to apply themselves to Cecyl then Master of Requests to the Lord Protector and that he might be the more ready to recommend and forward the Petition to render it the more effectual he advised Bucer Martyr Alexander and Fagius to write their Letters jointly unto the said Cecyl for the French Ministers to carry along with them as their Letter of Credence For the Arch-bishop well knew that Cecyl had a great Esteem for those Learned Men and that their Letters would go a great way with him Such was the particular Care and Diligence our Prelat piously used for Relief of these poor French Exiles The Copy of this Letter I have thought well worthy to be put in the Appendix Indeed it was noted at this Time as a Quality of the Nation That it was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Addicted to shew Favour to Strangers nay to admire them And surely it was not without the Providence of God that when in these difficult Times so many Honest Pious Learned Men were forced from their own Countries Friends and Estates they found such hospitable Entertainment here Care was taken for their sufficient Livelyhoods and for those of them that were towards Learning Places were assigned them in the Colleges of the Universities and yearly Stipends settled on them Of those that were most forward and exemplary in these Christian Offices Dr. Laurence Humfrey one who lived in those Times and was well acquainted with these Matters names King Edward in the first place Who as he asserts of his own knowledg was extraordinarily bountiful to them both in London and in the Universities Among the Noble-men he mentions Henry Earl of Dorset and Duke of Suffolk And among the Bishops Thomas Cranmer the Arch-bishop of Canterbury of whom he bestowed this Character That he was worthy to succeed William Warham in his See whom he so well imitated both in courteous Behaviour and Hospitality And as he was in King Edward's Days of such an hospitable Disposition towards Strangers so he was noted for it in the Reign of his Father King Henry being wont then to shew himself very kind and humane to such as travelled into these Parts for Learning as well as for Shelter Gualter the great Divine of Zurick being but a young Man came into England about the Year 1537 and was so affected with the Civilities he received here that he let it stand upon Record in the Preface to his Homilies upon the first Epistle to the Corinthians how humanely he was received at Oxford not only by the Students but by the Publick Professors and by divers at Court But among them he particularly mentioned How Arch-bishop Cranmer whom he stiled The immortal Glory of England received him though a young Man then and a Stranger and had no experience of things nor any Mark or Excellency to recommend him And as he was Compassionate and Hospitable so he was of a free and liberal Disposition and as became a Christian Bishop and an English Peer kept great Hospitality Yet however he could not escape the Imputation of Niggardise and Closeness He had been once accused of it to his Master King Henry but came off with Honour the King himself clearing him of that injurious Scandal and giving him a Character of a quite contrary Nature And again in King Edward's Reign in the Year 1552 some taking the advantage of his Absence from the Court slandered him as though he were Covetous Which coming to his Ear by the cordial Friendship of Cecyl the King's Secretary he wrote that Courtier a Letter in vindication of himself professing That he was not so doted to set his Mind upon things here which neither he could carry away with him nor tarry long with them And that he took not half so much Care for his Living when he was a Scholar at Cambridg as he did at that present when he was Arch-bishop of Canterbury for as he had now much more Revenue than he had then so he had much more to do withal And That he rather feared stark Beggary at last This and other things to the same purpose he signified in that Letter that Cecyl thereby might the better understand his Condition and know how and what to plead at Court in his behalf as Occasion served as hath been more at large related before By the way I cannot but reflect upon one of the Arch-bishop's Expressions which seemed to have been uttered prophetically so exactly did the Event answer to his Words for to stark Beggary he was indeed at last reduced When in his Imprisonment at Oxon he had not a Penny in his Purse And which was more his Enemies were so barbarously severe that it
satis tentatum est hactenus Et nisi super firmam petram fuisset firmiter aedificata jam dudum cum magnae ruinae fragore cecidisset Dici non potest quantum haec tam cruenta controversia cum per universum orbem Christianum tum maxime apud nos bene currenti verbo Evangelij obstiterit Vobis ipsis affert ingens periculum caeteris omnibus praebet non dicendum offendiculum Quo circa si me audietis hortor suadeo imo vos oro obsecro visceribus Iesu Christi obtestor adjuro uti concordiam procedere coire sinatis in illam confirmandam totis viribus incumbatis pacémque Dei tandem quae superat omnem sensum Ecclesijs permittatis ut Evangelicam doctrinam unam sanam puram cum primitivae Ecclesiae disciplina consonam junctis viribus quam maximè propagemus Facile vel Turcas ad Evangelij nostri obedientiam converterimus modo intra nosmetipsos consentiamus pia quadam conjuratione conspiremus At si ad hunc modum pergimus ad invicem contendere commordere timendum erit ne quod dicens abominor juxta comminationem Apostolicam ad invicem consumamur Habes Optime Vadiane meam de tota controversia illa neutiquam fictam sententâ—am una cum admonitione libera ac fideli Cui si obtemperaveris non modo inter amicos sed etiam vel inter amicissimos mihi nomen tuum ascripsero Bene vale T. Cantuariens NUM XXVI Part of a Letter from a Member of Parlament concerning the transactions of the House about passing the Act of the Six Articles AND also news here I assure you never Prince shewed himself so wise a man so wel learned and so Catholic as the King hath done in this Parlament With my pen I cannot express his mervailous goodnes which is come to such effect that we shal have an Act of Parlament so spiritual that I think none shal dare say in the blessed Sacrament of the Altar doth remain either bread or wine after the Consecration Nor that a Priest may have a wife Nor that it is necessary to receive our Maker sub utraque specie Nor that private Masses should not be used as they have bee Nor that it is not necessary to have Auricular confession And notwithstanding my L. of Canterbury my L. of Ely my L. of Salisbury my L. of Worcester Rochester and St. Davyes defended the contrary long time Yet finally his Highness confounded them all with Gods learning York Durham Winchester and Carlile have shewed themselves honest and wel learned men We of the Temporalty have be al of one opinion And my L. Chancellor and my L. Privy Seal as good as we can devise My L. of Cant. and al his Bishops have given their opinion and come in to us save Salisbury who yet continueth a leud fool Finally al in England have cause to thank God and most heartily to rejoyce of the Kings most godly procedings Without any name subscribed NUM XXVII The Solution of some Bishop to certain Questions about the Sacraments The King's Animadversions of his own hand The Questions The Answers Why then should we cal them so 1. What a Sacrament is 1. Scripture useth the word but it defineth it not 2. What a Sacrament is by the antient Authors 2. In them is found no perfect definition but a general Declaration of the word as a token of a holy thing  3. How many Sacraments be there by the Scripture 3. So named onely Matrimony in effect moo and at the least seven as we find the Scripture expounded Why these Seven to have the name more than al the rest 4. How many Sacraments be there by the antient Authors 4. Authors use the word Sacrament to signify any Mystery in the old or new Testament But especially be noted Baptism Eucharist Matrimony Chrism Impositio manuum Ordo Here is omitted Penance Then why hath theChurch so long erred to take upon them so to name them 5. Whether this word Sacrament be and ought to be attribute to the Seven only 5. The word bycause it is general is attribute to other than the Seven But whether it ought especially to be applied to the Seven only God knoweth and hath not fully revealed it so as it hath been received Whether the Seven Sacraments be found in any of the old Authors or not The thing of al is found but not named al Sacraments as afore  6. Whether the determinate number of seven Sacraments be a doctrin either of the scripture or the old Authors and so to be taught 6. The doctrine of Scripture is to teach the thing without numbring or naming the name Sacrament saving only Matrimony Old Authors number not precisely Twelve Articles of the Faith not numbred in Scripture ne Ten Commandments but rather one Dilectio Seven petitions Seven Deadly sinns * Then Penance is changed to a new term i. e. Absolution Of Penance I read that without it we cannot be saved after relapse but not so of Absolution And Penance to sinners is commanded but Absolution yea in open crimes is left free to the Askers †Laying of hands being an old ceremony of the Church is but a small proof of Confirmation 7. What is found in scripture of the matter nature effect and vertue of such as we cal the seven Sacraments So although the name be not in Scripture yet whether the thing be in Scripture or no and in what wise spoken 7. First of Baptism manifestly Scripture speaketh Secondly Of the holy communion manifestly Thirdly Of Matrimony manifestly 4. Of Absolution * manifestly 5. Of Bishops Priests and Deacons ordered per impositionem manuum cum Oratione expresly 6. Laying †of the Hands of the Bp. after Baptism which is a part of that is done in Confirmation is grounded in Scripture 7. Unction of the sick and prayer is grounded on scripture This answer is not direct and yet it proveth nother of the two poynts to be grounded in scripture 8. Whether Confirmation cum Chrismate of them that be baptized be found in Scripture 8. The thing of Confirmation is found in scripture though the name Confirmation is not there Of Chrisma Scripture speaketh not expressly but it hath been had in high veneration and observed since the beginning  9. Whether the Apostles lacking higher power and not having a Christen King among them made Bishops by that necessity or by authority given them of God 9. The calling naming appointment and preferment of one before another to be Bishop or Priest had a necessity to be done in that sort a Prince wanting  The Ordering appeareth taught by the holy Ghost in the Scripture per manuum impositionem cum oratione  10. Whether Bps or Priests were first And if the Priests were first then the Priest made the Bishop 10. Bishops or not after  11. Whether a Bishop hath authority to make a Priest by the Scripture or
a Clergy was now in England He makes a heavy Complaint against the frequent practice of beastly sins in the Priests Adultery Sodomy c. and that they never were punished And in my memory as he proceeds which is above thirty years and also by the information of others that be twenty years older than I I could never learn that one Priest was punished These Exiles are a sort of men who generally write with Passion and Prejudice against their own Countrey so that ordinarily little more credit is to be given to their Information than to the Intelligence of Deserters from an Army I am sure he hath shamefully belied the Clergy of England in accusing them of the frequent practice of such beastly sins and then affirming that he could never learn that one Priest was punished for it in the space of fifty years before that time It is true that Crimes of Incontinence as such especially in the Clergy were then cognoscible and punishable only by the Ecclesiastical Law and in the Spiritual Courts but Rapes were then as well as now in Clergy-men as well as Lay-men tryable and punishable at Common-Law And of this the Laity took such malicious advantage immediately before the Reformation that they were wont to pretend all Acts and even Indications of Incontinence in Clergy-men to be so many Rapes and to Indict them as such Insomuch that scarce any Assizes or Sessions passed at that time wherein several Clergy-men were not Indicted of Rapes and a Jury of Lay-men Impannell'd to Try them who would be sure not to be guilty of shewing over-much favour to them in their Verdicts Neither was the Ecclesiastical Authority then so remiss as is pretended as not to have punished any one Priest for Incontinence within the space of fifty years before If I had my Papers by me I could produce Examples of many Incontinent Clergy-men punished and deprived by their Ordinaries within that time About this very time wherein this Preface was wrote Dr. Weston altho otherwise a man of great Note and Interest among the Popish Party was deprived of the Deanry of Windsor for a single Act of Incontinence and about twenty years before this Stokesly Bishop of London is by Iohn Bale reported to have deprived Iohn Lord Abbot of Colchester for an horrible Act of Incontinence Indeed I know Bale to have been so great a Lyar that I am not willing to take any thing of that kind upon his Credit however his Testimony may serve well enough against such another foul-mouth'd Writer as this E. P. seems to have been Ibid. line 11. ab imo The Archbishop supplied the City of Canterbury with store of Excellent Learned Preachers Turner the two Ridleys Becon c. Turner never was Preacher in Ordinary at Canterbury but at Chartham near Canterbury He is said indeed afterwards in this History to have been one of the Six Preachers of the Church of Canterbury which may be true yet to Preach there three or four Sermons in a year upon so many Holidays is not a sufficient ground to say that that City was supplied with such or such Preachers Page 164. in imo The University of Cambridge laboured under great suspicions of being spoiled of its Revenues she having observed how those of her Sister the Church were daily invaded by Secular hands The University hath ever been so dutiful as to own the Church to be her Mother Page 183. line 10. ab imo Farrar was Consecrated Bishop of St. Davids by Thomas Archbishop of Canterbury endued with his Pontificals The latter words are a Translation of Pontificalibus indutus which signifies no other than being Invested or Attired in his Episcopal Habit. Page 184. med Bishop Farrar hearing of great Corruption among those belonging to the Chapter of the Church of Carmarthen and chiefly Thomas Young Chanter after Archbishop of York c. I suppose the Chapter of the Church of St. Davids is here meant for there was no such Church at Carmarthen and Young was at this time Precentor of St. Davids Page 208. line 13. ab imo Bishop Ridley at his entrance upon the See of London was exceeding wary not to do his Predecessor Bonner the least injury but rather did many kindnesses to his Mother Servants and Relations he continued Bonner's Receiver one Staunton in his Place In this last case Ridley could not give any evidence of Kindness or Unkindness for Staunton held his Place of Receiver by Patent for life Page 224. med The Council sitting at Greenwich the Bishop's Gardiner of Winchester Servants came and desired that certain of them might be sworn upon certain Articles for Witness on his behalf And if they might not be sworn c. And they were allowed From this relation any Reader would imagine That the Bishop's Servants desired that themselves might be sworn in behalf of their Lord and Master whereas in the Council-Book from whence this Matter is reported it is plain that they desired that some of the Privy-Counsellors might be sworn or at least be obliged to declare upon their Honour what they knew of the matter then in question in favour of the Bishop Page 267. line 21. This Scory Bishop Elect of Rochester was at first preferred by the Archbishop to be one of the Six Preachers at Canterbury and always continued firm for the Purity of Religion and endured Trouble for it He was a Married man and so deprived at the beginning of Queen Mary's Reign fled beyond Sea c. Scory was so far from continuing always firm to the Purity of Religion that in the beginning of Queen Mary's Reign he reconciled himself to the See of Rome submitted himself to Bishop Bonner made a formal Recantation and did open Penance for his Marriage however afterwards he resumed his former Principles when he had got beyond Sea Page 270. line 17. ab imo All this I have related of this Divine Dr. Iohn Redman who died in 1551. that I may in some measure preserve the Memory of one of the Learnedest men of his time and lay up the Dying Words of a Papist signifying so plainly his dislike and disallowance of many of their Doctrines I cannot imagine why Dr. Redman should be accounted or called a Papist at the time of his Death who had all along lived and then died in the Communion of the Establish'd Church and had but little before joined with the Archbishop and other Bishops and Divines in compiling the Book of Common-Prayer If because he had once held the Popish Doctrines concerning Justification the Sacrament of the Altar c. with equal and for the same reason Cranmer himself and all the Bishops and Eminent Divines of that time may be called Papists Or if it was because he judged it unlawful for any Priest to marry a second time as is related page 157. he therein followed the Canons and received Doctrines of the Ancient Church and hath many Learned and Worthy Divines of our own Time and Church
Istorum Authorum Maxime Memorabile sit quonam in pretio apud Eruditos seniper Habiti Fuerunt Opera Thomae Pope-Blunt Baronâ—iti Fol. V. Cl. Gulielmi Camdeni Illustrium Vâ—rorum ad G. Camdenum Epistolâ—e cum Appendice Varii Argumenti Accesserunt Annalitita Regni Regis Jacobi I. Apparatus Commentarius de Antiquitate Dignitate Officio Comitis Marescali Angliae Praemittitur G Camdeni Vita Scriptore Thoma â—mitho S.T.D. Ecclesiae Anglicanae Presbytero 4to Some Remarks upon the Ecclesiastical History of the Ancient Churches of Piedmont By Peter Allix D D Treasurer of Sarum 4to his Remarks upon the Ecclesiastical â—istory of the Ancient Churches of the Albigenses 4to A Vindication of Their Majesties Authority to fill the Sees of the Deprived Bishops in a Letter occasioned by Dr. B 's Refusal of the Bishoprick of Bath and Wells 4to A Discourse concerning the Unreasonableness of a New Separation on Account of the Oâ—ths to the Present Government With an Answer to the History of Passive Obedience so far as relates to them 4to A Vindication of the said Discourse concerning the Unreâ—â—â—nablenâ—ss of a New Separation from the Exceptions made against it in a Tract called A Brief Answer to the said Discourse c 4to Geologia Or â— Discourse concerning the Earth before the Deluge wherein the Form and Properties ascribed to it in a Book entituled The Theory of the Earth are expected against and it is made appear That the Dissolution of that Earth was not the Cause of the Universal Flood Also a new Explication of that Flood is attempted By Erasmus Warren Rector of Worlington in Suffolk 4to The Present State of Germany By a Person of Quality 8vo Memoirs relating to the Royal Navy of England for Ten Years determined December 1688. By Samuel Pâ—pys Esq 8 vo Memoirs of what past in Christendom from the War begun 1672. to the Peace concluded 1679. 8vo Disquisitiones Criticâ— de Variis per Diversa Loâ—a tempora Bibliorum Editionibus Quibus Accedâ—â—t Castigatiâ—nes Theologi Cujusdam Parificusis ad Opasculum Is. Vossii de Sybillinis Oraculis Ejusdâ—m Responsiâ—â—em ad Objectiones nâ—perâ—e Critica Sacra 4to Aâ—glâ—a Sacra sive Collectio Historiarum Auâ—â—quitâ—s Scriptarum de Archicpiscopis Episcopis Angliae a prima Fidâ—i Christianae susceptione ad Annum 1540. in Duobus Volaminâ—bus per Henricum Whartonum Fol. Jacobi Usserii Armachani Archipiscopi Historia Dogmatica Controversiae inter Orthodoxos Pontificios de scripturis Socris Vernaculis nunc Primâ—â—n Edita Accâ—sserunt â—jâ—sdem Dissertationes duâ—e de Pseudo-Dionysii scriptis de Epistola ad Lacdicâ—os antâ—â—ac mediâ—ae Discripsis Digâ—ssit noris atqâ—e Aâ—â—lavio Loâ—â—pleâ—avit Henricus Wharton A. M. Rev in Christo Pat. ac Dom. Archiepisc. Can 〈◊〉 a sacris Domesticâ—s 4to 1690. Sâ—â—iptorum Eâ—clesiasticorum Historia Literaria a Christo nato uâ—que ad sâ—â—ndran xiv facili methodo 〈…〉 de Vito Illorâ—â—â—â— as Reâ—us G. siis de 〈◊〉 Dogmatibus Elogio Stylo de Scriptis Geâ—â—â—â—is 〈◊〉 Suppositâ—tiis meditis Deperduis Fragmentis Deque Varsis Opâ—rion Editimubus perspâ—eue Agitur Accâ—dunt Scriptores Gentiles Christâ—â—ae Religionis Oppugnatores Cujusvis Sâ—eculi Brevâ—arian Inserusitâ—r sais Lo is Vâ—tâ—vâ—m aliquot Opuscula Fragmenta tum Graecâ—â—an Lativa 〈…〉 Praenussa demque Prolegomena qâ—â—buâ— plurima ad Antiqâ—â—tatis Ecclesiasticae Studium 〈…〉 Opuâ— indicibus necesâ—arus Iâ—structum Authore Gulielmo Cave SS Theol Proj â— Canoniâ—o Windesoâ—ensi Accedit ab Alia manu Appâ—ndix ab meunte Secula xiv ad Annum usque MDXVII Fol. Rusâ—worth 's Historical Collections The Third Part in Two Volumes Containing the Principal Mâ—tters which happened from the Meeting of the Parliament Nov. 3. 1640. to the end of the Year 1644. Wherein is a particular Account of the Rise and Progress of the Civil War to that Period Fol. A Discourse of the Pastoral Câ—re By Gilbert Burnâ—t Lord Bishop of Sarum 1692. Dr. 〈◊〉 Conant 's Sermons 1693. A Discourse of the Government of the Thoughâ—â— By Geo. Tully Sub-Dean of York 8vo 1694. Origo 〈◊〉 Or a Treatise of the Origine of Laws and their Obliging Power as also oâ— their great Variety and why some Laws are immutable and some not but may suffer change or cease to be or be suspended or abrogated In Seven Books By George Dawson Fol. 1694. In his Three Conversions E Foxij MSS. In his Protestation to the whole Church of England Pag. 418. Edit 1672. Life of Iohn Fox 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 1 Mac. III. 7. Parsons Three Conversions Part 3. p. 84. Acts and Mon. Vol. I. p. 532. Edit 1610. In his Antiq. of Canterb. Anno 1489 1503 1511 1516 1523 1529 1530 Anno 1530. Anno 1530 1531 1532. Anno 1532 1533. Anno 1533. Anno. 1534. Anno 1534. Anno 1535. Anno 1535. Anno 1536. Anno 1536. Anno 1536. Anno 1537. Anno 1537. Anno 1537. Anno 1537. Anno 1538. Anno 1538. Anno 1538 1539. Anno 1540. Anno 1540. Anno 1540. Anno 1541. Anno 1542. Anno 1543. Anno 1543. Anno 1543. Anno 1543 1544 Anno 1544. Anno 1545 1546. Anno 1546. Anno 1547. Anno 1547. Anno 1547. Anno 1547. Anno 1547. Anno 1547. Anno 1548. Anno 1548. Anno 1549. Anno 1549. Anno 1549. Anno 1549. Anno 1549. Anno 1549. Anno 1550. Anno 1550. Anno 1550. Anno 1550. Anno 1550. Anno 1550. Anno 1550. Anno 1550. Anno 1550. Anno 1551. Anno 1551. Anno 1552. Anno 1552. Anno 1552. Anno 1552. Anno 1552. Anno 1552. Annâ— 1552. Anno 1553. Annâ— 1553. Anno 1553. Anno 1553. Anno 1553. Annâ— 1553. Annâ— 1553. Anno 1553. Annâ— 1553. Anno 1553. Anno 1553. Annâ— 1554. Anno 1554. Annâ— 1554. Anno 1554. Anâ—â— 1554. Anno 1554. Annâ— 1554. Anno 1555. Anno 1555. Anno 1555. Annâ— 1555. Anno 1555. Hist. Reform Vol. I. p. 274. †Acts and Mon. first Edit p. 815 A worthy Work to revive his Memory His Family Anno 1489. Account of his younger Years Life of Cranm. in the MSS. C.C.C.C. Sent to Cambridg An. 1503. Life of Cranm. inter Foxii MSS. Anno 1511. Anno 1516. Sets himself to study the Scripture Anno 1519. Is made Doctor of Divinity An. 1523. Marries Refuses to go to Wolsey's College Oxon. He is made one of the University Examiners The King 's great Cause first proposed to the Universities The Occasion of his Rise His Opinion of the King's Cause Life of Cranmer in theMSS C.C.C.C. The King sends for him Anno 1529. Sutably placed with the Earl of Ormond Epist. 19. li. 27. Impensius gratulor tuae soelicitati quod homini potenti Lalco Aulico perspiciam etiam sacraâ— Literas â—sse cordi teque nobiliâ— illius Margaretae desiderio tenâ—ri Epist. 34. lib. 29. Friendshipand Correspondence between the Earl and Cranmer Anno 1530. A Providence in his being placed here Cranmer Disputes at Cambridg
Act concerning it The Progress made by the ABp in this Work No. XXXIV The MSS. of these Laws Inter Fox MSS. Reformatio Legum Ecclesiast Lond. 1640. The ABp labours in this Work under K. Edward The ABp employed in mending Books of Service The King consults with the ABp for the Redress of certain Superstions Hist. Ref. Vol. II. Collect. p. 236. The opportunity of Winchester's Absence taken The ABp prevails with the King in two great Points Seeks to redress Alienation of the Revenues of the Cathedral Scripture and Sermons more common by the ABp's means Vid. Herb. Hist. P. 600. Anth. Kitchin An. 1546. A Proclamation against the English Testament He interprets a Statute of his Church Ex Regist. Eccles Christ. Cant. The ABp by the King's Command pens a Form for a Communion His last Office to the King Conceives great Hopes of K. Edward The ABp takes a Commission to execute his Office Cranm. Regist. Hist. Reâ— P. II. Coll. p. 90. K. Edward crowned by the ABp C.C.C.C. Library Miscellan B. The manner of the Coronation Hist. Ref. Vol. 11 Collect. p. 93. The ABp's Speech at the Coronation Foxes Firebrands Part 2. An. 1547. A Royal Visitation on foot Titus B. 2. Hist. Ref. Vol. II. Collect. p. 103. Vol. 11. p. 28. The Visitors Vol. intit Syuodalia †He belonged to the Office of the Signet and was Protonotary The Method of this Visitation Fox The Homilies and Erasmus's Paraphrase The ABp to Winchester concerning the Homilies See his Letters to the Protector in Fox No. XXXV The ABp c. compose Homilies Winchester in the Fleet. The Bp of Winchester's Censure oâ— the Homily of Salvation And of the ABp for it Winchester's Censure of Erasmus's Paraphrase His Account of his Commitment Inter Foxil MSS. Erasmus vindicated Winchester's Letter to Somerset concerning these things No. XXXVI The ABp appoints a Thanksgiving for a Victory The ABp to the Bp of London Cranm. â—egist * It should be Sept. I suppose A Convocation in the first Year of the King C.C.C.C. Library Vol. intit Synodalia Defence of Priests Marriage p. 268. Dr. Redman's Judgment of Priests Marriage Irenic p. 387. The ABp's Influence on the Parliament Hist. Râ—s Vol. 1. p. 40. The Communion in both Kinds established Fox The ABp's Queries concerning the Mass. The ABp assists at the Funeral of the French King Stow. The Marquess of Northampton's Divorce committed to the ABp Bp of Wigorn. Hist. Ref. Vol. 2. p. 56. Processions forbid by his means Stow. Examines the Offices of the Church The ABp puts forth a Catechism And a Book against Vnwritten Verities Caâ— 3. His Care of Canterbury Fox's MSS. The ABp's Influence upon the University Some of St. Iohn's College apply to him upon the apprehension of a Danger Offended with some of this College and why No. XXXVII The ill Condition and low Estate of the University Hist. Ref. Part II. p. 8. An Address of the University to the ABp The Sum thereof No. XXXVIII The Success of the University's Address to him and others Another Address to him against the Townsmen Roger Ascham's Application to him for a Dispensation for eating Flesh. Favourably granted by the ABp The ABp's Opinion concerning Lent Ascham acquaints him with the present State of the University as to their Studies Epistol libro 2. Sir Iohn Cheke the ABp's dear Friend the prime Instrument of politer Studies there The Impediments of the Universities flourishing state laid before him Dr. Smith recants at Paul's Cross. His Books No. XXXIX Gardiner offended with this Recantation Psal. 116.11 Other University-Men recant Smith affronts â—he ABp His Inconstancy The ABp's admonition to the Vicar of Stâ—pney Foxii MSS. The ABp Licenseth an eminent Preacher Foxil MSS. Who preacheth against the Errors and Superstitions of the Church Foxii MSS. Is bound to answer for his Sermon at the Assizes How far the Reformation had proceeded Part 3. Ridley consecrated Bp. Cran. Reg. p. 321. Churches profaned Cotton Libr. Titus B. 2. Church Ornaments embezelled The Council's Letter to the ABp thereupon Cran. Regist. A Form of Prayer sent to the ABp With the Council's Letter Cran. Regist. New Opinions Broached Cranm. Regist. Champneys revokes six Articles And abjureâ— Other Heresies vented Cranm. Regist. Assheton's Recantation Other Errors still Ioan Bocheâ—s Heresy Latimeâ—'s Censure of her Georgâ— Van Paris The ABp visits his Diocess His Articles for the Clergy And for the Laity An Exchange made between the ABp and the Lord Windsor Bishop of S. Davids Consecrated Cran. Regist. Fol. 327. Some account of this Bishop The ABp swayed by Farrar's Enemies Sutâ—liâ—s Answ. to Parson's Threefold Convers. of England An. 1549. Rebellion in Devon The ABp Aâ—â—swers the Rebels Articles An. 1549. N â— XL. Some Account thereof Crispin Morâ—man Cardinal Pole The ABp procures Sermons to be made against the Rebellion Miscellâ—n D. Peter Martyr's Sermon upon this Occasion The French take Occasion at this Rebellion Bucer's Discourse against the Sedition The ABp's Prayer composed for this Occasion No. Xâ—I The ABp deprives Boner Discourse between the ABp and him concerning his Book Concerning the Sacrament Chargeth the ABp concerning the Preachers he allowed The ABp's Answers to Boner's Declaration Papists insist upon the invalidity of the Laws made in the King's minority No. XLII Lat. Serm. Fol. 25. An Ordination of Priests and Deacons The Office of Ordination reformed The ABp Visits some Vacant Churches S. David's Glocester Norwich London A new Dean of the Arches The ABp writes to the Lords at Ely-house Their Answer Vol. II. Collect. p. 187.188 The ABp gets the Common-Prayer-Book confirmed The ABp harbours Learned Strangers MSS. C.C.C.C. Miscellan A. Bucer writes in the ABp's Family MSS. C.C.C.C. Miscellan D. The ABp's Guests Calvin Ep. 197 Martyr dedicates his Lectures at Oxon to the ABp The ABp writes to Bucer to come over No. XLIII Bucer and Fagius Professors at Cambridg Vet. P. Fag per Ministr aliquos Eccles. Argent Fagius dies No. XLIV The ABp sends money to Fagius's Widow Bucer laments his Loss MSS. C.C.C.C. His Answer hereunto Declines it at present and why They agree upon the Conditions of a Disputation They Dispute No. XLIV Martyr sends the Sum of the Disputation to the ABp The Disputation published by Martyr Quid enim nâ—gare ausâ—m Rever Archiâ—piscopo Cant. cui plant omnia debto In Praefat. ad Disp. And by Tresham No. XLV Smith writes to the ABp from Scotland Disputations at Cambridg before the Commissioners Bucer Disputes His Judgment of the Sacrament No. XLVI Relicks of Popery remaining Fox's Acts. The Council gives Orders to the Justices And writes to the Bishops Neglect in London Adulteries frequent Books dispersed by Protestants Letter to the Lord Protector Preaching against Lent Gardiner's Judgment of a Rhime against Lent Latimer counsels the King about Marriage Foreign Protestants their offer to King Edward Fox's and Firebrand's Part II. An. 1550. Ridley made Bp of London Ridl Letter among the Letters of the Martyrs Rochester Vacant
Petition that some of those that were abroad had sent over to the Queen this Year to disswade her from these Persecutions that were now so rigorously set on foot in England they interceded for Cranmer putting her in mind how he had once preserved her in her Father's Time by his earnest Intercessions with him for her So that they said she had more reason to believe he loved her and would speak the Truth to her than she had of all the rest of the Clergy But alas this did little good In October Ridley and Latimer were brought forth to their Burning and passing by Cranmer's Prison Ridley looked up to have seen him and to have taken his Farewel of him but he was not then at the Window being engaged in Dispute with a Spanish Friar But he looked after them and devoutly falling upon his Knees prayed to God to strengthen their Faith and Patience in that their last but painful Passage HUGH LATIMER Bishop of WORCESTER Martyr'd 16 Octob. 1555 The Writer of all this said He knew certain Men which through the perswasion of their Friends went unto his Sermons swelling blown full and puft up like Esop's Frogs with Envy and Malice against him but when they returned his Sermon being done and demanded how they liked him and his Doctrine they answered with the Bishops and Pharisees Servants There was never Man spake like unto this Man He would also speak freely against buying and selling of Benefices against promoting such to the Livings of Spiritual Ministers which were unlearned and ignorant in the Law of God against Popish Pardons against the reposing our Hope in our own Works or in other Mens Merits He was also a charitable Man when he was at Cambridg according to his Ability to poor Scholars and other needy People So conformable was his Life to his Doctrine Insomuch that there was a common Saying in that University When Mr. Stafford read and Latimer preached then was Cambridg blessed But to return to our ABp in his Prison Where he divided his melancholy Time partly in Disputings and Discourses with Learned Men of the contrary Perswasion who laboured to bring him over thinking thereby to obtain a great Glory to their Church and partly in preparing an Answer to Bishop Gardiner under the name of Marcus Antonius in vindication of his own Book concerning the Sacrament And he finished three Parts in Prison Two whereof were lost in Oxford and one came into the Hands of Iohn Fox as he tells us himself which he said was ready to be seen and set forth as the Lord should see good Bishop Ridley also in his Confinement wrote Marginal Annotations on the side of Gardiner's said Book with the Lead of a Window for want of Pen and Ink. Great pity it is that these last Studies of the Arch-bishop are lost For even that part which was once in Fox's Custody is gone with his Fellows for ought that I can find among his Papers It was some time before this that there was a Report spred that the Queen was Dead The Rumor presently extended it self over the Seas Which occasioned the Death of one pious Professor of the Gospel namely Bartlet Green a Lawyer For Christopher Goodman having writ to him his former Acquaintance in Oxford to certify him of the Truth thereof he in a Letter in answer wrote thus The Queen is not yet Dead This and divers other Letters that were given to a Bearer to carry beyond Sea to the Exiles there were intercepted and being read at the Council some would have it to amount to Treason as though there had been a Plot carrying on against the Queen's Life But the Law not making those words Treason he after long lying in the Tower was sent by the Council to Bishop Boner Who upon examination found him too firm to be moved from the Doctrine of the Gospel and so condemned him to the Fire CHAP. XIX The last Proceedings with Cranmer AFter Ridley and Latimer were dispatched and had sealed their Doctrine with their Blood at Oxford the said Course was resolved to be taken with Cranmer late Arch-bishop but now the Arch-Heretick as he was esteemed by them They had been all three condemned and adjudged Hereticks by Dr. Weston in the University of Oxford after their Disputations But that Sentence was void in Law because the Authority of the Pope was not yet received Therefore they were tried and judged upon new Commissions The Commission for judging the two former was from Pole the Cardinal Lord Legate Wherein the Commissioners constituted were White Bishop of Lincoln Brooks Bishop of Glocester and Holiman Bishop of Bristow But there was a new Commission sent from Rome for the Conviction of Cranmer Brooks of Glocester was the Pope's Sub-delegate under Cardinal Puteo to whom the Pope had committed this Process and Martin and Story Doctors of the Civil Law were the Queen's Commissioners The former of which was now or soon after for his good Services made one of the Masters in Chancery and was much employed in these Trials of poor Men. Notwithstanding this Man complied in Q. Elizabeth's Reign and took his Oath against the Pope now a second Time In this Commission from the Pope he decreed in a formality of Words That the ABp should have Charity and Justice shewed to him and that he should have the Laws in most ample manner to answer in his behalf He decreed also That the said Arch-bishop should come before the Bishop of Glocester as high Commissioner from his Holiness for the examination of such Articles as should be produced against him and that Martin and Story should require in the King and Queen's Name the Examination of him In pursuance of this Command from the Pope and in Obedience to the King and Queen they came down to Oxon upon this Commission and Septemb. 12. which was seven days before the Condemnation of Latimer and Ridley sat in S. Mary's Church accompanied with many other Doctors and such-like and among the rest the Pope's Collector The Arch-bishop was brought forth out of Prison habited in a fair black Gown and his Hood of Doctor of Divinity on both Shoulders Then some Proctor said aloud Thomas Arch-bishop of Canterbury appear here and make answer to that which shall be laid to thy Charge for Blasphemy Incontinency and Heresy What due Honour the Arch-bishop gave unto the Queen's Commissioners as representing the Supream Authority of the Nation and how he gave none to Brooks the Pope's Representative keeping on his Cap and the Speeches that the said Brookes and the other two made unto him with the Arch-bishop's discreet and excellent Answers still interposing his Protestation against Brooks his Authority may be seen at large in Fox's Monuments Only it may not be amiss here briefly to mention for the better understanding of the Form of the Process that after the Archbishop was cited as before was said into the Court the Bishop of Glocester