not applied to these Images So in King Henry's time that temper was found that such Images as had been abused to Superstition should be removed and for other Images external Worship such as kneeling censing and praying before them was kept up but the People were to be taught that these were not at all intended to the Image but to that which was represented by it And upon this there was much subtle arguing Among Cranmers Papers I have seen several Arguments for a moderate use of Images But to all these they opposed the second Commandment as plainly forbidding all visible Objects of Adoration together with what was in the Scriptures against the Idolatry of the Heathens and what the Fathers had written against the Gentiles And they added that how excusable soever that practice might have been in such dark and barbarous Ages in which the People knew little more of Divine Matters than what they learned from their Images yet the horrible abuses that followed on the bringing them into Churches made it necessary now to throw them all out It was notorious that the People every where doted on them and gave them Divine Honour Nor did the Clergy who were generally too guilty themselves of such abuses teach them how to distinguish aright and the Acts of Worship that were allowed were such that beside the scandal such Worship had in it and the danger of drawing People into Idolatry it was in it self inexcusable to offer up such external parts of Religious Adoration to Gold or Silver Wood or Stone So Cranmer and others being resolved to purge the Church of this abuse got the worst part of the Sentence that some had designed against the Curate and Church-wardens to be mitigated into a Reprimend and as it is entred in the Council Books In respect of their submission and of some other Reasons which did mitigate their offence These were Cranmers Arguments against Images they did pardon their Imprisonment which was at first determined and ordered them to provide a Crucifix or at least some painting of it till one were ready and to beware of such rashness for the future But no mention is made of the other Images The carriage of the Council in this matter discovering the inclinations of the greatest part of them Many begin to pull down Images and Dr. Ridley having in his Lent-Sermon preached against the Superstition that was generally had to Images and Holy Water it raised a great heat over England So that Gardiner hearing that on May-day the People of Portsmouth had removed and broken the Images of Christ and the Saints writ about it with great warmth to one Captain Vaughan that waited on the Protector and was then at Portsmouth He desired to know whether he should send one to preach against it though he thought that was the casting Precious Stones to Hogs or worse than Hogs as were these Lollards He said that Luther had set out a Book against those who removed Images At which Gardiner is much offended and himself had seen them still in the Lutheran Churches and he thought the removing Images was on design to subvert Religion and the state of the World he argues for them from the Kings Image on the Seal Caesars Image on the Coin brought to Christ the Kings Arms carried by the Heralds he condemns false Images but for those that were against true Images he thought they were possest with the Devil Vaughan sent his Letter to the Protector with one from Gardiner to himself who finding the reasoning in it not so strong but that it might be answered wrote to him himself That he allowed of his zeal against Innovations The Protector writ to him about it The Letters are in Fox's Acts and Monuments but that there were other things that needed to be looked to as much Great difference there was between the Civil respect due to the Kings Arms and the Worship given to Images There had been a time in which the abuse of the Scriptures was thought a good reason to take them from the People yea and to burn them though he looked on them as more sacred than Images which if they stood meerly as Remembrancers he thought the hurt was not great but it was known that for the most part it was otherwise and upon abuse the Brazen Serpent was broken though made at Gods Commandment and it being pretended that they were the Books of the People he thought the Bible a much more intelligible and useful Book There were some too rash and others too obstinate The Magistrate was to steer a middle Course between them not considering the Antiquity of things so much as what was good and expedient Gardiner writ again to the Protector complaining of Bale and others who published Books to the dishonour of the late King and that all were running after Novelties and often inculcates it that things should be kept in the state they were in till the King were of Age and in his Letters reflects both on the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Bishop of Duresme for consenting to such things Gardiner writ to Ridley who had preached against Images But finding his Letters had no effect on the Protector he wrote to Ridley That by the Law of Moses we were no more bound not to have Images than not to eat Blood-Puddings Image and Idol might have been used promiscuously in former times as King and Tyrant were yet there was a great difference between these according to the Notions we now have He cites Pope Gregory who was against both adoring and breaking them and says the Worship is not given to the Image so there is no Idolatry but to him represented by it and as the sound of Speech did by the Ear beget Notions in us so he did not see but the sight of an Image might stir up devotion He confessed there had been abuses as there is in every thing that is in Mens Hands he thinks Imagery and Graving to be of as good use for instruction as Writing or Printing and because Ridley had also preached against the Superstition of Holy Water to drive away Devils he added That a Vertue might be in Water as well as in Christs Garment St. Peters Shadow or Elisha's Staff Pope Marcellus ordered Equitius to use it and the late King used to bless Cramp-Rings both of Gold and Silver which were much esteemed every where and when he was abroad they were often desired from him This Gift he hoped the young King would not neglect He believed the Invocation of the Name of God might give such a Vertue to Holy Water as well as to the Water of Baptism For Ridley's Answer to this I never saw it so these things must here pass without any Reply though it is very probable an ordinary Reader will with a very small measure of common Sense and Learning see how they might have been answered The thing most remarkable here is about these Cramp-Rings which King Henry
than to make a new one which might give occasion to more Objections and he was the most indifferent Writer they knew Afterwards Cranmer knowing what was likely to work most on him let fall some words as Gardiner writ to the Protector of bringing him into the Privy-Council if he would concur in what they were carrying on But that not having its ordinary effect on him he was carried back to the Fleet. There were also many complaints brought by some Clergy-men of such as had used them ill for their obeying the Kings Injunctions and for removing Images Many were upon their submission sent away with a severe rebuke others that offended more hainously were put in the Fleet for some time and afterwards giving Bond for their good behaviour were discharged But upon the Protectors return the Bishop of Winchester writ him a long Letter in his own vindication He complained of the Visitors proceeding in his absence in so great a matter He said the Injunctions were contrary to themselves for they appointed the Homilies to be read and Erasmus's Paraphrase to be put in all Churches so he selected many passages out of these that were contrary to one another He also gathered many things out of Erasmus's Paraphrase that were contrary to the Power of Princes and several other censurable things in that Work which Erasmus wrote when he was young being of a far different strain from what he writ when he grew older and better acquainted with the World But he concluded his Letter with a discourse of the extent of the King and Councils Power Collection Number 14. which is all I transcribed of it being very long and full of things of no great consequence He questions how far the King could command against Common or Statute Law of which himself had many occasions to be well informed Cardinal Wolsey had obtained his Legatine Power at the Kings desire but notwithstanding that he was brought into a Praemunire and the Lawyers upon that Argument cited many Precedents of Judges that were fined when they transgressed the Laws though commanded by Warrants from the King and Earl Typteft who was Chancellor lost his Head for acting upon the Kings Warrant against Law In the late Kings time the Judges would not set Fines on the breakers of the Kings Proclamations when they were contrary to Law till the Act concerning them was passed about which there were many hot words when it was debated He mentions a Discourse that passed between him and the Lord Audley in the Parliament concerning the Kings Supremacy Audley bid him look the Act of Supremacy and he would see the Kings doings were restrained to Spiritual Jurisdiction and by another Act no Spiritual Law could take place against the Common Law or an Act of Parliament otherwise the Bishops would strike in with the King and by means of the Supremacy would order the Law as they pleased but we will provide said he that the Praemunire shall never go off of your backs In some late Cases he heard the Judges declare what the King might do against an Act of Parliament and what danger they were in that medled in such matters These things being so fresh in his memory he thought he might write what he did to the Lords of Council But by this it appears that no sort of Men is so much for the Kings Prerogative but when it becomes in any instance uneasie to them they will shelter themselves under the Law He continued afterwards by many Letters to the Protector to complain of his ill usage That he had been then seven weeks in the Fleet without Servants a Chaplain or a Physician that though he had his Writ of Summons he was not suffered to come to the Parliament which might be a ground afterwards of questioning their Proceedings He advised the Protector not to make himself a Party in these matters and used all the insinuations of decent flattery that he could invent with many sharp reflections on Cranmer and stood much on the force of Laws that they could not be repealed by the Kings Will. Concerning which he mentions a Passage that fell out between Cromwel and himself before the late King Cromwel said That the King might make or repeal Laws as the Roman Emperors did and asked his opinion about it whether the Kings Will was not a Law To which he answered facetiously That he thought it was much better for the King to make the Law his Will than to make his Will a Law But notwithstanding all his Letters which are printed in the second Volume of Acts and Monum Edit 1641. yet he continued a Prisoner till the Parliament was over and then by the Act of Pardon he was set at liberty This was much censured as an invasion of Liberty and it was said these at Court durst not suffer him to come to the House lest he had confounded them in all they did And the explaining Justification with so much nicety in Homilies that were to be read to the People was thought a needless subtilty But the former abuses of trusting to the Acts of Charity that Men did by which they fancied they bought Heaven made Cranmer judge it necessary to express the matter so nicely though the expounding those Places of St. Paul was as many thought rather according to the strain of the Germans than to the meaning of these Epistles And upon the whole matter they knew Gardiners haughty temper and that it was necessary to mortifie him a little though the pretence on which they did it seemed too slight for such severities But it is ordinary when a thing is once resolved on to make use of the first occasion that offers for effecting it The Party that opposed the Reformation The Lady Mary dissatisfied with the Reformation finding these attempts so unsuccessful engaged the Lady Mary to appear for them She therefore wrote to the Protector that she thought all changes in Religion till the King came to be of Age were very much contrary to the respect they owed the memory of her Father if they went about to shake what he had setled and against their duty to their young Master to hazard the Peace of his Kingdom and engage his Authority in such Points before he was capable of judging them The Protector writ to her Collection Number 15. I gather this to have been the substance of her Letter from the Answer which the Protector wrote which is in the Collection In it he wrote That he believed her Letter flowed not immediately from her self but from the instigation of some malicious Persons He protests they had no other design but the Glory of God and the Honour and Safety of the King and that what they had done was so well considered that all good Subjects ought rather to rejoyce at it than find fault with it And whereas she had said That her Father had brought Religion to a godly order and quietness to which both Spiritualty
Proceedings therein and in all things committed to our Charge shall be such as shall be able to answer the whole World both in honour and discharge of our Consciences And where your Grace writeth that the most part of the Realm through a naughty Liberty and Presumption are now brought into such a Division as if we Executors go not about to bring them to that stay that our late Master left them they will forsake all Obedience unless they have their own Will and Phantasies and then it must follow that the King shall not be well served and that all other Realms shall have us in an Obloquy and Derision and not without just cause Madam as these words written or spoken by you soundeth not well so can I not perswade my self that they have proceeded from the sincere mind of so vertuous and so wise a Lady but rather by the setting on and procurement of some uncharitable and malicious Persons of which sort there are too many in these days the more pity but yet we must not be so simple so to weigh and regard the Sayings of ill-disposed People and the Doings of other Realms and Countries as for that Report we should neglect our Duty to God and to our Soveraign Lord and Native Country for then we might be justly called evil Servants and Masters and thanks be given unto the Lord such hath been the King's Majesty's Proceedings our young Noble Master that now is that all his faithful Subjects have more cause to render their hearty thanks for the manifold Benefits shewed unto his Grace and to his People and Realm sithence the first day of his Reign until this hour than to be offended with it and thereby rather to judg and think that God who knoweth the Hearts of all Men is contented and pleased with his Ministers who seek nothing but the true Glory of God and the Surety of the King's Person with the Quietness and Wealth of his Subjects And where your Grace writeth also That there was a Godly Order and Quietness left by the King our late Master your Graces Father in this Realm at the time of his Death and that the Spiritualty and Temporalty of the whole Realm did not only without compulsion fully assent to his Doings and Proceedings specially in Matters of Religion but also in all kind of Talk whereof as your Grace wrote ye can partly be witness your self at which your Graces Sayings I do something marvel For if it may please you to call to your remembrance what great Labours Travels and Pains his Grace had before he could reform some of those stiff-necked Romanists or Papists yea and did not they cause his Subjects Rise and Rebel against him and constrained him to take the Sword in his hand not without danger to his Person and Realm Alas why should your Grace so shortly forget that great Outrage done by those Generations of Vipers unto his Noble Person only for God's Cause Did not some of the same ill kind also I mean that Romanist Sect as well with his own Realm as without conspire oftentimes his Death which was manifestly and oftentimes proved to the confusion of some of their privy Assisters Then was it not that all the Spiritualty nor yet the Temporalty did so fully assent to his Godly Orders as your Grace writeth of Did not his Grace also depart from this Life before he had fully finished such Orders as he minded to have established to all his People if death had not prevented him Is it not most true that no kind of Religion was perfected at his Death but left all uncertain most like to have brought us in Parties and Divisions if God had not only helpt us And doth your Grace think it convenient it should so remain God forbid What regret and sorrow our late Master had the time he saw he must depart for that he knew the Religion was not established as he purposed to have done I and others can be witness and testify and what he would have done further in it if he had lived a great many know and also I can testifie And doth your Grace who is learned and should know God's Word esteem true Religion and the knowledg of the Scriptures to be new-fangledness and fantasie For the Lord's sake turn the Leaf and look the other while upon the other side I mean with another Judgment which must pass by an humble Spirit through the Peace of the Living God who of his infinite Goodness and Mercy grant unto your Grace plenty thereof to the satisfying of your Soveraign and your most noble Hearts continual desire Number 16. Certain Petitions and Requests made by the Clergie of the Lower House of the Convocation to the most Reverend Father in God the Arch-Bishop of Canterbury his Grace and the residue of the Prelats of the Higher House for the furtherance of certain Articles following FIrst Ex M. S. Dr. Stillingfleet That Ecclesiastical Laws may be made and established in this Realm by thirty two Persons or so many as shall please the King's Majesty to name and appoint according to the effect of a late Statute made in 35th Year of the most noble King and of most famous Memory King Henry the 8th So that all Judges Ecclesiastical proceeding after those Laws may be without danger and peril Also that according to the Ancient Custom of this Realm and the Tenour of the King 's Writ for the summoning of the Parliament which be now and ever have been directed to the Bishops of every Diocess the Clergy of the Lower House of the Convocation may be adjoined and associate with the Lower House of the Parliament or else That all such Statutes and Ordinances as shall be made concerning all Matters of Religion and Causes Ecclesiastical may not pass without the sight and assent of the said Clergy Also that whereas by the Commandment of King Henry the 8th certain Prelats and learned Men were appointed to alter the Service in the Church and to devise other convenient and uniform Order therein Who according to the same Appointment did make certain Books as they be informed Their Request is That the said Books may be seen and perused by them for a better expedition of Divine Service to be set forth accordingly Also that Men being called to Spiritual Promotions or Benefices may have some Allowance for their necessary Living and other Charges to be sustained and born concerning the same Benefices in the first Year wherein they pay the first Fruits Whether the Clergy of the Convocation may liberally speak their Minds without danger of Statute or Law Number 17. A second Petition to the same purpose Ex M. S. Dr. Stillingfleet WHere the Clergy in this present Convocation assembled have made humble suit unto the most Reverend Father in God my Lord Arch-Bishop of Canterbury and all the other Bishops That it may please them to be a Mean to the King's Majesty and Lord Protector 's Grace
and effect And because it is not to be doubted but that before the receipt of these my Letters ye having former Instructions shall have far entred your Devices in this Matter wherein the King's Grace trusteth ye do lose no time or opportunity that possibly may be had I shall therefore briefly and compendiously touch such this things as the King's Highness would ye should substantially note in this behalf One is That albeit ye both before and also now know the King's mind and desire herein as is aforesaid taking that for your Foundation yet nevertheless forasmuch as it appeareth by your said Letters and otherwise that the Cardinal de Medicis whose preferment if this may not be had both the King's Grace and I tendereth above all other mindeth to experiment what may be done for himself great policy and dexterity is in your Labours and Communications to be used so that ye may first by great ensearch and enquiry perfectly understand as nigh as may be the Disposition Mind Affection and Inclination as well of the said Cardinal de Medicis as of all the residue if it be possible which thing well known well ponder'd and consider'd ye shall thereby have a great light to the residue of your Business wherein always ye must so order your selves that the Matter appearing unto you much doubtful and uncertain your particular practices the desired Intent peradventure failing shall not be cause of displeasure or unkindness to be noted by any that may be elected and for your introduction herein the King's Grace sendeth unto you at this time two Commissions under his great Seal the one couch'd under general words without making mention of any particular Person and in the other his Highness hath made mention of me by special Name Besides that ye shall receive herewith two Letters from his Grace to the College of Cardinals with the Copies of the same the one in special recommendation of me and the other in favour of the Cardinal de Medicis beside such other particular Letters in my recommendation to certain Cardinals and other as by the Copies of them herewith enclosed ye shall now perceive After the receipt thereof if the Cardinals before that time shall not be entred into the Conclave ye taking your Commodity as by your Wisdom shall be thought most expedient shall deliver unto the Cardinal de Medicis the King's Letters and mine to him addressed shewing unto him with as good words and manner as ye can that for his great Virtue Wisdom Experience and other commendable Merits with the entire love and favour which the King's Grace and I bear unto him thinking and reputing him most meet and able to aspire unto the Papal Dignity before all other Ye have Commandment Commission and Instruction specially and most tenderly to recommend him unto the whole College of Cardinals having also the King 's and my Letters to them in his favour upon which Declaration ye shall perceive his Answer to be made unto you in that behalf whereupon and by knowledg of the Disposition of the Residue ye may perceive how to govern your selves in the delivery of the rest of your said Letters for in case it may evidently appear unto you that any of the Cardinals to whom the King's Letters be directed have firmly establish'd their minds upon the said Cardinal de Medices the more circumspection is to be used with any such in the delivery to him of the King's Letters and overture of the secretness of your minds touching me considering that if the King's Intent might in no wise take effect for me his Grace would before all other advance and further the said Cardinal de Medicis Nevertheless if either by his Answer to be made unto you or by other good knowledg ye shall perceive that he hath so many Enemies herein that of likelihood he cannot attain the same ye may be the more bold to feel his mind how he is inclin'd towards me saying as indeed the King's Grace hath written unto him That in case he should fail thereof the King's Highness would insist as much as to his Grace were possible for me which ye may say were in manner one thing considering that both the Cardinal de Medices and I bear one mind zeal and study to the Weal and Quiet of Christendom the Increase and Surety of Italy the Benefit and Advancement of the Emperor's and the King's Majesty's Causes and I being Pope he in a manner whom I above all Men love trust and esteem were Pope being sure to have every thing according to his mind and desire and as much Honour to be put unto him his Friends and Family as might be devised in such wise That by these and other good words and demonstrations ye may make him sure as I think he be that failing for himself he with all his Friends do their best for me and seeing no likelihood for him ye may then right-well proceed to your particular labour and practices for me delivering the King's Letters both to the College of Cardinals and to the other apart as ye shall see the case then to require and solliciting them by secret labours alleadging and declaring unto them my poor Qualities and how I having so great experience of the Causes of Christendom with the entire Favour which the Emperor and the King's Grace bear unto me the knowledg also and deep Acquaintance of other Princes and of their great Affairs the studious mind that I have ever been in both to the Surety and Weal of Italy and also to the Quiet and Tranquility of Christendom not lacking thanked be God either Substance or Liberality to look largely upon my Friends besides the sundry great Promotions which by election of me should be vacant to be disposed unto such of the said Cardinals as by their true and fast Friendship had deserved the same the loving Familiarity also which they should find in me and that of my Nature I am not in great disposed to rigour or austereness but can be contented thanked be God frankly pleasantly and courteously to participate dispose and bestow such things as I have or shall come to my disposition not having any such Faction Family or Kinsman to whom I might shew any partiality in bestowing the Promotions and Goods of the Church and which is highest to be regarded that is likely and in manner sure that by my means not only Italy shall be put in perfect surety for ever but also a final rest peace and quiet now most necessary established betwixt all Christian Princes whereupon the greatest and most notable Expedition might be made against the Infidels that hath been heard of many Years For the King's Highness in that case would be contented and hath fully promised God willing to come in Person when God shall send time unto Rome whither also I should not doubt to bring many more of the Christian Princes being determined if God should send me such Grace to expone mine own Person in
confecti extremum Vitae diem misere finierunt Necessitas Pontificem ad judicium impellens Quae omnia cum apud omnes Nationes perspicua notiora sint gravissimo quam plurimorum testimonio ita comprobata ut nullus omnino locus excusationis defensionis aut tergiversationis relinquatur Nos multiplicatis aliis atque aliis super alias impietatibus facinoribus praeterea fidelium persecutione religionisque afflictione impulsu opera dictae Elizabethae quotidie magis ingravescente quoniam illius animum ita obfirmatum atque induratum intelligimus ut non modo pias Catholicorum Principum de sanitate conversatione preces monitionesque contempserit sed ne hujus quidem sedis ad ipsam hac de Causa Nuncios in Angliam trajicere permiserit ad arma justitiae contra eam de necessitate conversi dolorem lenire non possumus quod adducamur in illam animadvertere cujus majores de Rep. Christiana tantopere meruere Illius itaque autoritate suffulti qui nos in hoc supremo Justitiae Throno licet tanto oneri impares voluit collocare de Apostolicae potestatis plenitudine declaramus praedictam Elizabetham Haereticam Haereticorum fautricem eique adherentes in predictis anathematis sententiam incurrisse Sentiae Declaratio esseque a Christi Corporis unitate praecisos Quin etiam ipsam praetenso Regni praedicti jure necnon omni quorumque Dominio dignitate privilegioque privatam Et item proceres subditos populos dicti Regni ac caeteros omnes qui illi quomodocunque juraverunt a Juramento hujusmodi ac omni prorsus dominii fidelitatis obsequii debito perpetuo absolutos prout nos illos praesentium authoritate absolvimus privamus eandem Elizabetham praetenso jure Regni aliisque omnibus supradictis Praecipimusque interdicimus Universis singulis Proceribus Subditis Populis aliis praedictis ne illi ejusve monitis mandatis legibus audeant obedire Qui secus egerint eos simili Anathematis sententia innodamus Quia vero difficile nimis esset presentes quocunque illis opus erit perferre Volumus ut earum exempla Notarii Publici manu Prelati Ecclesiastici ejusve Curiae Sigillo obsignata eandem illam prorsus fidem in judicio extra illud ubique gentium faciant quam ipsae presentes facerent si essent exhibitae vel ostensae Datum Romae apud Sanctum Petrum Anno Incarnationis Dominicae Millesimo quingentesimo Sexagesimo Nono Quinta Kalend. Martii Pontificatus nostri Anno Quinto Cae. Glorierius H. Humyn AN APPENDIX Concerning some of the Errors and Falshoods IN SANDER's Book OF THE English Schism AN APPENDIX IT has been observed of Theeves that by a long practice in that ill course of Life they grow so in love with it that when there is no Advantage to be made by Stealing yet they must keep their Hand in use and continue their address and dexterity in it so also Lyars by a frequent Custom grow to such a habit that in the commonest things they cannot speak Truth even though it might conduce to their Ends more than their Lyes do Sanders had so given himself up to vent Reproaches and Lyes that he often does it for nothing without any End but to carry on a Trade that had been so long driven by him that he knew not how to lay it down He wrote our History meerly upon the Reports that were brought him without any care or information about the most publick and most indifferent Things but not content to set down those Tattles he shews his Wit in refining about them and makes up such Politicks and Schems of Government as might suit with these Reports and agree with his own Malice His Work is all of a piece and as it was made out in the former Volume how ignorantly and disingeniously he writ concerning King Henry the Eighth's Reign so I shall add a further Discovery of the remaining parts of his Book which will sufficiently convince even the most partial Readers of the impudence of that Author who seems to have had no other design in writing but to impose on the credulity and weakness of those who he knew were inclined to believe every thing that might cast blemishes on a Work against which they were so strongly prejudiced as the Reformation of this Church since a Field which they so often reaped and with whose Spoils their Court was so enriched was no more at their Devotion So they are ever since concerned in Interest to use all the ways they can think on to disgrace a Change that was so fatal to them But as the Reformation of this Church has hitherto stood notwithstanding all their Designs against it so it is to be hoped that the History of it will be hereafter better understood notwithstanding all the Libels and Calumnies by which they have endeavoured to represent it in such black and odious Colours to the World Sanders says Page 176. King Edward was in the 9th Year of his Age when he came to the Crown This is of no great consequence but it shews how little this Author considered what he writ when in so publick a thing as the King's Age he misreckons a Year for he was born the 12th of October 1537 so in January 1547 he was in the 10th Year of his Age. 2. He says King Edward was not only declared King of England Ibid. and Ireland but made Supream Head of the Church and upon that runs out to shew how uncapable a Child was of that Power This is set down in such terms as if there had been some special Act made for his being Supream Head of the Church distinct from his being proclaimed King whereas there was no such thing for the Supremacy being annexed to the Crown the one went with the other and it being but a Civil Power might be as well exercised by the King's Governors before he came to be of Age as the other Rights of the Crown were Pag. 177. 3. He says The Earl of Hartford was made by himself Duke of Somerset This was done by order of the whole Council in pursuance of King Henry's Design proved by those Witnesses that were beyond exception and that King having by his Will charged his Executors to fullfil those things which he intended to do this was found to be one of them Pag. 178. 4. He says The Duke of Somerset made himself the only Governor of the King and Protector none daring to oppose it openly but Wriothesley whom King Henry when he was dying had made Lord Chancellor The Protector was advanced to that Dignity by the unanimous consent of the whole Council to which the Lord Chancellor consented and signed the Order about it the Original whereof is yet extant for though he argued against it before it was done yet he joined with the rest in doing it Nor was he made Chancellor by
what the Popes had sacrilegiously taken from them And now that we are upon the utter extirpation of Popery let us not retain this Relique of it And I pray God to inspire and direct His Majesty and His two Houses of Parliament effectually to remove this just and for ought I know only great scandal of our English Reformation A fifth Prejudice which seems to give ill impressions of our Reformation is that the Clergy have now no interest in the Consciences of the People nor any inspection into their manners but they are without yoke or restraint All the Ancient Canons for the publick Pennance of scandalous offenders are laid aside and our Clergy are so little admitted to know or direct the Lives and Manners of their Flocks that many will scarce bear a reproof patiently from them Our Ecclesiastical Courts are not in the Hands of the Bishops and their Clergy but put over to the Civilians where too often Fees are more strictly look'd after than the correction of Manners I hope there is not cause for so great a Cry but so it is these Courts are much complained of and publick vice and scandal is but little enquired after or punished Excommunication is become a kind of Secular Sentence and is hardly now considered as a Spiritual Censure being judged and given out by Lay-men and often upon Grounds which to speak moderately do not merit so severe and dreadful a Sentence There are besides this a great many other Abuses brought in in the worst Times and now purged out of some of the Churches of the Roman Communion which yet continue and are too much in use among us such as Pluralities Non-residencies and other things of that nature so that it may be said that some of the manifest corruptions of Popery where they are recommended by the advantages that accompany them are not yet throughly purged out notwithstanding all the noise we have made about Reformation in matters much more disputable and of far less consequence This whole Objection when all acknowledged as the greatest part of it cannot be denied amounts indeed to this that our Reformation is not yet arrived at that full perfection that is to be desired The want of publick Pennance and Penitentiary Canons is indeed a very great defect our Church does not deny it but acknowledges it in the Preface to the Office of Commination It was one of the greatest Glories of the Primitive Church that they were so governed that none of their number could sin openly without publick Censure and a long separation from the Holy Communion which they judged was defiled by a promiscuous admitting of all Persons to it Had they consulted the Arts of Policy they would not have held in Converts by so strict a way of proceeding lest their discontent might have driven them away at a time when to be a Christian was attended with so many discouragements that it might seem dangerous by so severe a Discipline to frighten the World out of their Communion But the Pastors of that time resolved to follow the Rules delivered them by the Apostles and trusted God with the success which answered and exceeded all their expectations for nothing convinced the World more of the truth of that Religion than to see those trusted with the care of Souls watch so effectually over their Manners that for some sins which in these loose Ages in which we live pass but for common effects of humane frailty Men were made to abstain from the Communion for many years and did cheerfully submit to such Rules as might be truly medicinal for curing those Diseases in their Minds But alas the Church-men of the latter Ages being once vested with this Authority to which the World submitted as long as it saw the good effects of it did soon learn to abuse it and to bring the People to a blind subjection to them It was one of the chief Arts by which the Papacy swelled to its height for Confessors in stead of bringing their Penitents to open Penance set up other things in the room of it pretending they could commute it and in the Name of God accept of one thing for another and they accepted of a Penitents going either to the Holy War or which was more Holy of the two to one of the Popes Wars against Hereticks or deposed Princes and gave full Pardons to those who thus engaged in their designs Afterwards when the Pope had no great occasion to kill Men or the People no great mind to be killed in his Service they accepted of Money as an Alms to God and so all publick Penance was laid down and Murder or Merchandise was set up in its room This being the state of things at the Keformation it is no wonder if the People could not be easily brought to submit to publick Pennance which had been for some Ages entirely laid aside and there was reason why they should not be forward to come under the Yoke of their Priests lest they should have raised upon that Foundation such a Tyrannical Dominion over them as others had formerly exercised This made some Reformed Churches beyond Sea bring in the Laity with them into their Courts which if they had done meerly as a good Expedient for removing the jealousie which the World then had of Ecclesiastical Tyranny there was no great Objection to have been made to it but they made the thing liable to very great exception when they pretended a Divine Institution for those Lay-Elders Here in England it is plain the Nation would not bear such Authority to be lodged with the Clergy at first but it will appear in the following Work that a Platform was made of an Ecclesiastical Discipline though the Bishops had no hope of reducing it into practise till the King should come to be of Age and pass a Law for the authorizing of it but he dying before this was effected it was not prosecuted with that zeal that the thing required in Queen Elizabeths time and then those who in their Exile were taken with the Models beyond Seas contending more to get it put in the method of other Churches than to have it set up in any other Form that contention begat such heat that it took Men off from this and many other excellent designs and whereas the Presbyters were found to have had anciently a share in the Government of the Churches as the Bishops Council and Assistants some of them that were of hot tempers demanding more than their share they were by the immoderate use of the Counterpoise kept out of any part of Ecclesiastical Discipline and all went into those Courts commonly called the Spiritual Courts without making distinction between those Causes of Testaments Marriages and such other sutes that require some learning in the Civil and Canon Law and the other Causes of the Censures of the Clergy and Laity which are of a more Spiritual Nature and ought indeed to be tried only by the Bishops and Clergy
condemn the Clergy Those in the City charge the Country and the Country complains of the City every one finds out somewhat wherein he thinks he is least concerned and is willing to fix on that all the Indignation of Heaven which God knows we our selves have kindled against our selves It cannot be denied since it is so visible that universally the whole Nation is corrupted and that the Gospel has not had those effects among us which might have been expected after so long and so free a course as it has had in this Island Our wise and worthy Progenitors reformed our Doctrine and Worship but we have not reformed our Lives and Manners what will it avail us to understand the right Methods of worshiping God if we are without true Devotion and coldly perform publick Offices without sense and affection which is as bad as a Bead-roll of Prayers in what ever Language they be pronounced What signifies our having the Sacraments purely administred among us if we either contemptuously neglect them or irreverently handle them more perhaps in compliance with Law than out of a sense of the Holy Duties incumbent on us for what end are the Scriptures put in our hands if we do not read them with great attention and order our lives according to them and what does all preaching signifie if Men go to Church meerly for Form and hear Sermons only as set Discourses which they will censure or commend as they think they see cause but are resolved never to be the better for them If to all these sad Considerations we add the gross sensuality and impurity that is so avowedly practised that it is become a fashion so far it is from being a reproach the oppression injustice intemperance and many other immoralities among us what can be expected but that these abominations receiving the highest aggravation they are capable of from the clear light of the Gospel which we have so long enjoyed the just Judgments of Heaven should fall on us so signally as to make us a reproach to all our Neighbours But as if all this were not enough to fill up the measure of our iniquities many have arriv'd at a new pitch of Impiety by defying Heaven it self with their avowed Blasphemies and Atheism and if they are driven out of their Atheistical Tenets which are indeed the most ridiculous of any in the World they set up their rest on some general Notions of Morality and Natural Religion and do boldly reject all that is revealed and where they dare vent it alas where dare they not do it they reject Christianity and the Scriptures with open and impudent scorn and are absolutely insensible of any obligation of Conscience in any thing whatsoever and even in that Morality which they for decencies sake magnifie so much none are more bare-facedly and grosly faulty This is a direct attempt against God himself and can we think that he will not visit for such things nor be avenged on such a Nation And yet the hypocrisie of those who disguise their flagitious Lives with a Mask of Religion is perhaps a degree above all though not so scandalous till the Mask falls off and that they appear to be what they truly are When we are all so guilty and when we are so allarumed by the black Clouds that threaten such terrible and lasting Storms what may be expected but that we should be generally struck with a deep sense of our crying sins and turn to God with our whole Souls But if after all the loud awakenings from Heaven we will not hearken to that Voice but will still go on in our sins we may justly look for unheard-of Calamities and such miseries as shall be proportioned to our offences and then we are sure they will be great and wonderful Yet if on the other hand there were a general turning to God or at least if so many were rightly sensible of this as according to the proportion that the Mercies of God allow did some way ballance the wickedness of the rest and if these were as zealous in the true methods of imploring Gods favour as others are in procuring his displeasure and were not only mourning for their own sins but for the sins of others the Prayers and Sighs of many such might dissipate that dismal Cloud which our sins have gathered and we might yet hope to see the Gospel take root among us since that God who is the Author of it is merciful and full of compassion and ready to forgive and this holy Religion which by his Grace is planted among us is still so dear to him that if we by our own unworthiness do not render our selves incapable of so great a Blessing we may reasonably hope that he will continue that which at first was by so many happy concurring Providences brought in and was by a continued Series of the same indulgent care advanc'd by degrees and at last raised to that pitch of perfection which few things attain in this World But this will best appear in the ensuing History from which I fear I may have too long detained the Reader 10. September 1680. THE CONTENTS OF THIS VOLUME BOOK I. OF the Life and Reign of King Edward the Sixth Pag. 1. BOOK II. Of the Life and Reign of Queen Mary Page 233. BOOK III. Of the Settlement of the Reformation in the beginning of Queen Elizabeths Reign Page 373. COLLECTION OF RECORDS King Edwards Journal and Remains Page 1. Ad Librum Primum Page 89. Ad Librum Secundum Page 239. Ad Librum Tertium Page 327. An APPENDIX concerning the Errors and Falshoods in Sanders's Book of the English Schism Page 383. ERRATA PAge 10. Line 22. usual r. unusual p. 20. l. 15. levy Taxes hand r. heavy Taxes laid p. 36. l. 47. after it r. did p. 31. l. 31. dele of p. 40. Marg. l. 7. after In r. Cor. p. 82. l. 43. dele the Marginal Note Ibid. l. ult run used to r. used to run p. 94. l. 38. for in r. the. p. 136. l. 20. for when r. where l. 41. ad Marg. r. Collection Numb 42. so the Numbers 42 43 44 45. are for Numb 43 44 45 46. p. 155. Alesse r. Alesse p. 166. l. 20. Pactors r. Pastors p. 205. Marg. 23. r. 3. p. 219. l. 44. for John r. Richard p. 220. l. 7. the same error p. 237. l. 42. Suffolk r. Sussex p. 249. l. 21 Ring r. King p. 252. l. 1. Sanders r. Sandy p. 253. l. penult no r. on p. 283 284 285 286. r. 267 268 269 270. p. 273. Marg. deserve r. severe p. 274. Marg. dele two p. 275. l. ult Wales r. Wells p. 277. l. 28. racked r. raked p. 304. Marg. considered r. censured p. 305. l. ult dele be p. 307. l. 44. before where r. Fathers house l. 49. dele Fathers house p. 319. Marg. Numb 24. r. 23. the error in the Number continues to the end of the Book p. 320 l. 16. before that r. few l.
to a secular course of life had little of a Church-man but the Habit and Name and yet used to rail against Sacriledge in others not considering how guilty themselves were of the same crime enriching their Families with the Spoils of the Church or with the Goods of it which were put into their Hands for better uses And it was no wonder that when Clergy-men had thus abused these Endowments Secular Men broke in upon them observing plainly that the Clergy who enjoyed them made no better use of them than Laicks might do Though in stead of reforming an abuse that was so generally spread they like Men that minded nothing more than the enriching of themselves took a certain course to make the mischief perpetual by robbing the Church of those Endowments and Helps it had received from the Munificence of the Founders of its Cathedrals who were generally the first Christian Kings of this Nation which had it been done by Law would have been a thing of very bad consequence but as it was done was directly contrary to the Magna Charta and to the Kings Coronation Oath But now they that were weary of the Popish Superstitions observing that Arch-bishop Cranmer had so great a share of the young Kings affection and that the Protector and he were in the same Interests began to call for a further Reformation of Religion and some were so full of zeal for it that they would not wait on the slow motions of the State Images removed without Authority out of one Church in London So the Curate and Church-wardens of St. Martins in Ironmonger-lane in London took down the Images and Pictures of the Saints and the Crucifix out of their Church and painted many Texts of Scripture on the Walls some of them according to a perverse Translation as the Complaint has it and in the place where the Crucifix was they set up the Kings Arms with some Texts of Scripture about it Upon this the Bishop and Lord-Major of London complained to the Council And the Curate and Church-wardens being cited to appear answered for themselves That the Roof of their Church being bad they had taken it down and that the Crucifix and Images were so rotten that when they removed them they fell to powder That the charge they had been at in repairing their Church was such that they could not buy new Images That they had taken down the Images in the Chancel because some had been guilty of Idolatry towards them In conclusion they said what they had done was with a good intention and if they had in any thing done amiss they asked pardon and submitted themselves Some were for punishing them severely for all the Papists reckoned that this would be a leading Case to all the rest of this Reign and if this was easily passed over others would be from that remisness animated to attempt such things every where But on the other hand those at Court who had designed to set forward a Reformation had a mind only so far to check the heat of the People as to keep it within compass but not to dishearten their Friends too much Cranmer and his Party were for a general removing of all Images and said that in the late Kings time order being given to remove such as were abused to Superstition Upon that there were great Contests in many Places what Images had been so abused and what not and that these Disputes would be endless unless all were taken away In the purest Times of Christianity they had no Images at all in their Churches One of the first Councils namely that at Elvira in Spain An account of the Progress of Image-worship made a Canon against the painting what they worshiped on the Walls Epiphanius was highly offended when he saw a Vail hanging before the door of a Church with a Picture on it which he considered so little as not to know well whose Picture it was but thought it might be Christs or some other Saints yet he tore it and gave them of that Place Money to buy a new Vail in its room Afterwards with the rest of the pomp of Heathenism Images came to be set up in Churches yet so as that there was no sort of Worship payed to them But in the time of Pope Gregory the first many went into extremes about them some were for breaking them and others worshiped them That Pope thought the middle way best neither to break nor to worship them but to keep them only to put the People in mind of the Saints Afterwards there being subtle Questions started about the Unity of Christs Person and Will the Greek Emperours generally inclined to have the animosities raised by these removed by some comprehensive words to which all might consent which the Interest of State as well as Religion seemed to require for their Empire every day declining all methods for uniting it were thought good and prudent But the Bishops were stiff and peremptory So in the sixth general Council they condemned all who differed from them Upon this the Emperours that succeeded would not receive that Council but the Bishops of Rome ordered the Pictures of all the Bishops who had been at that Council to be set up in the Churches Upon which the Emperours contended against these or any Pictures whatsoever in Churches And herein that happened which is not usual that one Controversie rising occasionally out of another the Parties forsake the first Contest and fall into sharp Conflicts about the occasional differences For now the Emperours and Popes quarrelled most violently about the use of Images and ill Names going a great way tomards the defaming an Opinion the Popes and their Party accused all that were against Images as favouring Judaism or Mahometanism which was then much spread in Asia and Africk The Emperours and their Party accusing the others of Gentilism and Heathenish Idolatry Upon this occasion Gregory the third first assumed the Rebellious Pretension to a Power to depose Leo the Emperour from all his Dominions in Italy There was one General Council at Constantinople that condemned the use or worship of Images and soon after another at Nice did establish it and yet at the same time Charles the Great though not a little linked in Interest to the Bishops of Rome holding both the French and Imperial Crowns by the favour of the Popes wrote or imployed Alcuinus a most learned Country-man of ours as these times went to write in his Name against the Worship of Images And in a Council at Frankfort it was condemned which was also done afterwards in another Council at Paris But in such Ages of Ignorance and Superstition any thing that wrought so much on the senses and imaginations of the People was sure to prevail in conclusion And this had in a Course of seven more Ages been improved by the craft and impostures of the Monks so wonderfully that there was no sign of Divine Adoration that could be invented that was
prayed in general for their quiet Rest and their speedy Resurrection Yet these Prayers growing as all superstitious devices do to be more considered some began to frame an Hypothesis to justifie them by that of the Thousand Years being generally exploded And in St. Austin's time they began to fancy there was a state of punishment even for the Good in another Life out of which some were sooner and some later freed according to the measure of their Repentance for their Sins in this Life But he tells us this was taken up without any sure ground and that it was no way certain Yet by Visions Dreams and Tales the belief of it was so far promoted that it came to be generally received in the next Age after him and then as the People were told that the Saints interceded for them so it was added that they might intercede for their departed Friends And this was the Foundation of all that Trade of Souls-Masses and Obits Now the deceased King had acted like one who did not believe that these things signified much otherwise he was to have but ill reception in Purgatory having by the subversion of the Monasteries deprived the departed Souls of the benefit of the many Masses that were said for them in these Houses yet it seems at his death he would make the matter sure and to shew he intended as much benefit to the Living as to himself being dead he took care that there should be not only Masses and Obits but so many Sermons at Windsor and a frequent distribution of Alms for the relief of the Poor But upon this occasion it came to be examined what value there was in such things Yet the Arch-bishop plainly saw that the Lord Chancellor would give great opposition to every motion that should be made for any further alteration for which he and all that Party had this specious pretence always in their Mouths That their late Glorious King was not only the most learned Prince but the most learned Divine in the World for the flattering him did not end with his Life and that therefore they were at least to keep all things in the condition wherein he had left them till the King were of Age. And this seemed also necessary on Considerations of State For Changes in matter of Religion might bring on Commotions and Disorders which they as faithful Executors ought to avoid But to this it was answered That as their late King was infinitely learned for both Parties flattered him dead as well as living so he had resolved to make great Alterations and was contriving how to change the Mass into a Communion that therefore they were not to put off a thing of such consequence wherein the Salvation of Peoples Souls was so much concerned but were immediately to set about it But the Lord Chancellor gave quickly great advantage against himself to his Enemies who were resolved to make use of any Error he might be guilty of so far as to ease themselves of the trouble he was like to give them The Kings Funeral being over The Creation of Peers order was given for the Creation of Peers The Protector was to be Duke of Somerset the Earl of Essex to be Marquess of Northampton the Viscount Lisle to be Earl of Warwick the Lord Wriothesley Earl of Southampton beside the new Creation of the Lords Seimour Rich Willoughby of Parham and Sheffield the rest it seems excusing themselves from new Honours as it appeared from the Deposition of Paget that many of those on whom the late King had intended to confer Titles of Honour had declined it formerly 1547. Feb. 20. Coronation On the 20th of Feb. being Shrove-Sunday the King was Crowned by the Arch-bishop of Canterbury according to the form that was agreed to The Protector serving in it as Lord Steward the Marquess of Dorset as Lord Constable and the Earl of Arundel as Earl Marshal deputed by the Protector A Pardon was proclaimed out of which the Duke of Norfolk Cardinal Pole and some others were excepted The first Business of importance after the Coronation The Lord Chancellor is removed from his Office was the Lord Chancellors fall Who resolving to give himself wholly to Matters of State had on the 18th of Feb. put the Great Seal to a Commission directed to Sir Richard Southwell Master of the Rolls John Tregonnel Esq Master of Chancery and to John Oliver and Anthony Bellasis Clerks Masters of Chancery setting forth that the Lord Chancellor being so employed in the Affairs of State that he could not attend on the hearing of Causes in the Court of Chancery these three Masters or any two of them were empowered to execute the Lord Chancellors Office in that Court in as ample manner as if he himself were present only their Decrees were to be brought to the Lord Chancellor to be Signed by him before they were Enrolled This being done without any Warrant from the Lord Protector and the other Executors it was judged a high presumption in the Lord Chancellor thus to devolve on others that Power which the Law had trusted in his Hands The Persons named by him encreased the offence which this gave two of them being Canonists so that the common Lawyers looked upon this as a President of very high and ill consequence And being encouraged by those who had no good will to the Chancellor they petitioned the Council in this Matter and complained of the evil consequences of such a Commission and set forth the fears that all the Students of the Law were under of a Change that was intended to be made of the Laws of England The Council remembred well they had given no Warrant at all to the Lord Chancellor for the issuing out any such Commission so they sent it to the Judges and required them to examine the Commission with the Petition grounded upon it Who delivered their Opinions on the last of Feb. That the Lord Chancellor ought not without Warrant from the Council to have set the Seal to it Feb. 28. and that by his so doing he had by the Common Law forfeited his Place to the King and was liable to Fine and Imprisonment at the Kings pleasure March 6. This lay sleeping till the sixth of March and then the Judges Answer being brought to the Council Signed with all their Hands they entred into a debate how far it ought to be punished The Lord Chancellor carried it very high and as he had used many Menaces to those who had petitioned against him and to the Judges for giving their Opinions as they did so he carried himself insolently to the Protector and told him he held his Place by a better Authority than he held his That the late King being empow'red to it by Act of Parliament had made him not only Chancellor but one of the Governours of the Realm during his Sons Minority and had by his Will given none of them Power over the rest to throw
down on the 13th of December But both these Bills were put in one and sent up by the Commons on the 20th of that Month and assented to by the King By this Act it was set forth That the way of choosing Bishops by Conge d'Eslire was tedious and expenceful that there was only a shadow of Election in it and that therefore Bishops should thereafter be made by the Kings Letters Patents upon which they were to be consecrated And whereas the Bishops did exercise their Authority and carry on Processes in their own Names as they were wont to do in the time of Popery and since all Jurisdiction both Spiritual and Temporal was derived from the King that therefore their Courts and all Processes should be from henceforth carried on in the Kings Name and be sealed by the Kings Seal as it was in the other Courts of Common-Law after the first of July next excepting only the Arch-bishop of Canterbury's Courts and all Collations Presentations or Letters of Orders which were to pass under the Bishops proper Seals as formerly Upon this Act great advantages were taken to disparage the Reformation as subjecting the Bishops wholly to the pleasure of the Court. At first The ancient ways of electing Bishops Bishops were chosen and ordained by the other Bishops in the Countries where they lived The Apostles by that Spirit of discerning which was one of the extraordinary gifts they were endued with did ordain the first Fruits of their Labours and never left the Election of Pastors to the discretion of the People Indeed when they were to ordain Deacons who were to be trusted with the distribution of the publick Alms they appointed such as the People made choice of but when St. Paul gave directions to Timothy and Titus about the choice of Pastors all that depended on the People by them was that they should be blameless and of good report But afterwards the poverty of the Church being such that Church-men lived only by the free bounty of the People it was necessary to consider them much so that in many Places the choice began among the People and in all Places it was done by their approbation and good liking But great disorders followed upon this as soon as by the Emperors turning Christians the Wealth of Church-benefices made the Pastoral Charge more desirable and the vast numbers of those who turned Christians with the Tide brought in great Multitudes to have their Votes in these Elections The inconvenience of this was felt early in Phrygia where the Council of Laodicea made a Canon against these Popular Elections Yet in other parts of Asia and at Rome there were great and often Contests about it In some of these many Men were killed In many Places the inferior Clergy chose their Bishops But in most Places the Bishops of the Province made the choice yet so as to obtain the consent of the Clergy and People The Emperors by their Laws made it necessary that it should be confirmed by the Metropolitans They reserved the Elections of the great Sees to themselves or at least the Confirmation of them Thus it continued till Charles the Great 's time But then the nature of Church-employments came to be much altered For though the Church had Predial Lands with the other Rights that belonged to them by the Roman Law yet he first gave Bishops and Abbots great Territories with some branches of Royal Jurisdiction in them who held these Lands of him according to the Fewdal Laws This as it carried Church-men off from the humility and abstraction from the World which became their Function so it subjected them much to the Humours and Interests of those Princes on whom they had their dependance The Popes who had made themselves Heads of the Hierarchy could not but be glad to see Church-men grow rich and powerful in the World but they were not so well pleased to see them made so much the more dependent on their Princes and no doubt by some of those Princes that were thus become Patrons of Churches the Bishopricks were either given for Money or charged with reserved Pensions Upon this the Popes filled the World with the complaints of Simony and of enslaving Church-men to court Interests and so would not suffer them to accept of Investitures from their Princes but set up for free Elections as they called them which they said were to be confirmed by the See-Apostolick So the Canons Secular or Regular in Cathedral Churches were to choose the Bishops and their Election was to be confirmed at Rome yet Princes in most Places got some hold of those Elections so that still they went as they had a mind they should Which was oft complained of as a great slavery on the Church and would have been more universally condemned if the World had not been convinced that the matter would not be much the better if there should have been set up either the Popular or Synodical Elections in which Faction was like to sway all King Henry had continued the old way of the Elections by the Clergy but so as that it seemed to be little more than a mockery but now it was thought a more ingenuous way of proceeding to have the thing done directly by the King rather than under the thin covert of an involuntary Election For the other Branch about Ecclesiastical Courts The Causes before them concerning Wills and Marriages being matters of a mixed nature and which only belong to these by the Laws of the Land and being no parts of the Sacred Functions it was thought no Invasion of the Sacred Offices to have these tried in the Kings Name But the Collation of Benefices and giving of Orders which are the chief parts of the Episcopal Function were to be performed still by the Bishops in their own Names Only Excommunication by a fatal neglect continued to be the punishment for contempts of these Courts which belonging only to the Spiritual Cognisance ought to have been reserved for the Bishop with the assistance of his Clergy But the Canonists had so confounded all the Ancient Rules about the Government of the Church that the Reformers being called away by Considerations that were more obvious and pressing there was not that care taken in this that the thing required And these errors or oversights in the first concoction have by a continuance grown since into so formed a strength that it is easier to see what is amiss than to know how to rectifie it On the 29th of November the Bill against Vagabonds was brought in An Act against Vagabonds By this it was Enacted That all that should any where loiter without work or without offering themselves to work three days together or that should run away from work and resolve to live idly should be seized on and whosoever should present them to a Justice of Peace was to have them adjudged to be his Slaves for two years and they were to be marked with the Letter V. imprinted
who used auricular Confession to a Priest but that all should keep the Rule of Charity every Man being satisfied to follow his own Conscience and not judging another Mans in things not appointed by God After the Priest had received the Sacrament he was to turn to the People and read an Exhortation to them the same we now use only a little varied in words After that followed a Denunciation against Sinners requiring them who were such and had not repented to withdraw lest the Devil should enter into them as he did into Judas Then after a little pause to see if any would withdraw there was to follow a short Exhortation with a Confession of sins and Absolution the very same which we do yet retain Then those Texts of Scripture were read which we yet read followed with the Prayer We do not presume c. After this the Sacrament was to be given in both kinds first to the Ministers then present and then to all the People with these words The Body of our Lord Jesus Christ which was given for thee preserve thy Body unto Everlasting Life and The Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ which was shed for thee preserve thy Soul unto Everlasting Life When all was done the Congregation was to be dismissed with a Blessing The Bread was to be such as had been formerly used and every one of the Breads so consecrated was to be broken in two or more pieces and the People were to be taught that there was no difference in the quantity they received whether it were small or great but that in each of them they received the whole Body of Christ If the Wine that was at first consecrated did not serve the Priest was to consecrate more but all to be without any Elevation This Office being thus finished was set forth with a Proclamation reciting That whereas the Parliament had Enacted that the Communion should be given in both kinds to all the Kings Subjects it was now ordered to be given in the Form here set forth and all were required to receive it with due reverence and Christian behaviour and with such uniformity as might encourage the King to go on in the setting forth godly Orders for Reformation which he intended most earnestly to bring to effect by the help of God Willing his Subjects not to run before his direction and so by their rashness to hinder such things assuring them of the earnest zeal he had to set them forth hoping they would quietly and reverently tarry for it This was published on the 8th of March and on the 13th Books were sent to all the Bishops of England requiring them to send them to every Parish in their Diocess that the Curates might have time both to instruct themselves about it and to acquaint their People with it so that by the next Easter it might be universally received in all the Churches of the Nation This was variously censured It is variously censured Those that were for the old Superstition were much troubled to have Confession thus left indifferent and a general Confession of sins to be used with which they apprehended the People would for the most part content themselves Chiefly that Auricular Confession was laid down In the Scripture there was a Power of Binding and Loosing sins given to the Apostles And St. James exhorted those to whom he wrote to confess their faults to one another Afterwards Penitents came to be reconciled to the Church when they had given publick scandal either by their Apostacy or ill Life by an open Confession of their sins and after some time of separation from the other pure Christians in Worship and an abstention from the Sacrament they were admitted again to their share of all the Priviledges that were given in common to Christians But according to the nature of their sins they were besides the publick Confession put under such Rules as might be most proper for curing these ill Inclinations in them and according to the several Ranks of sins the time and degrees of this Penitence was proportioned And the Councils that met in the fourth and fifth Centuries made the regulating these penitentiary Canons the chief Subject of their Consultations In many Churches there were penitentiary Priests who were more expert in the knowledge of these Rules and gave directions about them which were taken away in Constantinople upon the indiscretion of which one of them had been guilty For secret sins there was no obligation to confess since all the Canons were about publick scandals yet for these the devout People generally went to their Priests for their Counsel but were not obliged to it and so went to them for the distempers of their Minds as they did to Physicians for the Diseases of their Bodies About the end of the 5th Century they began in some Places to have secret Penances either within Monasteries or other Places which the Priests had appointed and upon a secret Confession and performing the Penance imposed Absolution was also given secretly whereas in former times Confession and Absolution had been performed openly in the Church In the 7th Century it was every where practised that there should be secret Penance for secret sins which Theodore Arch-bishop of Canterbury did first bring into a Method and under Rules But about the end of the 8th Century the commutation of Penance and exchanging it for Money or other Services to the Church came to be practised and then began Pilgrimages to Holy Places and afterwards the going to the Holy War and all the severities of Penance were dispensed with to such as undertook these This brought on a great Relaxation of all Ecclesiastical Discipline Afterwards Croisadoes came in use against such Princes as were deposed by Popes and to these was likewise added to encourage all to enter into them that all Rules of Penitence were dispensed with to such as put on that Cross But Penitence being now no more publick but only private the Priests managed it as they pleased and so by Confession entred into all Mens secrets and by Absolution had their Consciences so entirely in their Power that the People were generally governed by them Yet because the Secular Priests were commonly very ignorant and were not put under such an association as was needful to manage those designs for which this was thought an excellent Engine therefore the Friars were employed every where to hear Confessions and to give Absolutions And to bring in Customers to them two new things were invented The one was a Reserving of certain Cases in which such as were guilty of them could not be absolved but by the Popes or those deputed by them and the Friars had faculties in the Popes Name to absolve in these Cases The other was on some occasion the use of certain new Secrets by which Men were to obtain great Indulgences either by saying such Prayers or performing such Impositions and these were all trusted to the Friars who were to
of late there had been great difference in the Administration of the Sacraments and other parts of Divine Worship and that the most effectual endeavours could not stop the Inclinations of many to depart from the former Customs which the King had not punished believing they flowed from a good zeal But that there might be an uniforme way over all the Kingdom the King by the advice of the Lord Protector and his Council had appointed the Arch-bishop of Canterbury with other learned and discreet Bishops and Divines to draw an Order of Divine Worship having respect to the pure Religion of Christ taught in the Scripture and to the practice of the Primitive Church which they by the Aid of the Holy Ghost had with one uniforme agreement concluded on wherefore the Parliament having considered the Book and the things that were altered or retained in it they gave their most humble thanks to the King for his care about it and did pray that all who had formerly offended in these matters except such as were in the Tower of London or the Prison of the Fleet should be pardoned and did Enact that from the Feast of Whit-Sunday next all Divine Offices should be performed according to it and that such of the Clergy as should refuse to do it or continue to officiate in any other manner should upon the first conviction be imprisoned six Months and forfeit a years Profit of their Benefice For the second offence forfeit all their Church Preferments and suffer a years Imprisonment And for the third offence should be imprisoned during life And all that should write or put out things in print against it or threaten any Clergy-men for using it were to be fined in 10 l. for the first offence 20 for the second and to forfeit all their Goods and be imprisoned for life upon a third offence Only at the Vniversities they might use it in Latin and Greek excepting the Office of the Communion It was also lawful to use other Psalms or Prayers taken out of the Bible so these in the Book were not omitted This Act was variously censured by those who disliked it The Censures passed upon it Some thought it too much that it was said the Book was drawn by the Aid of the Holy Ghost But others said this was not to be so understood as if they had been inspired by extraordinary assistance for then there had been no room for any correction of what was now done and therefore it was only to be understood in that sense as all good Motions and Consultations are directed or assisted by the secret influences of Gods Holy Spirit which do oft help good Men even in their imperfect actions where the good that is done is justly ascribed to the Grace of God Others censured it because it was said to be done by uniform agreement though four of the Bishops that were employed in the drawing of it protested against it These were the Bishops of Norwich Hereford Chichester and Westminster but these had agreed in the main parts of the Work though in some few Particulars they were not satisfied which made them dissent from the whole Singing of Psalms brought in The Proviso for the Psalms and Prayers taken out of the Bible was for the Singing Psalms which were translated into Verse and much sung by all who loved the Reformation and were in many Places used in Churches In the Ancient Church the Christians were much exercised in repeating the Psalms of David many had them all by heart and used to be reciting them when they went about their Work and those who retired into a Monastical course of life spent many of their hours in repeating the Psalter Apollinaris put them in verse as being easier for the memory Other devout Hymns came to be also in use Nazianzen among the Greeks and Prudentius among the Latines laboured on that Argument with the greatest success There were other Hymns that were not put in verse the chief of which were that most ancient Hymn which we use now after the Sacrament and the Celebrated Ambrosian Hymn that begins Te Deum Laudamus But as when the Worship of the departed Saints came to be dressed up with much pomp Hymns were also made for their honour and in Latin Tongue as well as Prosody being then much decayed these came to be cast into Rithmes and were written generally in a fantastical affected Style So now at the Reformation some Poets such as the times afforded translated Davids Psalms into verse and it was a sign by which Mens affections to that Work were every where measured whether they used to sing these or not But as the Poetry then was low and not raised to that justness to which it is since brought so this Work which then might pass for a tolerable composure has not been since that time so reviewed or changed as perhaps the thing required hence it is that this piece of Divine Worship by the meanness of the Verse has not maintained its due esteem Another thing that some thought deserved to be considered in such a Work was that many of the Psalms being such as related more specially to Davids Victories and contained Passages in them not easily understood it seemed better to leave out these which it was not so easie to sing with Devotion because the meaning of them either lay hid or did not at all concern Christians The Parliament was adjourned from the 22d of December to the second of Jan. On the 7th of Jan. the Commons sent an Address to the Protector to restore Latimer to the Bishoprick of Worcester 1549. but this took no effect for that good old Man did choose rather to go about and preach than to engage in a matter of Government being now very ancient A Bill was put in by the Lords for appointing of Parks Jour Proc. and agreed to the Earl of Arundel only dissenting but being sent down to the Commons it was upon the second reading thrown out yet not so unanimously but that the House was divided about it On the fourth of Feb. a Bill was put in against eating Flesh in Lent and on Fasting days it was committed to the Arch-bishop of Canterbury the Bishops of Ely Worcester and Chichester and sent to the Commons on the 16th who sent it up on the 7th of March with a Proviso to which the Lords agreed In the Preamble it is said An Act about Fasts That though it is clear by the Word of God that there is no Day nor kind of Meat purer than another but that all are in themselves alike yet many out of sensuality had contemned such abstinence as had been formerly used and since due abstinence was a mean to vertue and to subdue Mens Bodies to their Soul and Spirit and was also necessary to encourage the Trade of Fishing and for saving of Flesh therefore all former Laws about Fasting and Abstinence were to be after the first of May
a Park there what they did should be no prejudice to him There was also a Commission issued out to enquire about Inclosures and Farms and whether those who had purchased the Abbey-Lands kept Hospitality to which they were bound by the Grants they had of them and whether they encouraged Husbandry But I find no effect of this And indeed there seemed to have been a general design among the Nobility and Gentry to bring the Inferior sort to that low and servile state to which the Peasants in many other Kingdoms are reduced In the Parliament an Act was carried in the House of Lords for imparking Grounds but was cast out by the Commons yet Gentlemen went on every where taking their Lands into their own Hands and enclosing them Many are easily quieted In May the Commons did rise first in Wilt-shire where Sir William Herbert gathered some resolute Men about him and dispersed them and slew some of them Soon after that they rose in Sussex Hamp-shire Kent Glocester-shire Suffolk Warwick-shire Essex Hartford-shire Leicester-shire Worcester-shire and Rutland-shire but by fair perswasions the fury of the People was a little stopt till the matter should be represented to the Council The Protector said he did not wonder the Commons were in such distempers they being so oppressed that it was easier to die once than to perish for want and therefore he set out a Proclamation contrary to the mind of the whole Council against all new Inclosures with another indempnifying the People for what was past so they carried themselves obediently for the future Commissions were also sent every where with an unlimited Power to the Commissioners to hear and determine all Causes about Inclosures High-ways and Cottages The vast Power these Commissioners assumed was much complained of the Landlords said it was an Invasion of their Property to subject them thus to the pleasure of those who were sent to examine the Matters without proceeding in the ordinary Courts according to Law The Commons being encouraged by the favour they heard the Protector bore them and not able to govern their heat or stay for a more peaceable issue did rise again but were anew quieted Yet the Protector being opposed much by the Council he was not able to redress this Grievance so fully as the People hoped So in Oxford-shire and Devon-shire they rose again and also in Norfolk and York-shire Those in Oxford-shire were dissipated by a Force of 1500 Men led against them by the Lord Gray Some of them were taken and hanged by Martial Law as being in a state of War the greatest part ran home to their Dwellings In Devon-shire the Insurrection grew to be better formed But those of Devon-shire grew formidable for that County was not only far from the Court but it was generally inclined to the former superstition and many of the old Priests run in among them They came together on the 10th of June being Whit-Munday and in a short time they grew to be 10000 strong At Court it was hoped this might be as easily dispersed as the other Risings were but the Protector was against running into extremities and so did not move so speedily as the thing required He after some days at last sent the Lord Russel with a small Force to stop their Proceedings And that Lord remembring well how the Duke of Norfolk had with a very small Army broken a formidable Rebellion in the former Reign hoped that time would likewise weaken and dis-unite these and therefore he kept at some distance and offered to receive their Complaints and to send them to the Council But these delays gave advantage and strength to the Rebels who were now led on by some Gentlemen Arundel of Cornwall being in chief Command among them and in answer to the Lord Russel they agreed on fifteen Articles the Substance of which was as follows 1. That all the General Councils Their Demands and the Decrees of their Forefathers should be observed 2. That the Act of the Six Articles should be again in force 3. That the Mass should be in Latin and that the Priests alone should receive 4. That the Sacrament should be hanged up and worshiped and those who refused to do it should suffer as Hereticks 5. That the Sacrament should only be given to the People at Easter in one kind 6. That Baptism should be done at all times 7. That Holy Bread Holy Water and Palms be again used and that Images be set up with all the other ancient Ceremonies 8. That the new Service should be laid aside since it was like a Christmas Game and the old Service again should be used with the Procession in Latin 9. That all Preachers in their Sermons and Priests in the Mass should pray for the Souls in Purgatory 10. That the Bible should be called in since otherwise the Clergy could not easily confound the Hereticks 11. That Dr. Moreman and Crispin should be sent to them and put in their Livings 12. That Cardinal Pool should be restored and made of the Kings Council 13. That every Gentleman might have only one Servant for every hundred Marks of yearly Rent that belonged to him 14. That the half of the Abbey and Church-Lands should be taken back and restored to two of the chief Abbeys in every County and all the Church Boxes for seven years should be given to such Houses that so devout Persons might live in them who should pray for the King and the Common-wealth 15. And that for their particular grievances they should be redressed as Humphrey Arundel and the Major of Bodmyn should inform the King for whom they desired a safe conduct These Articles being sent to the Council the Arch-bishop of Canterbury was ordered to draw an Answer to them which I have seen corrected with his own Hand Cranmer drew an Answer to them Ex MS. Col. C. C. Cantab. The Substance of it was That their Demands were insolent such as were dictated to them by some seditious Priests they did not know what General Councils had decreed nor was there any thing in the Church of England contrary to them though many things had been formerly received which were so and for the Decrees they were framed by the Popes to enslave the World of which he gave several Instances For the Six Articles he says They had not been carried in Parliament if the late King had not gone thither in Person and procured that Act and yet of his own accord he slackened the execution of it To the third it was strange that they did not desire to know in what terms they worshiped God and for the Mass the ancient Canons required the People to communicate in it and the Prayers in the Office of the Mass did still imply that they were to do it For the hanging up and adoring the Host it was but lately set up by Pope Innocent and Honorius and in some Places it had never been received For the fifth the Ancient
and to all the Devils if they did not furnish him well with Pears and Puddings It may perhaps be thought indecent to print such Letters being the privacies of friendship which ought not to be made publick but I confess Bonner was so brutish and so bloody a Man that I was not ill pleased to meet with any thing that might set him forth in his natural Colours to the World Forreign Affairs Thus did the Affairs of England go on this Summer within the Kingdom but it will be now necessary to consider the state of our Affairs in Forreign Parts The King of France finding it was very chargeable to carry on the War wholly in Scotland resolved this year to lessen that Expence and to make War directly with England both at Sea and Land So he came in person with a great Army and fell into the Country of Bulloigne The French take many Places about Bulloigne where he took many little Castles about the Town as Sellaque Blackness Hambletue Newhaven and some lesser ones The English Writers say those were ill provided which made them be so easily lost but Thuanus says they were all very well stored In the night they assaulted Bullingberg but were beat off then they designed to burn the Ships that were in the Harbour and had prepared Wild-fire with other combustible Matter but were driven away by the English At the same time the French Fleet met the English Fleet at Jersey but as King Edward writes in his Diary they were beat off with the loss of 1000 Men though Thuanus puts the loss wholly on the English side The French King sate down before Bulloigne in September hoping that the disorders then in England would make that Place be ill supplied and easily yielded the English finding Bullingberg was not tenable razed it and retired into the Town but the Plague broke into the French Camp so the King left it under the command of Chastilion He endeavoured chiefly to take the Pierre and so to cut off the Town from the Sea and from all communication with England and after a long Battery he gave the Assault upon it but was beat off There followed many Skirmishes between him and the Garrison and he made many attempts to close up the Channel and thought to have sunk a Galley full of Stones and Gravel in it but in all these he was still unsuccessful And therefore Winter coming on the Siege was raised only the Forts about the Town which the French had taken were strongly garrisoned so that Bulloigne was in danger of being lost the next year In Scotland also the English Affairs declined much this year Thermes The English insuccessful in Scotland before the Winter was ended had taken Broughty Castle and destroyed almost the whole Garrison In the Southern Parts there was a change made of the Lords Wardens of the English Marches Sir Robert Bowes was complained of as negligent in relieving Hadingtoun the former year so the Lord Dacres was put in his room And the Lord Gray who lost the great advantage he had when the French raised the Siege of Hadingtoun was removed and the Earl of Rutland was sent to command The Earl made an Inroad into Scotland and supplied Hadingtoun plentifully with all sorts of Provisions necessary for a Siege He had some Germans and Spaniards with him but a Party of Scotch Horse surprised the Germans Baggage and Romero with the Spanish Troop was also fallen on and taken and almost all his Men were cut off The Earl of Warwick was to have marched with a more considerable Army this Summer into Scotland had not the disorders in England diverted him as it has been already shewn Thermes did not much more this Year He intended once to have renewed the Siege of Hadingtoun but when he understood how well they were furnished he gave it over But the English Council finding how great a charge the keeping of it was and the Country all about it being destroyed so that no Provisions could be had but what were brought from England from which it was 28 Miles distant resolved to withdraw their Garrison and quit it which was done on the first of October So that the English having now no Garrison within Scotland but Lauder Thermes sate down before that and pressed it so that had not the Peace been made up with France it had fallen into his Hands Things being in this disorder both at home and abroad the Protector had nothing to depend on but the Emperors Aid and he was so ill satisfied with the Changes that had been made in Religion that much was not to be expected from him The confusions this year occasioned that Change to be made in the Office of the daily Prayers where the Answer to the Petition Give Peace in our time O Lord which was formerly and is still continued was now made Because there is none other that fighteth for us but only thou O God The state of Germany For now the Emperor having reduced all the Princes and most of the Cities of Germany to his obedience none but Magdeburg and Breame standing out did by a mistake incident to great Conquerors neglect those advantages which were then in his hands and did not prosecute his Victories but leaving Germany came this Summer into the Netherlands whither he had ordered his Son Prince Philip to come from Spain to him thorough Italy and Germany that he might put him into possession of these Provinces and make them swear Homage to him Whether at this time the Emperor was beginning to form the design of retiring or whether he did this only to prevent the Mutinies and Revolts that might fall out upon his death if his Son were not in actual possession of them is not so certain One thing is memorable in that Transaction that was called the Laetus Introitus or the terms upon which he was received Prince of Brabant to which the other Provinces had been formerly united into one Principality after many Rules and Limitations of Government in the matter of Taxes and publick Assemblies Cott. Library Galba B. 12. the not keeping up of Forces and governing them not by Strangers but by Natives it was added That if he broke these Conditions it should be free for them not to obey him or acknowledge him any longer till he returned to govern according to their Laws This was afterwards the chief ground on which they justified their shaking off the Spanish Yoke all these Conditions being publickly violated Jealousies arise in the Emperors Family At this time there were great jealousies in the Emperors Family For as he intended to have had his Brother resign his Election to be King of the Romans that it might be transferred on his own Son so there were designs in Flanders which the French cherished much to have Maximilian Ferdinands Son the most accomplish'd and vertuous Prince that had been for many Ages to be made their Prince The
minds and for other things they referred them to Hobbey that carried the Letter which is in the Collection upon this the Council sent Sir Anthony Wingfield Collection Number 44. Sir Anthony St. Leiger and Sir J. Williams to Windsor with a charge to see that the Duke of Somerset should not withdraw before they arrived and that Sir Tho. Smith the Secretary Sir Michael Stanhop Sir John Thynn Edw. Wolfe and William Cecil should be restrained to their Chambers till they examined them On the 12th of October the whole Council went to Windsor and coming to the King they protested that all they had done was out of the zeal and affection they had to his Person and Service The King received them kindly and thanked them for their care of him and assured them that he took all they had done in good part On the 13th day they sate in Council and sent for those who were ordered to be kept in their Chambers only Cecil was let go They charged them that they had been the chief Instruments about the Duke of Somerset in all his wilful Proceedings therefore they turned Smith out of his Place of Secretary and sent him with the rest to the Tower of London He is accused and sent to the Tower Collection Number 45. On the day following the Protector was called before them and Articles of Misdemeanours and high Treason were laid to his charge which will be found in the Collection The Substance of them was That being made Protector on condition that he should do nothing without the consent of the other Executors he had not observed that Condition but had treated with Ambassadors made Bishops and Lord-Lieutenants by his own Authority and that he had held a Court of Requests in his own House and had done many things contrary to Law had embased the Coin had in the Matter of Inclosures set out Proclamations and given Commissions against the mind of the whole Council that he had not taken care to suppress the late Insurrections but had justified and encouraged them that he had neglected the Places the King had in France by which means they were lost that he had perswaded the King that the Lords who met at London intended to destroy him and had desired him never to forget it but to revenge it and had required some young Lords to keep it in his remembrance and had caused those Lords to be proclaimed Traitors that he had said If he should die the King should die too that he had carried the King so suddenly to Windsor that he was not only put in great fear but cast into a dangerous disease that he had gathered the People and armed them for War and had armed his Friends and Servants and left the Kings Servants unarmed and that he intended to fly to Jersey or Garnsey So he was sent to the Tower being conducted thither by the Earls of Sussex and Huntington That day the King was carried back again to Hampton-Court and an Order was made that six Lords should be the Governours of his Person who were the Marquess of Northampton the Earls of Warwick and Arundel the Lords St. John Russel and Wentworth Two of those were in their course to attend constantly on the King Censures passed upon him And thus fell the Duke of Somerset from his high Offices and great Trust The Articles objected to him seem to say as much for his justification as the Answers could do if they were in my Power He is not accused of rapine cruelty or bribery but only of such things as are incident to all Men that are of a sudden exalted to a high and disproportioned greatness What he did about the Coin was not for his own advantage but was done by a common mistake of many Governours who in the necessity of their Affairs fly to this as their last shift to draw out their business as long as is possible but it ever rebounds on the Government to its great prejudice and loss He bore his Fall more equally than he had done his Prosperity and set himself in his imprisonment to study and reading and falling on a Book that treated of Patience both from the Principles of Moral Philosophy and of Christianity he was so much taken with it that he ordered it to be translated into English and writ a Preface to it himself mentioning the great comfort he had found in reading it which had induced him to take care that others might reap the like benefit from it Peter Martyr writ him also a long consolatory Letter which was printed both in Latin and in an English Translation and all the Reformed both in England and abroad looked on his Fall as a publick loss to that whole Interest which he had so steadily set forward But on the other hand The Papists much lifted up the Popish Party were much lifted up at his Fall and the rather because they knew the Earl of Southampton who they hoped should have directed all Affairs was entirely theirs It was also believed that the Earl of Warwick had given them secret Assurances So it was understood at the Court of France as Thuanus writes They had also among the first things they did gone about to discharge the Duke of Norfolk of his long imprisonment in consideration of his great Age his former Services and the extremity of the Proceedings against him which were said to have flowed chiefly from the ill Offices the Duke of Somerset had done him But this was soon laid aside So now the Papists made their Addresses to the Earl of Warwick The Bishop of Winchester wrote to him a hearty Congratulation rejoycing that the late tyranny so he called the Duke of Somersets Administration was now at an end he wished him all prosperity and desired that when he had leisure from the great Affairs that were in so unsetled a condition some regard might be had of him The Bishop of London being also in good hopes since the Protector and Smith whom he esteemed his chief Enemies were now in disgrace and Cranmer was in cold if not in ill terms with the Earl of Warwick sent a Petition that his Appeal might be received and his Process reviewed But their hopes soon vanish Many also began to fall off from going to the English Service or the Communion hoping that all would be quickly undone that had been setled by the Duke of Somerset But the Earl of Warwick finding the King so zealously addicted to the carrying on of the Reformation that nothing could recommend any one so much to him as the promoting it further would do soon forsook the Popish Party and was seemingly the most earnest on a further Reformation that was possible I do not find that he did write any Answer to the Bishop of Winchester He continued still a Prisoner And for Bonners Matter there was a new Court of Delegates appointed to review his Appeal consisting of four Civilians and four Common Lawyers who
that Hammond knew of it But whether this was devised to alienate the King wholly from him or whether it was true I can give no assurance But though it was true it was Felony in Bartuile if he were the Kings Servant but not in the Duke who was a Peer Yet no doubt this gave the King a very ill opinion of his Unkle and so made him more easily consent to his execution See the Indictment Cokes Entries fol. 482. since all such Conspiracies are things of that inhumane and barbarous cruelty that it is scarce possible to punish them too severely But it is certain that there was no Evidence at all of any design to kill the Duke of Northumberland otherwise the Indictment had not been laid against him only for designing to seize on and imprison him as it was the conspiring to kill him not being so much as mentioned in the Indictment but it was maliciously given out to possess the World and chiefly the King against him The King also in his Letter to Barnaby Fitz-Patrick who was like to be his favourite and was then sent over for his breeding into France writ that the Duke seemed to have acknowledged the Felony and that after Sentence he had confessed it though he had formerly vehemently sworn the contrary From whence it is plain that the King was perswaded of his being guilty Sir Michael Stanhop Sir Tho. Arundel Sir Ralph Vane Some of his Friends also condemned and Sir Miles Partridge were next brought to their Trials The first and the last of these were little pitied For as all great Men have People about them who make use of their greatness only for their own ends without regarding their Masters Honour or true Interest so they were the Persons upon whom the ill things which had been done by the Duke of Somerset were chiefly cast But Sir Tho. Arundel was much pitied and had hard measure in his Trial which began at seven a Clock in the Morning and continued till Noon Then the Jury went aside and they did not agree on their Verdict till next morning when those who thought him not guilty yet for preserving their own Lives were willing to yield to the fierceness of those who were resolved to have him found guilty Sir Ralph Vane was the most lamented of them all He had done great Services in the Wars and was esteemed one of the bravest Gentlemen of the Nation He pleaded for himself that he had done his Country considerable Service during the Wars though now in time of Peace the Coward and the Couragious were equally esteemed He scorned to make any submissions for Life But this height of mind in him did certainly set forward his condemnation and to add more infamy to him in the manner of his Death he and Partridge were hanged whereas the other two were beheaded The Seals are taken from the Lord Rich The Duke of Somerset was using means to have the King better informed and disposed towards him and engaged the Lord Chancellor to be his Friend who thereupon sent him an Advertisement of somewhat designed against him by the Council and being in hast writ only on the back of his Letter To the Duke and bid one of his Servants carry it to the Tower without giving him particular directions to the Duke of Somerset But his Servant having known of the familiarities between his Master and the Duke of Norfolk who was still in the Tower and knowing none between him and the other Duke carried the Letter to the Duke of Norfolk When the Lord Chancellor found the mistake at night he knew the Duke of Norfolk to make Northumberland his Friend would certainly discover him so he went in all hast to the King and desired to be discharged of his Office and thereby prevented the malice of his Enemies and upon this he fell sick either pretending he was ill that it might raise the more pity for him or perhaps the fright in which he was did really cast him into sickness So the Seal was sent for by the Marquess of Winchester the Duke of Northumberland and the Lord Darcy on the 21st of December and put into the Hands of the Bishop of Ely And given to the Bishop of Ely who was made Keeper during pleasure And when the Session of Parliament came on he was made Lord Chancellor But this was much censured When the Reformation was first preached in England Tindal Barns and Latimer took an occasion from the great Pomp and Luxury of Cardinal Wolsey and the Secular Imployments of the other Bishops and Clergy-men to represent them as a sort of Men that had wholly neglected the care of Souls and those Spiritual Studies and Exercises that disposed Men to such Functions and only carried the Names of Bishops and Church-men to be a Colour to serve their Ambition and Covetousness And this had raised great prejudices in the Minds of the People against those who were called their Pastors when they saw them fill their Heads with cares that were at least impertinent to their Callings if not inconsistent with the Duties that belonged to them So now upon Goodrick's being made Lord Chancellor that was a Reformed Bishop it was said by their Adversaries these Men only condemned Secular Imployments in the Hands of Church-men because their Enemies had them but changed their mind as soon as any of their own Party came to be advanced to them But as Goodrick was raised by the Popish Interest in opposition to the Duke of Somerset and to Cranmer that was his firm Friend so it appeared in the beginning of Queen Maries Reign that he was ready to turn with every Tide and that whether he joyned in the Reformation only in Compliance to the time or was perswaded in his mind concerning it yet he had not that sense of it that became a Bishop and was one of these who resolved to make as much advantage by it as he could but would suffer nothing for it So his practise in this matter is neither a Precedent to justifie the like in others nor can it cast a scandal on those to whom he joyned himself Christ being spoke to to divide an Inheritance between two Brethren said Who made me a Judge or a Divider St. Paul speaking of Church-men says No Man that warreth intangleth himself with the Affairs of this Life which was understood by St. Cyprian as a perpetual Rule against the Secular Imployments of the Clergy There are three of the Apostolical Canons against it and Cyprian reckoning up the sins of his time that had provoked God to send a Persecution on the Church names this that many Bishops forsaking their Sees undertook Secular Cares In which he was so strict that he thought the being Tutor to Orphans was a distraction unsutable to their Character so that one Priest leaving another Tutor to his Children because by the Roman Law he to whom this was left was obliged to undergo it the Priests
Heath of Worcester and Day Bishop of Chichester Heath and Day turned out of their Bishopricks were put out of their Bishopricks For Heath it has been already said that he was put in prison for refusing to consent to the Book of Ordinations But for Day whether he refused to submit to the new Book or fell into other transgressions I do not know Both these were afterwards deprived not by any Court consisting of Church-men but by Secular Delegates of whom three were Civilians and three Common Lawyers as King Edwards Journal informs us Dayes Sentence is something ambiguously expressed in the Patent that Scory Bishop of Rochester had to succeed him which bears date the 24th of May and mentions his being put there in the room of George late Bishop of that See who had been deprived or removed from it In June following upon Hollbeach Bishop of Lincoln's death Taylour that had been Dean of Lincoln was made Bishop This Year the Bishoprick of Glocester was quite suppressed and converted into an exempted Arch-deaconry and Hooper was made Bishop of Worcester In the December before Worcester and Glocester had been united by reason of their Voicinage and their great poverty and that they were not very populous so they were to be for ever after one Bishoprick with two Titles as Coventry and Litchfield and Bath and Wells were and Hooper was made Bishop of Worcester and Glocester But now they were put into another method and the Bishop was to be called only Bishop of Worcester In all the vacancies of Sees there were a great many of their best Lands taken from them and the Sees that before had been profusely enriched were now brought to so low a condition that it was scarce possible for the Bishops to subsist and yet if what was so taken from them had been converted to good uses to the bettering the condition of the poor Clergy over England it had been some mitigation of so hainous a Robbery but these Lands were snatched up by every hungry Courtier who found this to be the easiest way to be satisfied in their pretensions and the World had been so possessed with the opinion of their excessive Wealth that it was thought they never could be made poor enough This Year a Passage fell out relating to Ireland The Affairs of Ireland which will give me occasion to look over to the Affairs of that Kingdom The Kings of England had formerly contented themselves with the Title of Lords of Ireland which King Henry the 8th in the 33d Year of his Reign had in a Parliament there changed into the Title of a Kingdom But no special Crown or Coronation was appointed since it was to follow the Crown of England The Popes and the Emperors have pretended that the conferring Titles of Sovereign Dignity belonged to them The Pope derived his claim from what our Saviour said That all Power in Heaven and in Earth was given to him and by consequence to his Vicar The Emperors as being a dead shadow of the Roman Empire which Title with the designation of Caesar they still continued to use and pretended that as the Roman Emperors did anciently make Kings so they had still the same right though because those Emperors made Kings in the Countreys which were theirs by Conquest it was an odd stretch to infer that those who retained nothing of their Empire but the Name should therefore make Kings in Countries that belonged not to them and it is certain that every entire or independent Crown or State may make for or within it self what Titles they please But the Authority the Crown of England had in Ireland was not then so entire as by the many Rebellions that have fallen out since it is now become The Heads of the Clans and Names had the Conduct of all their several Tribes who were led on by them to what designs they pleased And though within the English Pale the King was obeyed and his Laws executed almost as in England yet the native Irish were an uncivilized and barbarous Nation and not yet brought under the Yoke and for the greatest part of Vlster they were united to the Scots and followed their Interests There had been a Rebellion in the second Year of this Reign But Sir Anthony St. Leiger then Deputy being recalled and Sir Edw. Bellinghame sent in his room he subdued O-Canor and O-More that were the chief Authors of it and not being willing to put things to extremities when England was otherwise distracted with Wars he perswaded them to accept of Pensions of 100 l. a-piece and so they came in and lived in the English Pale But the Winter after there was another Rebellion designed in Vlster by O-Neal O-Donnel O-Docart and the Heads of some other Tribes who sent to the Queen Dowager of Scotland to procure them assistance from France and they would keep up the disorders in Ireland The Bishop of Valence being then in Scotland was sent by her to observe their strength that he might accordingly perswade the King of France to assist them He cross'd the Seas and met with them and with Wauchop a Scotch-man who was the Bishop of Armagh of the Popes making and who though he was blind was yet esteemed one of the best at Riding Post in the World They set out all their greatness to the French Bishop to engage him to be their friend at the Court of France but he seemed not so well satisfied of their ability to do any great matter and so nothing followed on this One passage fell out here which will a little discover the temper of that Bishop When he was in O-Docarts House he saw a fair Daughter of his whom he endeavoured to have corrupted but she avoided him carefully Two English Gray-Friars that had fled out of England for their Religion and were there at that time observing the Bishops inclinations brought him an English Whore whom he kept for some time She one night looking among his things found a Glass full of somewhat that was very odoriferous and poured it all down her Throat which the Bishop perceiving too late fell into a most violent passion for it had been presented to him by Soliman the Magnificent at his leaving that Court as the richest Balm in Egypt and was valued at 2000 Crowns The Bishop was in such a rage that all the House was disturbed with it whereby he discovered both his lewdness and passion at once This is related by one that was then with him and was carried over by him to be a Page to the Scotch Queen Sir James Melvil who lived long in that Court under the Constable of France and was afterwards much employed by the Prince Elector Palatine in many Negotiations and coming home to his own Country was sent on many occasions to the Court of England where he lived in great Esteem He in his old Age writ a Narrative of all the Affairs that himself had been concerned in which is one of
being mistrustful of his memory used to take Notes of almost every thing he heard he writ these first in Greek Characters that those about him might not understand them and afterwards writ them out in his Journal He had a Copy brought him of every thing that passed in Council which he put in a Chest and kept the Key of that always himself In a word the natural and acquired perfections of his mind were wonderful but his Vertues and true Piety were yet more extraordinary He was such a Friend to Justice that though he loved his Unkle the Duke of Somerset much yet when he was possessed of a belief of his designing to murder his Fellow-Councellors he was alienated from him and being then but fourteen it was no wonder if that was too easily infused in him His chief Favourite was Barnaby Fitz-Patrick to whom he writ many Letters and Instructions when he sent him to be bred in France In one of his Letters to him he writ That he must not think to live like an Ambassador but like a private Gentleman who was to be advanced as he should deserve it He allowed him to keep but four Servants he charged him to follow the company of Gentlemen rather than of Ladies that he should not be superfluous in his Apparel that he should go to the Campagne and observe well the Conduct of Armies and the Fortification of strong Places and let the King know always when he needed Money and he would supply him All these with many other directions the King writ with his own Hand and at his return to let him see he intended to raise him by degrees he gave him a Pension only of 150 Pound This Fitz-Patrick did afterwards fully answer the opinion this young King had of him He was bred up with him in his Learning and as it is said had been his whipping Boy who according to the Rule of educating our Princes was always to be whipt for the Kings faults He was afterwards made by Queen Elizabeth Baron of Upper Ossory in Ireland which was his Native Country King Edward was tender and compassionate in a high measure so that he was much against the taking away the Lives of Hereticks and therefore said to Cranmer when he perswaded him to Sign the Warrant for the burning of Joan of Kent that he was not willing to do it because he thought that was to send her quick to Hell He expressed great tenderness to the miseries of the Poor in his sickness as hath been already shewn He took particular care of the Sutes of all poor Persons and gave Dr. Cox special charge to see that their Petitions were speedily answered and used oft to consult with him how to get their matters set forward He was an exact keeper of his word and therefore as appears by his Journal was most careful to pay his Debts and to keep his credit knowing that to be the chief Nerve of Government since a Prince that breaks his Faith and loses his Credit has thrown up that which he can never recover and made himself liable to perpetual distrusts and extream contempt He had above all things a great regard to Religion He took Notes of such things as he heard in Sermons which more specially concerned himself and made his measures of all Men by their zeal in that matter This made him so set on bringing over his Sister Mary to the same Perswasions with himself that when he was pressed to give way to her having Mass he said That he would not only hazard the loss of the Emperors friendship but of his Life and all he had in the World rather than consent to what he knew was a sin and he cited some Passages of Scripture that obliged Kings to root out Idolatry by which he said he was bound in Conscience not to consent to her Mass since he believed it was Idolatry and did argue the matter so learnedly with the Bishops that they left him being amazed at his knowledge in Divinity So that Cranmer took Cheek by the Hand upon it and said He had reason all the days of his Life to rejoyce that God had honoured him to breed such a Scholar All Men who saw and observed these qualities in him looked on him as one raised by God for most extraordinary ends and when he died concluded that the sins of England must needs be very great that had provoked God to take from them a Prince under whose Government they were like to have seen such blessed times He was so affable and sweet natured that all had free access to him at all times by which he came to be most universally beloved and all the high things that could be devised were said by the People to express their esteem of him The Fable of the Phoenix pleased most so they made his Mother one Phoenix and him another rising out of her Ashes But graver Men compared him to Josiah and long after his death I find both in Letters and Printed Books they commonly named him Our Josias others called him Edward the Saint A Prince of such qualities so much esteemed and loved could not but be much lamented at his death and this made those of the Reformation abhor the Duke of Northumberland who they suspected had hastened him to such an untimely end which contributed as much as any thing to the establishing of Queen Mary on the Throne for the People reckoned none could be so unworthy to govern as those who had poisoned so worthy a Prince and so kind a Master I find nothing of opening his Body for giving satisfaction about that which brought him to his end though his lying unburied till the eighth of August makes it probable that he was opened But indeed the sins of England did at this time call down from Heaven heavy Curses on the Land They are sadly expressed in a Discourse that Ridley writ soon after under the Title of the Lamentation of England he says Lechery Oppression Pride Covetousness and a hatred and scorn of Religion were generally spread among all People chiefly those of the higher Rank Cranmer and he had been much disliked the former for delivering his Conscience so freely on the Duke of Somersets death and both of them for opposing so much the rapine and spoil of the Goods of the Church which was done without Law or Order Nor could they engage any to take care of relieving the Poor except only Dobbs who was then Lord Major of London These sins were openly preached against by Latimer Lever Bradford and Knox who did it more severely and by others who did it plainly though more softly One of the main causes Ridley gives of all these evils was that many of the Bishops and most of the Clergy being all the while Papists in Heart who had only complied to preserve their Benefices took no care of their Parishes and were rather well pleased that things were ill managed And of this that good Bishop
Preacher from the Rage of the People It was said that their appeasing it so easily shewed what Interest they had with the People and was a presumption that they had set it on so without any further Proof the one was put in the Tower and the other confined to his House But now the deprived Bishops who were Bonner of London Gardiner of Winchester Tonstall of Duresm Heath of Worcester The Popish Bishops restored and Day of Chichester were to be restored to their Sees I have only seen the Commission for restoring Bonner and Tonstall but the rest were no doubt in the same strain with a little variation The Commission for Bonner bearing date the 22th of August was directed to some Civilians setting forth that he had petitioned the Queen to examine the Appeal he had made from the Delegates that had deprived him and that therefore the Sentence against him being unjust and illegal he desired it might be declared to be of no effect Upon which these did without any great hesitation return the Sentences void and the Appeals good So thus they were restored to their Sees But because the Bishoprick of Duresm was by Act of Parliament dissolved and the Regalities of it which had bin given to the Duke of Northumberland were now by his Attainder fallen into the Queen's hand She granted Tonstall Letters Patents erecting that Bishoprick again of new making mention that some wicked Men to enrich themselves by it had procured it to be dissolved On the 29th of August Commission was granted to Gardiner to give Licences under the Great Seal to such Grave The Consultations among the Reformed Doctors Learned and discreet Persons as he should think meet and able to preach God's Word All who were so licensed were qualified to preach in any Cathedral or Parochial Church to which he should think it convenient to send them By this the Reformers were not only out of hope to obtain any Licences but likewise saw a way laid down for sending such Men as Gardiner pleased into all their Pulpits to infect their People Upon this they considered what to do If there had been only a particular Inderdiction of some private persons the considerations of Peace and Order being of a more publick nature than the consequence of any one Man's open Preaching could be they judged it was to be submitted to but in such a case when they saw this Interdiction was general and on design to stop their mouths till their Enemies should seduce the People they did not think they were bound in Conscience to give Obedience Many of them therefore continued to preach openly others instead of Preaching in Churches were contented to have only the Prayers and other Service there but for instructing their People had private Conferences with them The Council hearing that their Orders had been disobeyed by some in London two in Coventry and one in Amersham they were sent for and put in Prison And Coverdale Bishop of Exeter and Hooper of Glocester being cited to appear before the Council they came and presented themselves on the 29th and 30th of August and on the first of September Hooper was sent to the Fleet and Coverdale appointed to wait their pleasure At this time the Popish Party growing now insolent over England began to be as forward in making Changes before the Laws warranted them as these of the Reformation had been in King Edward's time so that in many places they set up Images and the Latin Service with the old Rites again This was plainly against Law but the Council had no mind to hinder it but on the other hand encouraged it all they could Upon which Judg Hales The barbarous usage of Judg Hales who thought he might with the more assurance speak his mind having appeared so steadily for the Queen did at the Circuits in Kent give a Charge to the Justices to see to the execution of King Edward's Laws which were still in force and unrepealed Upon this he was without any regard to his former Zeal put first into the Marshalsea from thence he was removed to the Counter and after that to the Fleet where the good old Man was so disordered with the Cruelties that the Warden told him were contriving against all that would not change their Religion that it turned his Brain so that he endeavoured to have kill'd himself with a Penknife He was after that upon his Submission set at liberty but never came to himself again so he not being well looked to drowned himself This with the usage of the Suffolk-Men was much censured and from thence it was said that no Merits or Services could secure any from the Cruelties of that Religion And it appeared in another signal Instance how the Actions of Men were not so much considered as their Religion The Lord Chief Justice Mountague who had very unwillingly drawn the Letters Patents for the Lady Jane's Succession was turned out of his Place kept six weeks in Prison fined in a Thousand pounds and some Lands that had been given him by King Edward were taken from him tho he had sent his Son with Twenty Men to declare for the Queen and had a great Family of Seventeen Children six Sons and eleven Daughters whereas Judg Bromley that had concurred in framing the Letters Patents without any reluctancy was made Lord Chief Justice The true Reason was Bromley was a Papist in his heart and Mountague was for the Reformation In many other places where the People were Popishly affected they drove away their Pastors At Oxford Peter Martyr was so ill used that he was forced to fly for his safety to Lambeth where he could not look for any long protection Cranmer declared openly against the Mass since Cranmer himself was every day in expectation of being sent to Prison He kept himself quiet and was contriving how to give some Publick and Noble Testimonies to the Doctrine that he had so long professed and indeed had bin the chief promoter of in this Church But his quiet behaviour was laid hold on by his Enemies and it was given out that he was resolved to comply with every thing the Queen had a mind to So I find Bonner wrote to his Friend Mr. Lechmore on the 6th of September Bonners Insolence Coll. Numb 7. in that Letter which is in the Collection He gives him notice that the day before he had bin restored to his Bishoprick and Ridley repulsed for which he is very witty Ridley had a Steward for two Manours of his whose name was Ship-side his Brother-in-law upon which he plays as if he had bin Sheeps-head He orders Lechmore to look to his Estate and he should take care at the next Parliament that both the Sheepsheads and the Calves-heads should be used as they deserved He adds that Cranmer whom in scorn he calls Mr. Canterbury was become very humble and ready to submit himself in all things but that would not serve his turn and it
be as wise sober gentle and temperate as any Prince that ever was in England and if he did not prove so he was content that all his Hearers should esteem him an impudent Lyar. The State of the Court continued in this posture till the next Parliament But great Discontents did now appear every-where The severe Executions after the last rising the Marriage with Spain and the overturning of Religion concurred to alienate the Nation from the Government This appeared no where more confidently than in Norfolk where the People reflecting on their Services thought they might have the more leave to speak There were some malicious Rumours spread that the Queen was with Child before the King came over This was so much resented at Court that the Queen writ a Letter to the Justices there which is in the Collection to enquire into those false Reports and to look to all that spread false News in the County Coll. Numb 14. The Earl of Sussex upon this examined a great many but could make nothing out of it It flowed from the officiousness of Hopton the new Bishop of Norwich who thought to express his Zeal to the Queen whose Chaplain he had long been by sending up the Tales of the Country to the Council Table not considering how much it was below the Dignity of the Government to look after all vain Reports Bonner's Carriage in his Visitation This Summer the Bishops went their Visitations to see every thing executed according to the Queen's Injunctions Bonner went his with the rest He had ordered his Chaplains to draw a Book of Homilies with an Exposition of the Christian Religion He says in his Preface to it that he and his Chaplains had compiled it but it is likely he had only the Name of it and that his Chaplains composed it Yet the greatest and indeed the best part of it was made to their hands for it was taken out of the Institution of a Christian Man set out by King Henry only varied in those Points in which it differed from what they were now about to set up So that concerning the Pope's Power since it was not yet established he says nothing for or against it The Articles upon which he made his Visitation will be found in the Collection Coll. Numb 15. and by these we may judg of all the other Visitations over England In the Preface he protests he had not made his Articles out of any secret grudg or displeasure to any but meerly for the discharge of his Conscience towards God and the World The Articles were Whether the Clergy did so behave themselves in Living Teaching and Doing that in the judgment of indifferent Men they seemed to seek the Honour of God of the Church and of the King and Queen Whether they had been Married or were taken for Married and whether they were Divorced and did no more come at their Wives or whether they did defend their Marriages Whether they did reside keep Hospitality provide a Curat in their absence And whether they did devoutly celebrate the Service and use Processions Whether they were suspect of Heresy Whether they did haunt Ale-houses and Taverns Bowling-Allies or suspect Houses Whether they favoured or kept company with any suspect of Heresy Whether any Priest lived in the Parish that absented himself from Church Whether these kept any privat Conventicles Whether any of the Clergy was Vicious blasphemed God or his Saints or was guilty of Simony Whether they exhorted the People to Peace and Obedience Whether they admited any to the Sacrament that was suspect of Heresy or was of an ill Conversation an Oppressor or Evil-Doer Whether they admitted any to preach that were not licensed or refused such as were Whether they did officiate in English Whether they did use the Sacraments aright Whether they visited the Sick and administred the Sacraments to them Whether they did marry any without asking the Banes three Sundays Whether they observed the Fasts and Holy-Days Whether they went in their Habits and Tonsures Whether those that were ordained schismatically did officiate without being admitted by the Ordinary Whether they set Leases for many Years of their Benefices Whether they followed Merchandise or Usury Whether they carried Swords or Daggers in Times or Places not convenient Whether they did once every quarter expound to the People in the Vulgar Tongue the Apostles Creed Ten Commandments the Two Commandments of Christ for loving God and our Neighbour the Seven Works of Mercy Seven deadly Sins Seven principal Vertues and the Seven Sacraments These were the most considerable Heads on which he visited One thing is remarkable that it appears both by these No Reordination of those ordained in King Edwards Time and the Queen's Injunctions that they did not pretend to re-ordain those that had been ordained by the New Book in King Edward's Time but to reconcile them and add those things that were wanting which were the Anointing and giving the Priestly Vestments with other Rites of the Roman Pontifical In this Point of re-ordaining such as were ordained in Heresy or Schism the Church of Rome has not gone by any steady Rule For though they account the Greek Church to be guilty both of Heresy and Schism they receive their Priests without a New Ordination Yet after the time of the Contests between Pope Nicolaus and Photius and much more after the outragious heats at Rome between Sergius and Formosus in which the dead Bodies of the former Popes were raised and dragged about the Streets by their Successors they annulled the Ordinations which they pretended were made irregularly Afterwards again upon the great Schism between the Popes of Rome and Avignon they did neither annul nor renew the Orders that had been given But now in England though they only supplied at this time the Defects which they said were in their former Ordination yet afterwards wheâ— they proceeded to burn them that were in Orders they went upon the old Maxim That Orders given in Schism were not valid 〈◊〉 they did not esteem Hooper nor Ridley Bishops and therefore only dâ—grâ—ded them from Priesthood though they had been ordained by their own Forms saving only the Oath to the Pope but for those who were ordained by the new Book they did not at all degrade them supposing noâ—â—hey had no true Orders by it Bonner in his Visitation took great care to see all things were every where done according to the old Rules which was the main thing intended other Points being put in for form When he came to Hadham he prevented the Doctor who did not expect him so soon by two hours so that there was no ringing of Bells which put him in no small disorder And that was much encreased when he went into the Church and found neither the Sacrament hanging up nor a Rood set up thereupon he fell a railing swearing most intemperately calling the Priest an Heretick a Knave with many other such goodly words The
gave at his Visitation chiefly of the Monasteries will give a good Evidence and therefore I have put them in the Collection Coll. Num. 24. as they were copied from the Register of Worcester by that Ingenious and worthy Counsellor Mr. Summers who out of his Zeal to the Reformation searched all the Books there that he might gather from them such things as he thought could be of use to this Work Bonner had made an ill Retribution to Ridley for the kindness he had shewed his Friends when he was in possession at London for he had made Boâ—ner's Mother always dine with him when he lived in his Country-House of Fulham and treated her as if she had been his own Mother besides his kindness to his other Friends Heath then Bishop of Worcester had bin kept Prisoner a Year and a half in Ridley's House where he lived as if he had bin at his own and Heath used always to call him the best learned of all the Party yet he so far forgot gratitude and humanity that though he went through Oxford when he was a Prisoner there he came not to see him When they lay in the Tower both Cranmer and they were by reason of the number of Prisoners put into one Chamber for some months but after they came to Oxford they could scaâ—câ— send Messages to one another and men had laid off humanity so much that all the while they lay there none of the University waited on them that favoured their Doctrine were then left and of the rest it is no wonder that none came to visit them nor did they supply them with any thing they needed for all the Charity that was sent to them came from London This Summer there was a strict search made after all the Goods of the Church that had bin embezelled and all that had bin Visiters either in King Henry or K. Edward's time Suits about the spoils of Churches were brought into Suits about it but many compounded and so purchased their quiet by an off r to the Church of some large Gratuity and according to the greatness thereof their affection to the Church was measured Many of those did favour the Reformation which made them give the more bountifully that so they might come under good Characters and be the less suspected EFFIGIES STEPHANI GARDINERI EPISCOPI WINTONIENSIS H. Holben pinxit R. White sculp HONI SOIT QVI MAL Y PENSE Natus Burioe fit Episcopus Wintoniensis 1531. Dec. 5. Cancellarius Anglioe 1553. Aug. 23. Obijt 1555. Nov 12. Printed for Richard Chiswell at the Rose and Crowne in St. Pauls Church yard Heath Archbishop of York had the Seals in February after they having been during that interval in the hands of Sir Nicholas Hare then Master of the Rolls and he was made Chancellor during the Queen's pleasure The Queen also considering that Whitehall had been taken from the See of York had a scruple in her Conscience against living in it but Heath and she agreed it thus Suffolk-Place by the Duke's Attainder was now in the Queen's hands so she gave that to the See of York which Heath sold and converted it to Tenements and purchased another House near Charing-Cross which from thence forward was called York-House The temper of the Parliament is much changed But for the Parliament it was now much changed Mens minds were much alienated from the Clergy and also from the Queen who minded nothing else but to raise them to great wealth and power again On the 28th of October it was moved in the House of Commons to give a Subsidy and two Fifteenths for paying the Debts of the Crown but it was opposed with great vehemence It was said that the Queen had profusely given away the Riches of the Crown and then turned to the Laity to pay her Debts why did she not rather turn it to the Spiritualty But it was answered that the Convocation had given her a Subsidy of six shillings in the pound and the Queen asked now after almost three years Reign nothing but what she had discharged her Subjects of at her first coming to the Crown Yet the heats grew such that on the 1st of November Secretary Petre brought a Message from her that she thanked them that had moved for two Fifteenths for her but she refused it so the Subsidy was agreed on On the 29th of November the Queen sent for the House of Commons The Queen discharges the Clergy of Tenths and First-fruits When they were come she said to them she could not with a good Conscience take the Tenths and First-fruits of Spiritual Benefices It was a Tax her Father laid on the Clergy to support his Dignity of Supream Head of which since she was devested she would also discharge that Then the Legate made a speech to shew that Tithes Impropriations of spiritual Benefices were the Patrimony of the Church and ought to return to it The Queen upon that declared that she would surrender them up likewise to the Church Then one Story of the House of Commons kneeled down and said to the Queen That the Speaker did not open to her their Desire that Licences might be restrained This was a great Affront to the Speaker so he returning to the House complained of Story This Member thought he might assume more liberty for in Edward the 6th's time when the Bill for the first Book of the English Service passed he spoke so freely against it with such reflections on the King and the Protector that he was put in the Serjeants hands and sent to the Tower The words he had said were Wo unto thee O England when thy King is a Child Eccles 10.16 and an Impeachment was drawn against him But upon his Submission the House ordered the Privy Councellors to declare to the Protector that it was their Resolution that he should be enlarged and they desired that the King would forgive his Offence against him and his Council now he had indiscreetly appeared against all Licenses from Rome thinking he had a priviledg to talk more freely Journ Dom. Com. but he confessed his Fault and the House knowing that he spake from a good zeal forgave him He was afterwards condemned for Treason in Queen Elizabeths Reign On the 23d of November the Bill for suppressing the First-Fruits and Tenths and the resigning up all Impropriations that were yet in the Queens Gift to the Church to be disposed of as the Legate pleased for the relief of the Clergy was brought into the House It was once thought fit to have the surrender of Impropriations left out for it was said the Queen might do that as well by Letters Patents and if it were put into the Bill it would raise great Jealousies since it would be understood that the Queen did expect that the Subjects should follow her example but it was resolved by all means possible to recover the Tithes to the Church so it was put into the
He protested to Cranmer that it was the most sorrowfull Action of his whole Life and acknowledged the great Love and Friendship that had been between them and that no Earthly Consideration but the Queen's Command could have induced him to come and do what they were then about He shed so many Tears that oft he stopt and could not go on in his discourse for the abundance of them But Cranmer said his Degradation was no trouble to him at all he reckoned himself as long ago cut off from all dependance and communion with the See Rome so their doing it now with so much Pageantry did not much affect him only he put in an Appeal from the Pope to the next free General Council he said he was cited to Rome but all the while kept a Prisoner so there was no reason to proceed against him in his absence since he was willing to have gone thither and defended his Doctrine he also denied any authority the Pope had over him He is degraded or in England and therefore appealed from his Sentence But notwithstanding that he was degraded and all that ludicrous Attire was taken piece after piece from him according to the Ceremonies of Degradation which are in use in the Church of Rome But there were new Engines contrived against him Many had been sent to confer with him both English and Spanish Divines to perswade him to recant he was put in hopes of Life and Preferment again and removed out of Prison to the Dean's Lodgings at Christ-Church where all the Arguments that could be invented were made use of to turn him from his former perswasion And in conclusion as St. Peter himself had with Curses denied his Saviour so he who had resisted now almost three years was at last overcome and human infirmity the fears of Death and the hopes that were given him prevailed with him to set his Hand to a Paper He recants renouncing all the Errors of Luther and Zwinglius acknowledging the Pope's Supremacy the seven Sacraments the Corporal Presence in the Eucharist Purgatory Prayer for departed Souls the Invocation of Saints to which was added his being sorry for his former Errors and concluded exhorting all that had been deceived by his Example or Doctrine to return to the unity of the Church and protesting that he had signed it willingly only for the discharge of his own Conscience Fox and other later Writers from him have said that one reason of this Compliance was that he might have time to finish his Answer to Gardiner's Book against that which he had written concerning the Sacrament and Fox has printed the Letter which he avouches to prove this by But the good Man it seems read the Letter very carelesly for Cranmer says no such thing in it but only that he had appealed to the next General Council to try if that could procure him a longer delay in which he might have time to finish his Book and between these two there is a great difference How long this was signed before his Execution I find it no where marked for there is no Date put to his Subscription Cranmer's Recantation was presently printed and occasioned almost equally great Insultings on the one hand and Dejection on the other But the Queen was not at all wrought on by it and was now forced to discover that her private Resentments governed her in this matter which before she had disowned She was resolved he should be made a Sacrifice for giving the Judgment of Divorce in her Mother's Marriage and tho hitherto she had pretended only Zeal for Religion yet now when that could be no more alleaged yet she persisted in her Resolution of having him burnt She said since he had bin the great Promoter of Heresy that had corrupted the whole Nation that must not serve his turn which would be sufficient in other cases It was good for his own Soul and might do good to others that he repented but yet she ordered the Sentence to be executed The Writ went out the 24th of February Coll. Num. 28. which will be found in the Collection Heath took care not only to enroll the Writ but the Warrant sent to him for issuing it which is not ordinary It 's like he did it to leave it on Record to Posterity that he did it not in course as he did other Writs but had a special Order from the Queen for it The long time that passed between the date of the Writ and the execution of it makes it probable that he made the formerly mentioned Recantation after the Writ was brought down and that the fears of Death then before his Eyes did so far work on him that he signed the Writing but when the second Order was sent down to execute the former he was dealt with to renew his Subscription and then to write the whole over again which he also did all this time being under some small hopes of Life but conceiving likewise some jealousies that they might burn him he writ secretly a Paper containing a sincere Confession of his Faith such as flowed from his Conscience and not from his weak fears and being brought out he carried that along with him He was carried to S. Maries and set on a place raised higher for him to be more conspicuously seen Cole Provost of Eaton preached he ran out in his Sermon on the Mercy and Justice of God which two Attributes do not oppose or justle out one another he applied this to Princes that were Gods on Earth who must be just as well as mercifull and therefore they had appointed Cranmer that day to suffer he said it was he that had dissolved the Marriage between the Queen's Father and Mother had driven out the Pope's Authority had been the fountain of all the Heresies in England and since the Bishop of Rochester and Sir Tho. More had suffered for the Church it was meet that others should suffer for Heresy and as the Duke of Northumberland had suffered in More 's room so there was no other Clergyman that was equal or fit to be ballanced with Fisher but he Then he turned to Cranmer and magnified his Conversion which he said was the immediate Hand of God that none of their Arguments had done it but the inward working of God's Spirit He gave him great hopes of Heaven and assured him there should be Dirges and Masses said for his Soul in all the Churches in Oxford All this while Cranmer expressed great inward confusion lifting up his Eyes often to Heaven and then letting them fall downward as one ashamed of himself and he often poured out floods of tears In the end when Cole bid him declare his Faith he first prayed with many moving expressions of deep remorse and inward horror Then he made his Exhortation to the People First Not to love or set their hearts on the things of the World to obey the King and Queen out of conscience to God to live in
Goods of the Church of which it had been robbed by their Ancestors But â—n this it was necessary to advance slowly since the Nobility and Gentry were much allarumed at it and at the last Parliament many had laid their Hands to their Swords in the House of Commons and said theâ— would not part with their Estates but would defend them yet some that hoped to gain more favour from the Queen by such compliance did Found Chantries for Masses for their Souls In the Records of the last Years of Queen Maries Reign there are many Warrants granted by her for such Endowments for though the Statute of Mortmain was repealed yet for greater security it was thought fit to take out such Licenses This is all I find of our home Affairs this Year Forreign Affairs Forreign Affairs were brought to a quieter state For by the Mediation of England a Truce for five Years was concluded between France and Spain and the new King of Spain was inclined to observe it faithfully that so he might be well setled in his Kingdoms before he engaged in War but the violent Pope broke all this He was much offended with the Decree made at Ausburg for the liberty of Religion and with Ferdinand for ordering the Chalice to be given to his Subjects and chiefly for his assuming the Title of Emperor without his approbation Upon this last provocation the Pope sent him word that he would let him know to his grief how he had offended him He came to talk in as haughty a Stile as any of all his Predecessors had ever done that he would change Kingdoms at his pleasure He boasted that he had made Ireland a Kingdom The Pope is extravagantly insolent that all Princes were under his Feet and as he said that he used to tread with his Feet against the ground and he would allow no Prince to be his Companion nor be too familiar with him nay rather than be driven to a mean Action he would set the whole World on fire But to pretend to do somewhat for a Reformation he appointed a Congregation to gather some Rules for the condemning of Simony These he published and said having now reformed his own Court he would next reform the Courts of Princes and because they had complained much of the corruptions of the Clergy and Court of Rome he resolved to turn the matter on them and said he would gather all the abuses that were in their Courts and reform them But he was much provoked by an Embassy that came from Poland to desire of him that they might have the Mass in their own Tongue and the Communion in both kinds that their Priests might be allowed to marry that they might pay Annates no more to Rome and call a National Council in their own Kingdom These things put him out of all patience and with all the bitterness he could use he expressed how detestable they were to him He then said he would hold a Council not that he needed one for himself was above all but it should never meet in Trent to which it had been a vain thing to send about sixty Bishops of the least able and forty Doctors of the most insufficient as had been twice done already that he would hold it in the Lateran as many of his Predecessors had done he gave notice of this to the Ambassadors of all Princes he said he did that only in curtesie not intending to ask their advice or consent for he would be obeyed by them all He intended in this Council to reform them and their Courts and to discharge all Impositions which they had laid on the Clergy and therefore he would call it whether they would or not and if they sent no Prelates to it he would hold it with those of his own Court and would let the World see what the Authority of that See was when it had a Pope of courage to govern it But after all these Imperious humors of his He breaks the Truce between France and Spain absolving the French King from his Oath which sometimes carried him to excesses that seemed not much different from madness he was heartily troubled at the Truce between the French and the Spaniards He hates the Spaniards most because they supported the Colonesi whom he designed to ruine And therefore he sent his Nephew into France with a Sword and Hat which he had Consecrated to perswade the King to break the Truce offering his assistance for the Conquest of the Kingdom of Naples to the use of one of the younger Sons of France though it was believed he designed it for his own Nephew He also sent the French King an Absolution from his Oath that he had sworn for the maintaining of the Truce and promised to create what Cardinals he pleased that so he might be sure of a Creature of his own to succeed in the Popedom Yet the Pope dissembled his design in this so closely that he perswaded Sir Edward Caru that was then the Queens Ambassador at Rome that he desired nothing so much as a general Peace and he hoped as the Queen had mediated in the Truce she would continue her endeavours till a perfect Peace were made He said he had sent two Legates to procure it and since he was the Common Father of Christendome God would impute to him even his silence in that matter if he did not all he could to obtain it He complained much of the growth of Heresie in Poland and in the King of the Romans's Dominions For the repressing of it he said he intended to have a General Council and in order to that it was necessary there should be a Peace since a Truce would not give sufficient encouragement to those who ought to come to the Council He said he intended to be present at it himself and to hold it in the Church of St. John in the Lateran for he thought Rome being the Common Country of all the World was the meetest Place for such an Assembly and he being so very old could go no where out of Rome therefore he was resolved to hold it there But he said he relied chiefly on the assistance of the Queen whom he called That Blessed Queen and his most Gracious and loving Daughter and holding her Letters in his Hand he said they were so full of respect and kindness to him that he would have them read in the Consistory and made a Cross over her Subscription It was no wonder such discourses with that way of deportment deceived so honest and plain-hearted a Man as Caru was as it will appear from the Letter that he writ over upon this occasion to the Queen Collection Number 32. which I have put in the Collection But it soon appeared on what design he had sent his Legate to France for he pressed that King vehemently to break the Truce and renew the War To this the French King being perswaded by the Cardinal of Lorrain and Duke of
accidents that struck terror in them In July Thunder broke near Nottingham with such violence that it beat down two little Towns with all the Houses and Churches in them the Bells were carried a good way from the Steeples and the Lead that covered the Churches was cast 400 Foot from them strangely wreathed The River of Trent as it is apt upon Deluges of Rain to swell and over-run the Country so it broke out this Year with extraordinary violence many Trees were plucked up by the Roots and with it there was such a Wind that carried several Men and Children a great way and dashed them against Trees or Houses so that they died Hail-stones fell that were fifteen Inches about in other Places and which was much more terrible a contagious intermitting Feaver not unlike the Plague raged every where so that three parts of four of the whole Nation were infected with it So many Priests died of it that in many Places there were none to be had for the performing of the Offices Many Bishops died also of it so that there were many vacancies made by the Hand of Heaven against Queen Elizabeth came to the Crown and it spreading most violently in August there were not Men enough in many Counties to reap the Harvest so that much Corn was lost All these Symptoms concurred to encrease the aversion the People had to the Government which made the Queen very willing to consent to a Treaty of Peace that was opened at Cambray in October to which she sent the Earl of Arundel the Bishop of Ely and Dr. Wotton as her Plenipotentiaries A Treaty of Peace between England France and Spain The occasion of the Peace was from a meeting that the Bishop of Arras had with the Cardinal of Lorrain at Peronne in which he proposed to him how much Philip was troubled at the continuance of the War their Forces being so much engaged in it that they could make no resistance to the Turk and the mean while Heresie encreasing and spreading in their own Dominions while they were so taken up that they could not look carefully to their Affairs at home but must connive at many things therefore he pressed the Cardinal to perswade the King of France to an Accommodation The Cardinal was easily induced to this since besides his own zeal for Religion he saw that he might thereby bear down the Constables greatness whose Friends chiefly his two Nephews the Admiral and Dandelot who went then among the best Captains in France were both suspect of being Protestants upon which the latter was shortly after put in Prison so he used all his endeavours to draw the King to consent to it in which he had the less opposition since the Court was now filled with his Dependants and his four Brothers who had got all the great Officers of France into their Hands and the Constable and Admiral being Prisoners there was none to oppose their Councils The King thinking that by the recovery of Calais and the Places about it he had gained enough to ballance the loss of St. Quintin was very willing to hearken to a Treaty and he was in an ill state to continue the War being much weakned both by the loss he suffered last Year and the blow that he received in July last The Battel of Graveling the Marshal de Thermes being enclosed by the Count of Egmont near Graveling where the French Army being set on by the Count and galled with the English Ordnance from their Ships that lay near the Land was defeated 5000 killed the Marshal and the other chief Officers being taken Prisoners These losses made him sensible that his Affairs were in so ill a condition that he could not gain much by the War The Number of the Protestants growing in France The Cardinal was the more earnest to bring on a Peace because the Protestants did not only encrease in their Numbers but they came so openly to avow their Religion that in the publick Walks without the Suburbs of St. Germain they began to sing Davids Psalms in French Verse The newness of the thing amused many the devotion of it wrought on others the Musick drew in the rest so that the Multitudes that used to divert themselves in those Fields in stead of their ordinary sports did now nothing for many nights but go about singing Psalms and that which made it more remarkable was that the King and Queen of Navarre came and joyned with them That King besides the Honour of a Crowned Head with the small part of that Kingdom that was yet left in their Hands was the first Prince of the Blood He was a soft and weak Man but his Queen in whose right he had that Title was one of the most extraordinary Women that any Age hath produced both for knowledge far above her Sex for a great judgment in Affairs an Heroical Greatness of Mind and all other Vertues joyned to a high measure of Devotion and true Piety all which except the last she derived to her Son Henry the Great When the King of France heard of this Psalmody he made an Edict against it and ordered the doers of it to be punished but the Numbers of them and the respect to those Crowned Heads made the business to go no further On the 24th of April was the Dolphin married to the Queen of Scotland The Dolphin marries the Queen of Scotland Four Cardinals Bourbon Lorrain Chastilion and Bertrand with many of the Princes of the Blood and the other great Men of France and the Commissioners sent from Scotland were present But scarce any thing adorned it more than the Epithalamium written upon it by Buchanan which was accounted one of the perfectest Pieces of Latin Poetry After the Marriage was over the Scotch Commissioners were desired to offer the Dolphin the Ensigns of the Regality of Scotland and to acknowledge him their King but they excused themselves since that was beyond their Commission which only empow'red them to treat concerning the Articles of the Marriage and to carry an account back to those that sent them Then it was desired that they would promote the business at their return to their Country but some of them had expressed their aversion to those Propositions so plainly that it was believed they were poisoned by the Brethren of the House of Guise Four of them died in France the Bishop of Orkney and the Earls of Rothes and Cassils and the Lord Fleeming The Prior of St. Andrews was also very sick and though he recovered at that time yet he had never any perfect health after it When the other four returned into Scotland a Convention of the Estates was called to consult about the Propositions they brought This Assembly consists of all those Members that make up a Parliament who were then the Bishops and Abbots and Priors A Convention of Estates in Scotland who made the first Estate the Noblemen that were the second Estate and the
the Arch-Bishop begin Te Deum Laudamus which done the Arch-Bishop shall say unto the King Sta retine a modo locum And the King being thus set all the Peers of the Realm and Bishops holding up their Hands shall make unto him Homage as followeth first the Lord Protector alone then the Arch-Bishop of Canterbury and the Lord Chancellor so two and two as they be placed J. N. become your Liege Man of Life and Limb and of earthly Worship and Faith and Truth I shall bear unto you against all manner of Folks as I am bound by my Allegiance and by the Laws and Statutes of this Realm So help us God and Allhallowes And then every one shall kiss the King 's left Cheek which done all they holding up their hands together in token of their Fidelity shall with one Voice on their knees say We offer to sustain and defend you and your Crown with our Lives and Lands and Goods against all the World And then with one Voice to cry God save King Edward which the People shall cry accordingly Then shall the King be led to his Travers to hear the High Mass and so depart home crowned in Order as he set forth accordingly E. Hertford T. Cantuarien Tho. Wriothesley Cancel W. St. John J. Russel John Lisle Cuth Duresme Anthony Brown W. Paget Anthony Denny W. Herbert Number 5. The Commission for which the Lord Chancellor was deprived of his Office with the Opinion of the Judges concerning it Ex Libro Concilii Fol. 49. EDwardus sextus Dei Gratia Angliae Franciae Hiberniae Rex Fidei Defensor in terra Ecclesiae Anglicanae Hiberniae supremum Caput dilectis fidelibus Consiliariis suis Roberto Southwell Militi custodi ac Magistro Rotulorum Cancellariae nostrae Johanni Tregonwell Armigero uni Magistrorum Cancellariae nostrae praedictae dilectis sibi Johanni Olyver Clerico Antonio Bellasis Clerico Magistris ejusdem Cancellariae nostrae salutem Quia praedilectus fidelis consanguineus noster Thomas Comes Southampton Cancellarius noster Angliae nostris arduis negotiis ex mandato nostro continuo intendens in eisdem adeo versatur quod ad ea quae in Curia Cancellariae nostrae in causis materiis inter diversos ligeos subditos nostros ibidem pendentibus tractand audiend discutiend terminand Sicut ut fieri debeant ad presens non sufficiat volentes proinde in ejusdem Cancellarii nostri absentia omnibus ligeis subditis nostris quibuscunque quascunque materias suas in Curia Cancellariae nostrae praedictae prosequentibus plenam celerem justitiam exhiberi ac de fidelitatibus providis circumspectionibus vestris plenius confidentes assignavimus vos tres duos vestrum ac tenore praesentium damus vobis tribus duobus plenam potestatem autoritatem audiendi examinandi quascunque materias causas Petitiones coram nobis in Cancellaria nostra inter quoscunque ligeos subditos nostros nunc pendentes in posterum ibidem exhibend pendend easdem materias causas Petitiones juxta sanas vestras discretiones finaliter terminand debitae executioni demandand partesque in materiis sive causis vel Petitionibus illis nominatis specificatis ad testes alios quoscunque quos vobis fore videbitur evocandos quoties expedire videbitis coram vobis tribus vel duobus vestrum evocandos ipsos eorum quemlibet debite examinari compellend diesque productorios imponend assignand processusque quoscunque in ea parte necessarios concedend fieri faciend contemptus etiam quoscunque ibidem commissos sive perpetratos debite castigand puniend caeteraque omnia singula faciend exequend quae circa praemissa necessaria fuerint seu quomodolibet opportuna Et ideo vobis mandamus quod circa promissa diligenter attendatis ac ea faciatis exequamini cum effectu Mandamus etiam tenore praesentium omnibus singulis Officiariis Ministris nostris curiae nostrae praedictae quod vobis tribus duobus vostrum in executione praemissorum diligenter intendant prout decet Volumus enim per praesentes concedimus quod omnia singula judicia sive finalia decreta per vos tres vel duos vestrū super hujusmodi causis sive materiis reddend seu fiend sicut esse debeant tanti consimilis valoris effectus efficaciae roboris virtutis ac si per Dominum Cancellarium Angliae Curiae Cancellariae praedictae reddita seu reddenda forent proviso semper quod omnia singula hujusmodi judicia seu finalia decreta per vos tres vel duos vestrum virtute praesentium reddend seu fiend manibus vestris trium vel duorum vestrum subscribantur consignentur superinde eadem judicia sive decreta praefato Cancellario nostro praesententur liberentur ut idem Cancellarius noster antequam irrotulentur eadem similiter manu sua consignet In cujus rei testimonium has literas nostras fieri fecimus Patentes Teste meipso apud Westmonast 18 die Feb. Anno Regni nostri primo THE said Students referring to the consideration of the said Protector and Council what the granting out of the said Commission without warrant did weigh Forasmuch as the said Protector and Council minding the surety of the King's Majesty and a direct and upright proceeding in his Affairs and the observation of their Duties in all things as near as they can to his Majesty with a desire to avoid all things which might offend his Majesty or his Laws and considering that the said Commission was none of the things which they in their Assemblies in Council at any time since the Death of the King's Majesty late deceased did accord to be passed under the Great Seal have for their own Discharges required us whose Names be under-written for the Opinion they have of our knowledge and experience in the Laws of this Realm to consider the said Case of making of the said Commission without warrant and after due consideration thereof to declare in writing to what the said Case doth weigh in Law We therefore whose Names be under-written after mature and advised consultation and deliberation thereupon do affirm and say for our Knowledges and Determinations That the said Chancellor of England having made forth under the Great Seal of England without any Warrant the Commission aforesaid hath done and doth by his so doing offend the King's Majesty hath and doth by the Common Law forfeit his Office of Chancellor and incurreth the Danger Penalty and Paiment of such Fine as it shall please the King's Majesty with the advise of the said Lord Protector and Council to set upon him for the same with also Imprisonment of his Body at the King's Will In Witness whereof we have set our Names to this Present the last day of February in the first Year of the Reign of our
among all Christian People Also ye shall pray for all our Parishes where that they be on Land or on Water that God save them from all manner of Perils and for all the good Men of this Parish for their Wives Children and Men that God them maintain save and keep Also ye shall pray for all true Tithers that God multiply their Goods and Encrease for all true Tillers that labour for our Sustenance that Till the Earth and also for all the Grains and Fruits that be sown set or done on the Earth or shall be done that God send such Weather that they may grow encrease and multiply to the help and profit of all Mankind Also ye shall pray for all true Shipmen and Merchants wheresoever that they be on Land or on Water that God keep them from all Perils and bring them home in safety with their Goods Ships and Merchandises to the Help Comfort and Profit of this Realm Also ye shall pray for them that find any Light in this Church or give any Behests Book Bell Chalice or Vestment Surplice Water-cloath or Towel Lands Rents Lamp or Light or any other Adornments whereby God's Service is the better served sustained and maintained in Reading and Singing and for all them that thereto have counselled that God reward and yield it them at their most need Also ye shall pray for all true Pilgrims and Palmers that have taken their way to Rome to Jerusalem to St. Katherines or St. James or to any other Place that God of his Grace give them time and space well for to go and to come to the profit of their Lives Souls Also ye shall pray for all them that be sick or diseased of this Parish that God send to them Health the rather for our Prayers for all the Women which be in our Ladys Bands and with Child in this Parish or in any other that God send to them fair Deliverance to their Children right Shape Name and Christendom and to the Mother's purification and for all them that would be here and may not for Sickness or Travail or any other lawful Occupation that they may have part of all the good Deeds that shall be done here in this Place or in any other And ye shall pray for all them that be in good Life that good them hold long therein and for them that be in Debt or deadly Sin that Jesus Christ bring them out thereof the rather for our Prayer Also ye shall pray for him or her that this day gave the Holy Bread and for him that first began and longest holdeth on that God reward it him at the day of Doom and for all them that do well or say you good that God yield it them at their need and for them that otherwise would that Jesus Christ amend them For all those and for all Christian Men and Women ye shall say a Pater Noster Ave Maria Deus misereatur nostri Gloria Patri Kyrie Eleison Christe Eleison Kyrie Eleison Pater Noster Et ne nos Sed libera Versus Ostende nobis Sacerdotes Domine salvum fac Regem Salvum fac Populum Domine fiat Pax Domine exaudi Dominus vobiscum Oremus Ecclesiae tuae quaesumus Deus in cujus manu Deus a quo sancta c. Furthermore ye shall pray for all Christian Souls for Arch-Bishops and Bishops Souls and in especial for all that have been Bishops of this Diocess and for all Curats Parsons and Vicar's Souls and in especial for them that have been Curats of this Church and for the Souls that have served in this Church Also ye shall pray for the Souls of all Christian Kings and Queens and in especial for the Souls of them that have been Kings of this Realm of England and for all those Souls that to this Church have given Book Bell Chalice or Vestment or any other thing by the which the Service of God is better done and Holy Church worshipped Ye shall also pray for your Father's Soul for your Mother's Soul for your God-fathers Souls for your God-mothers Souls for your Brethren and Sisters Souls and for your Kindreds Souls and for your Friends Souls and for all the Souls we be bound to pray for and for all the Souls that be in the Pains of Purgatory there abiding the Mercy of Almighty God and in especial for them that have most need and least help that God of his endless Mercy lessen and minish their Pains by the means of our Prayers and bring them to his Everlasting Bliss in Heaven And also of the Soul N. or of them that upon such a day this Week we shall have the Anniversary and for all Christian Souls ye shall devoutly say a Pater Noster and Ave Maria Psalmus de profundis c. with this Collect Oremus Absolve quaesumus Domine animas famulorum tuorum Pontificum Regum Sacerdotum Parentum Parochianorum Amicorum Benefactorum Nostrorum omnium fidelum defunctorum ab omni vinculo delictorum ut in Resurrectionis Gloria inter sanitos electos tuos resuscitati respirent per Iesum Christum Dominum nostrum Amen Number 9. Bishop Tonstall's Letter proving the Subjection of Scotland to England An Original Cotton Libr. Caligula B. 7 PLease it your Grace my Lord Protector and you right hounourable Lords of the King's Majestys Council to understand that I have received your Letter of the 4th of this month by which ye will me to search all mine old Registers and ancient Places to be sought where any thing may be found for the more clear declaration to the World of the King's Majestys Title to the Realm of Scotland and to advertise you with speed accordingly And also to signify unto you what ancient Charters and Monuments for that purpose I have seen and where the same are to be sought for According unto which your Letters I have sought with all diligence all mine old Registers making mention of the Superiorities of the Kings of England to the Realm of Scotland and have found in the same of many Homages made by the Kings of Scots to the Kings of England as shall appear by the Copies which I do send to your Grace and to your Lordships herewith Ye shall also find in the said Copies the Gift of the Barony of Coldingham made to the Church of Duresm by Edgar the King of Scots which Original Gift is under Seal which I shewed once to my Lord Maxwell at Duresm in the presence of you my Lord Protector I find also a confirmation of the same Gift by King William Rufus in an old Register but not under Seal the Copy whereof is sent herewith The Homages of Kings of Scotland which I have found in the Registers I have sent in this Copy I send also herewith the Copy of a Grant made by King Richard the First unto William King of Scots and his Heirs How as oft as he is summoned to come to the Parliament
never defame them so much to be seen to fear it And of what strength an Act of Parliament is the Realm was taught in the case of her that we called Queen Ann where all such as spake against her in the Parliament-House although they did it by special Commandment of the King and spake that was truth yet they were fain to have a Pardon because that speaking was against an Act of Parliament Did you never know or here tell of any Man that for doing that the King our late Soveraign Lord willed devised and required to be done He that took pains and was commanded to do it was fain to sue for his Pardon and such other also as were doers in it and I could tell who it were Sure there hath been such a Case and I have been present when it hath been reasoned That the doing against an Act of Parliament excuseth not a Man even from the Case of Treason although a Man did it by the King's Commandment You can tell this to your remembrance when you think further of it and when it cometh to your remembrance you will not be best content with your self I believe to have advised me to enter the breach of an Act of Parliament without surety of Pardon although the King command it and were such indeed as it were no matter to do it at all And thus I answer the Letters with worldly civil Reasons and take your Mind and Zeal towards me to be as tender as may be and yet you see that the following of your Advice might make me lose my Bishoprick by mine own Act which I am sure you would I should keep and so would I as might stand with my Truth and Honesty and none otherwise as knoweth God who send you heartily well to fare Number 14. The Conclusion of Gardiner's Letter to the Protector against the lawfulness of the Injunctions Cotton Libr. Vesp D. 18. VVHether the King may command against the Common Law or an Act of Parliament there is never a Judg or other Man in the Realm ought to know more by experience of that the Lawyers have said than I. First My Lord Cardinal had obtained his Legacy by our late Soveraign Lord's Request at Rome yet being it was against the Laws of the Realm the Judges censured the Offence of Premunire which Matter I bore away and take it for a Law of the Realm because the Lawyers said so but my Reason digested it not The Lawyers for the confirmation of their Doings brought in a Case of my Lord Typtest an Earl he was and learned in Civil Laws who being Chancellor because in execution of the King's Commission he offended the Laws of the Realm he suffered on Tower-Hill they brought in the Examples of many Judges that had Fines set on their Heads in like case for transgression of the Laws by the King's Commandment and this I learned in this Case Since that time being of the Council when many Proclamations were devised against the Carriers out of Corn when it came to punishing the Offenders the Judges would answer it might not be by the Laws because the Act of Parliament gave liberty Wheat being under a price Whereupon at the last followed the Act of Proclamations in the passing whereof were many large words When the Bishop of Exeter and his Chancellor were by one Body brought into a Premunire I reasoned with the Lord Audley then Chancellor so far as he bad me hold my peace for fear of entring a Premunire my self But I concluded that although I must take it as of their Authority that it is Common Law yet I could not see how a Man authorised by the King as since the King's Majesty hath taken upon him the Supremacy every Bishop is that Man could fall in a Premunire I reasoned once in the Parliament House where was free Speech without danger and there the Lord Audley Chancellor then to satisfie me because I was in some secret estimation as he knew Thou art a good Fellow Bishop quoth he look the Act of the Supremacy and there the King's doings be restrained to Spiritual Jurisdiction And in an other Act No Spiritual Law shall have place contrary to a Common Law or an Act of Parliament And if this were not quoth he the Bishops would enter in with the King and by means of his Supremacy order the Law as you listed but we will provide quoth he that the Premunire shall never go off your Heads This I bare away there and held my peace Since that time in a Case of Jewels I was fain with the Emperor's Ambassador Chapinius when he was here and in the Emperor's Court also to defend and maintain by Commandment that the King's Majesty was not above his Laws and therefore the Jeweller although he had the King's Bill signed yet it would not serve because it was not obtained after the Order of the Law in which Matter I was very much troubled Even this time twelve-month when I was in Commission with my Lord great Master and the Earl of Southampton for the altering of the Court of Augmentations there was my Lord Montague and other of the King 's Learned Council of whom I learned what the King might do against an Act of Parliament and what danger it was to them that medled It is fresh in my Memory and they can tell whether I say true or no and therefore being learned in so notable Causes I wrote in your absence therein as I had learned by hearing the Common Lawyers speak whose Judgments rule these Matters howsoever my reason can digest them When I wrote thereof the Matter was so reasonable as I have been learned by the Lawyers of the Realm that I trusted my Lords would have staied till your Graces return Number 15. A Letter from the Duke of Somerset to the Lady Mary in the beginning of King Edward's Reign Madam my humble Commendations to your Grace premised THese may be to signify unto the same Cotton Libr. Faustin C. 2. that I have received your Letters of the second of this present by Jane your Servant reknowledging my self thereby much bound unto your Grace nevertheless I am very sorry to perceive that your Grace should have or conceive any sinister or wrong Opinion in me and others which were by the King your late Father and our most gracious Master put in trust as Executors of his Will albeit the truth of our doings being known to your Grace as it seemeth by your said Letter not to be I trust there shall be no such fault found in us as in the same your Grace hath alleadged and for my part I know none of us that will willingly neglect the full execution of every Jot of his said Will as far as shall and may stand with the King our Master's Honour and Surety that now is otherwise I am sure that your Grace nor none other his Faithful Subjects would have it take place not doubting but our Doings and
you shall find any Person stubborn or disobedient in not bringing in the said Books according to the tenour of these our Letters that then ye commit the said Person to Ward unto such time as you have certified us of his misbehaviour And we will and command you that you also search or cause search to be made from time to time whether any Book be withdrawn or hid contrary to the tenour of these our Letters and the same Book to receive into your Hands and to use all in these our Letters we have appointed And further whereas it is come unto our knowledg that divers froward and obstinate Persons do refuse to pay towards the finding of Bread and Wine for the Holy Communion according to the Order prescribed in the said Book by reason whereof the Holy Communion is many times omitted upon the Sunday These are to will and command you to convent such obstinate Persons before you and then to admonish and command to keep the Order prescribed in the said Book and if any shall refuse so to do to punish them by Suspension Excommunication or other Censures of the Church Fail you not thus to do as you will avoid our Displeasure Westminst Decemb. 25. Regni tertio Thom. Cantuarien Rich. Chanc. Will. St. John J. Russel H. Dorset W. Northampton Number 48. Cardinal Woolsey's Letters to Rome for procuring the Popedom to himself upon Pope Adrian's death Ex MS. Col. Cor. C. Cant. MY Lord of Bath Mr. Secretary and Mr. Hannibal I commend me unto you in my right hearty manner letting you wit That by Letters lately sent unto me from you my Lord of Bath and Mr. Hannibal dated at Rome the 14th day of September Which Letters I incontinently shewed unto the King's Grace his Highness And I have been advertised to our great discomfort That the said 14th day it pleased Almighty God to call the Pope's Holiness unto his Infinite Mercy whose Soul Jesu pardon News certainly unto the King's Grace and to me right heavy and for the universal weal or quiet of Christendom whereunto his Holiness like a devout and virtuous Father of Holy Church was very studious much displeasant and contrarious Nevertheless conforming our selves to the Pleasure of Almighty God to whose Calling we all must be obedient the Mind and Intention of the King's Highness and of me both is to put some helps and furtherances as much as conveniently may be that such a Successor unto him may now by the Holy College of Cardinals be named and elected as may with God's Grace perform atchieve and fulfil the good and vertuous Purposes and Intents concerning the Pacification of Christendom whereunto our said late Holy Father as much as the brevity of the time did suffer was as it should seem minded and inclined which thing how necessary it is to the state of Christs Religion now daily more and more declining it is facil and easie to be consider'd and surely amongst other Christian Princes there is none which as ye heretofore have perfectly understood that to this purpose more dedicated themselves to give Furtherance Advice and Counsel than the Emperor and the King's Grace who as well before the time of the last Vacation as sithence by Mouth and by Letters with Report of Ambassadors and otherwise had many sundry Conferences Communications and Devices in that behalf In which it hath pleased them far above my merits or deserts of their goodness to think judg and esteem me to be meet and able for to aspire unto that Dignity persuading exhorting and desiring me that whensoever opportunity should be given I should hearken to their Advice Counsel and Opinion in that behalf and offering unto me to interpone their Authorities Helps and Furtherances therein to the uttermost In comprobation whereof albeit the Emperor now being far distant from these Parts could not nor might in so brief time give unto the King's Grace new or fresh confirmation of his Purpose Desire and Intent herein Yet nevertheless my Lady Margaret knowing the inclination of his mind in this same hath by a long discourse made unto me semblable Exhortation offering as well on the Emperor's behalf as on her own that as much shall by them be done to the furtherance thereof as may be possible Besides this both by your Letters and also by particular most loving Letters of the Cardinal 's de Medicis Sanctorum Quatuor Campegius with credence show'd unto me on their behalf by their Folks here resident I perceive their good and fast minds which they and divers other their Friends owe unto me in that matter And finally the King's Highness doth not cease by all the gracious and comfortable means possible to insist that I for manifold notable urgent and great respects in any wise shall consent that his Grace and the Emperor do set forth the thing with their best manner The Circumstances of whose most entire and most firm mind thereunto with their bounteous godly and beneficial Offers for the Weal of Christendom which his Grace maketh to me herein is too long to rehearse For which Causes albeit I know my self far unmeet and unable to so high a Dignity minding rather to live and die with his Grace in this his Realm doing Honour Service Good or Pleasure to the same than now mine old days approaching to enter into new things yet nevertheless for the great zeal and perfect mind which I have to the exaltation of the Christian Faith the honour weal and surety of the King's Grace and the Emperor and to do my Duty both to Almighty God and to the World I referring every thing to God's disposition and pleasure shall not pretermit to declare unto you such things as the King's Highness hath specially willed me to signify unto you on his Grace's behalf who most effectually willeth and desireth you to set forth the same omitting nothing that may be to the furtherance thereof as his special trust is in you First Ye shall understand that the mind and entire desire of his Highness above all earthly things is That I should attain to the said Dignity having his perfect and firm hope that of the same shall ensue and that in brief time a general and universal Repose Tranquillity and Quietness in Christendom and as great Renown Honour Profit and Reputation to this Realm as ever was besides the singular comfort and rejoice that the King's Grace with all his Friends and Subjects should take thereof who might be well assured thereby to compone and order their great Causes and Affairs to their high Benefit Commodity and most Advantage For this and other great and urgent Causes the Pleasure of his Highness is That like-as ye my Lord of Bath and Mr. Hannibal have right prudently and discreetly begun so ye all or as many of you as be present in the Court of Rome and continue your Practices Overtures Motions and Labours to bring and conduce this the King 's inward Desire to perfect end
King Edward the 6th by the same Act limited and appointed to remain to the Lady Mary his eldest Daughter and to the Heirs of her Body lawfully begotten And for default of such Issue the Remainder thereof to the Lady Elizabeth by the Name of the Lady Elizabeth his second Daughter and to the Heirs of her Body lawfully begotten with such Conditions as should be limited and appointed by the said late King of worthy memory King Henry the 8th our Progenitor our Great Uncle by his Letters Patents under his Great Seal or by his last Will in writing signed with his Hand And forasmuch as the said Limitation of the Imperial Crown of this Realm being limited as is afore-said to the said Lady Mary and Lady Elizabeth being illegitimate and not lawfully begotten for that the Marriage had between â—he said late King King Henry the 8th our Progenitor and Great Uncle and the Lady Katherine Mother to the said Lady Mary and also the Marriage had between the said late King King Henry the 8th our Progenitor and Great Uncle and the Lady Ann Mother to the said Lady Elizabeth were clearly and lawfully undone by Sentences of Divorce according to the Word of God and the Ecclesiastical Laws and which said several Divorcements have been severally ratified and confirmed by Authority of Parliament and especially in the 28th Year of the Reign of King Henry the 8th our said Progenitor and Great Uncle remaining in force strength and effect whereby as well the said Lady Mary as also the said Lady Elizabeth to all intents and purposes are and been clearly disabled to ask claim or challenge the said Imperial Crown or any other of the Honours Castles Manours Lordships Lands Tenements or other Hereditaments as Heir or Heirs to our said late Cousin King Edward the 6th or as Heir or Heirs to any other Person or Persons whatsoever as well for the Cause before rehearsed as also for that the said Lady Mary and Lady Elizabeth were unto our said late Cousin but of the half Blood and therefore by the Ancient Laws Statutes and Customs of this Realm be not inheritable unto our said late Cousin although they had been born in lawful Matrimony as indeed they were not as by the said Sentences of Divorce and the said Statute of the 28th Year of the Reign of King Henry the 8th our said Progeâ—â—â—or and Great Uncle plainly appeareth And forasmuch also as it is to be thought or at the least much to be doubted that if the said Lady Mary or Lady Elizabeth should hereafter have or enjoy the said Imperial Crown of this Realm and should then happen to marry with any Stranger born out of this Realm that then the said Stranger having the Government and Imperial Crown in his Hands would adhere and practise not only to bring this Noble Free Realm into the Tyranny and Servitude of the Bishops of Rome but also to have the Laws and Customs of his or their own Native Country or Countries to be practised and put in ure within this Realm rather than the Laws Statutes and Customs here of long time used whereupon the Title of Inheritance of all and singular the Subjects of this Realm do depend to the peril of Conscience and the uttersubversion of the Common-Weal of this Realm Whereupon our said late dear Cousin weighing and considering within himself which ways and means were most convenient to be had for the stay of the said Succession in the said Imperial Crown if it should please God to call our said late Cousin out of this transitory Life having no Issue of his Body And calling to his remembrance that We and the Lady Katharine and the Lady Mary our Sisters being the Daughters of the Lady Frances our natural Mother and then and yet Wife to our natural and most loving Father Henry Duke of Suffolk and the Lady Margaret Daughter of the Lady Elianor then deceased Sister to the said Lady Frances and the late Wife of our Cousin Henry Earl of Cumberland were very nigh of his Graces Blood of the part of his Fathers side our said Progenitor and great Uncle and being naturally born here within the Realm And for the very good Opinion our said late Cousin had of our said Sisters and Cousin Margarets good Education did therefore upon good deliberation and advice herein had and taken by his said Letters Patents declare order assign limit and appoint that if it should fortune himself our said late Cousin King Edward the Sixth to decease having no Issue of his Body lawfully begotten that then the said Imperial Crown of England and Ireland and the Confines of the same and his Title to the Crown of the Realm of France and all and singular Honours Castles Prerogatives Privileges Preheminencies and Authorities Jurisdictions Dominions Possessions and Hereditaments to our said late Cousin K. Edward the Sixth or to the said Imperial Crown belonging or in any wise appertaining should for lack of such Issue of his Body remain come and be to the eldest Son of the Body of the said Lady Frances lawfully begotten being born into the World in his Life-time and to the Heirs Males of the Body of such eldest Son lawfully begotten and so from Son to Son as he should be of vicinity of Birth of the Body of the said Lady Frances lawfully begotten being born into the World in our said late Cousins Life-time and to the Heirs Male of the Body of every such Son lawfully begotten And for default of such Son born into the World in his life-time of the Body of the said Lady Frances lawfully begotten and for lack of Heirs Males of every such Son lawfully begotten that then the said Imperial Crown and all and singular other the Premises should remain come and be to us by the Name of the Lady Jane eldest Daughter of the said Lady Frances and to the Heirs Males of our Body lawfully begotten and for lack of such Issue then to the Lady Katherine aforesaid our said second Sister and the Heirs Male of her Body lawfully begotten with divers other Remainders as by the same Letters Patents more plainly and at large it may and doth appear Sithence the making of our Letters Patents that is to say on Thursday which was the 6th day of this instant Month of July it hath pleased God to call unto his infinite Mercy our said most dear and entirely beloved Cousin Edward the Sixth whose Soul God pardon and forasmuch as he is now deceased having no Heirs of his Body begotten and that also there remaineth at this present time no Heirs lawfully begotten of the Body of our said Progenitor and great Uncle King Henry the Eighth And forasmuch also as the said Lady Frances our said Mother had no Issue Male begotten of her Body and born into the World in the life-time of our said Cousin King Edward the Sixth so as the said Imperial Crown and other the Premises to the same belonging or in any wise appertaining
concerning the Corporal Presence They were so couragious that as soon as any Change was made they all complied most obsequiously to it as will appear both by Oglethorp and Smith's Submissions But while the Changes were under consultation they seeing it could bring them into no trouble were very stout but as soon as they were to loose or suffer any thing for their Consciences then they grew as tractable as could be In such a Zeal let him glory as much as he will 39. He says Ibid. Smith did often challenge Peter Martyr to a publick Dispute at Oxford but he declined it till Dr. Cox a Man of a lewd Life was sent to moderate in the Dispute and till Dr. Smith was banished the University Smith did once challenge Peter Martyr to a Dispute to which he presently consented upon two Conditions the one was that a License should first be obtained of the King and Council and Delegates be appointed by them to make a just Report of the Dispute the other was That it should be managed in the Terms of Scripture and not in the School Terms They were both more proper for Matters of Divinity and more easily understood by all People Upon this the Council sent down Delegates and then Smith who intended only to raise a tumult in the Schools withdrew himself and fled beyond Sea but was never banished His calling Dr. Cox a Man of a lewd Life is one of the Flowers he stuck in to adorn the rest All the Writers of that Age make honourable mention of him He was first set about this King by his Father and continued with him in all the turns of Affairs and did so faithfully discharge that high Trust that it appears he must have been a very extraordinary Man This was so well known to the whole Nation that in the beginning of Queen Mary's Reign he met with more than ordinary Favour This considering the hatred which the Popish Party bore him is a clear evidence of his great Worth and that they were afraid to be severe to a Man so universally esteemed Ibid. 40. He says Cox saw he was so much pressed by the Doctors that disputed with him and the Hearers did so hiss him down that he broke off the Dispute giving Peter Martyr a high commendation for his Learning and exhorting the rest to live peaceably Peter Martyr afterwards printed the Disputation falsly but by the Judgment of the University he was doubly bafled both that he refused to dispute with Smith and that he did acquit himself so ill with those Doctors that disputed with him It is probable the Hearers might have been set on to hiss but the printed Disputation will decide this Matter and shew who argued both more nervously and more ingenuously We have no reason to believe it was falsly printed unless we will take it on this Author's word for I do not find the Popish Doctors did either at this Time or afterwards in Queen Mary's Reign when the Presses were all in their hands publish any thing to the contrary of what P. Martyr printed so that he neither refused to dispute with Smith nor was he baffled by those that undertook it Smith fled and the rest were clearly worsted And for the University there was no Judgment passed by them unless he means the Rudeness and Clamours of some that might be set on to it Pag. 211. 41. He says The Dispute with Bucer at Cambridg had the same effect It had so indeed the printed Relation shews the weakness and disingenuity of the Popish Disputants and that was never contradicted Ibid. 42. He gives account of many other Disputes and of Gardiner's Book under the name of Marcus Constantius which he says was a full confutation of all the Books then written for the contrary Opinion He also mentions the Sermons and Imprisonment of Crispine Moreman Cole Seaton and Watson These other Disputes could be no more than private Conferences but I can give no account of these having met with them in none of the Writers of that Time As for Gardiner's Book such as will compare it with Cranmer's Book which it pretends to answer will soon see in it the difference between plain simple Reasoning on the one side and sophistical Cavilling on the other But for the Sufferings of that Party there is no great reason to boast of them for they universally complied with every thing that was commanded even the Lady Mary's Chaplains did it in the Churches where they were beneficed Nor do I find any one Man turned out of his Cure for refusing to Conform but it was found some of these did privately say Mass either in the Lady Mary's Chappel or in private Houses and did secretly act against what they openly professed and it was no wonder if such Dissemblers were more severely handled But there was no Blood shed in the Quarrel so that if the Popish Party made such ressistance as our Author pretends they did it very much commends the gentleness of the Government at that Time since they were so mercifully handled It was far otherwise in Queen Mary's Time 43. He runs out in a Discourse of the Sufferings of his Party Pag. 212. of their Zeal and Constancy and particularly mentions Story who he says suffered Martyrdom under Queen Elizabeth He had said in the Parliament Wo to thee O Land whose King is a Child and this drew so much hatred on him that he was forced to fly out of England What the Zeal and Constancy of the Party was may be gathered from what has been already said This Story did say these words in the House of Commons and was by Order of the House sent to the Tower for though it was a Text of Scripture that he cited yet the Application carried with it so high a reflection on the Government that it well deserved such a censure but upon his Submission the House of Commons sent an Address to the Protector that he and the Council would forgive him which was done and he was again admitted to the House so that he was not forced on this Account to fly out of England And for his Martyrdom under Queen Elizabeth the Record of his Trial shews the ground of that Sentence He had endeavoured all he could to set on many in Queen Mary's Time to advise the cutting off Queen Elizabeth His ordinary Phrase was It was a foolish thing to cut off the Branches of Heresy and not to pluck it up by the Root He knowing how faulty he had been fled over to Flanders in the beginning of her Reign and when the Duke of Alva was Governor there he pressed him much to invade England and gave him a Map of some of the Roads and Harbours with a Scheme of the way of conquering the Nation He had also consulted with Magicians concerning the Queen's Life and used always to curse the Queen when he said Grace after Meat These things being known in England some got
Objection of great force from the Acts pass'd in the 21st Year of Richard the second 's Reign In the second Act of that Parliament it is said That it was first prayed by the Commons and that the Lords Spiritual and the Proctors of the Clergy did assent to it upon which the King by the assent of all the Lords and Commons did enact it The 12th Act of that Parliament was a Repeal of the whole Parliament that was held in the 11th Year of that Reign and concerning it it is expressed That the Lords Spiritual and Temporal the Proctors of the Clergy and the Commons being severally examined did all agree to it From hence it appears that these Proctors were then not only a part of the Parliament but were a distinct Body of Men that did severally from all the rest deliver their Opinions It may seem strange that if they were then considered as a part of either House of Parliament this should be the only time in which they should be mentioned as bearing their share in the Legislative Power In a matter that is so perplexed and dark I shall presume to offer a Conjecture which will not appear perhaps improbable In the 129th Page of the former part I gave the Reasons that made me think the lower House of Convocation consisted at first only of the Proctors of the Clergy So that by the Proctors of the Clergy both in the Statute of Ireland and in those made by Richard the second is perhaps to be understood the lower House of Convocation and it is not unreasonable to think that upon so great an occasion as the annulling a whole Parliament to make it pass the better in an Age in which the People payed so blind a Submission to the Clergy the concurrence of the whole Representative of the Church might have been thought necessary It is generally believed that the whole Parliament sate together in one House before Edward the thirds time and then the Inferior Clergy were a part of that Body without question But when the Lords and Commons sate a-part the Clergy likewise sate in two Houses and granted Subsidies as well as the Temporalty It may pass for no unlikely conjecture that the Clause Premonentes was first put in the Bishops Writ for the summoning of the lower House of Convocation consisting of these Proctors and afterwards though there was a special Writ for the Convocation yet this might at first have been continued in the Bishops Writ by the neglect of a Clark and from thence be still used So that it seems to me most probable that the Proctors of the Clergy were both in England and Ireland the lower House of Convocation Now before the Submission which the Clergy made to King Henry as the Convocation gave the King great Subsidies so the whole business of Religion lay within their Sphere But after the Submission they were cut off from medling with it except as they were authorized by the King So that having now so little power left them it is no wonder they desired to be put in the state they had been in before the Convocation was separated from the Parliament or at least that Matters of Religion should not be determined till they had been consulted and had reported their Opinions and Reasons The Extreme of raising the Ecclesiastical Power too high in the Times of Popery had now produced another of depressing it too much For seldom is the Counterpoise so justly ballanced that Extremes are reduced to a well-tempered Mediocrity For the third Petition it was resolved that many Bishops and Divines should be sent to Windsor to labour in the Matter of the Church-Service But that required so much consideration that they could not enter on it during a Session of Parliament And for the fourth what Answer was given to it doth not appear On the 29th of November a Declaration was sent down from the Bishops concerning the Sacraments being to be received in both kinds To which Jo. Tyler the Prolocutor and several others set their Hands and being again brought before them it was agreed to by all without a contradictory Vote 64 being present among whom I find Polidore Virgil was one And on the 17th of December the Proposition concerning the Marriage of the Clergy was also sent to them and subscribed by 35 affirmatively and by 14 negatively so it was ordered that a Bill should be drawn concerning it I shall not here digress to give an account of what was alledged for or against this reserving that to its proper place when the thing was finally setled And this is all the account I could recover of this Convocation I have chiefly gathered it from some Notes and other Papers of the then Dr. Parker afterwards Arch-bishop of Canterbury which are carefully preserved with his other MSS. in Corpus Christi Colledge Library at Cambridge To which Library I had free access by the favour of the most learned Master Dr. Spencer with the other Worthy Fellows of that House and from thence I collected many remarkable things in this History The Parliament being brought to so good a Conclusion the Protector took out a new Commission in which all the Addition that is made to that Authority he formerly had is that in his absence he is empow'red to substitute another to whom he might delegate his Power The state of Affairs in Germany And thus this Year ended in England but as they were carrying on the Reformation here it was declining apace in Germany The Duke of Saxe and the Landgrave were this Year to command their Armies apart The Duke of Saxe kept within his own Country but having there unfortunately divided his Forces the Emperor overtook him near the Alb at Mulberg where the Emperors Soldiers crossing the River and pursuing him with great fury after some resistance in which he himself performed all that could be expected from so great a Captain was taken Prisoner 1547. Apr. 24. Duke of Saxe taken and his Country all possessed by Maurice who was now to be invested with the Electoral Dignity He bore his misfortunes with a greatness and equality of mind that is scarce to be parallel'd in History Neither could the insolence with which the Emperor treated him nor the fears of death to which he adjudged him nor that tedious imprisonment which he suffered so long ever shake or disorder a Mind that was raised so far above the inconstancies of Humane Affairs And though he was forced to submit to the hardest Conditions possible of renouncing his Dignity and Dominions some few Places being only reserved for his Family yet no Entreaties nor Fears could ever bring him to yield any thing in Matters of Religion He made the Bible his chief Companion and Comfort in his sharp Afflictions which he bore so as if he had been raised up to that end to let the World see how much he was above it It seemed unimitable and therefore engaged Thuanus with the other
excellent Writers of that Age to set it out with all the advantages that so unusual a temper of mind deserved Yet had those Writers lived in our Age and seen a great King not overpow'red by a Superior Prince but by the meanest of his own People and treated with equal degrees of malice and scorn and at last put to death openly with the Pageantry of Justice and yet bearing all this with such invincible Patience Heroical Courage and most Christian Submission to God they had yet found a nobler Subject for their Eloquent Pens but he saved the World the labour of giving a just Representation of his behaviour in his Sufferings having left his own Portraiture drawn by himself in such lively and lasting Colours The Landgrave of Hesse saw he could not long withstand the Emperors Army now so lifted up with success and therefore was willing to submit to him on the best terms that his Sons-in-law the Elector of Brandenburg and Maurice of Saxe could obtain for him Which were very hard only he was to enjoy his Liberty without any Imprisonment and to preserve his Dominions But the Emperors Ministers dealt most unfaithfully with him in this For in the German Language there was but one Letters difference and that only inverted between perpetual Imprisonment and any Imprisonment Ewig for Emig so by this base Artifice he was when he came and submitted to the Emperor detained a Prisoner He had not the Duke of Saxes temper but was out of measure impatient and did exclaim of his ill usage but there was no remedy for the Emperor was now absolute All the Towns of Germany Magdeburg and Breme only excepted submitted to him and redeem'd his favour by great Sums of Money and many Pieces of Ordnance And the Bohemians were also forced to implore his Brothers mercy who before he would receive them into his Hands got his Revenue to be raised vastly And now the Empire was wholly at the Emperors mercy Nothing could withstand him who had in one year turned out two Electors 1546. Apr 16. Herman excommunicated at Rome For Herman Bishop of Colen as he was before condemned by the Pope so was also degraded from that Dignity by the Emperor and Adolph whom he had procured to be made his Coadjutor was declared Elector Many of his Subjects and Neighbour Princes offered their Service if he would stand to his own defence but he was very old and of so meek a temper that he would suffer no Blood to be shed on his account and therefore withdrew peaceably to a retirement in which he lived four years till his death His Brother that was Bishop of Munster and Dean of Bonne Nov. 4. Herman resigned who had gone along with him in his Reformation was also turned out and Gropper was made Dean who was esteemed one of the learnedest and best Men of the Clergy at this time He is said to have expressed a generous contempt of the highest Dignity the See of Rome could bestow on him for he refused a Cardinals Hat when it was offered him yet in this matter he had not behaved himself as became so good a Man and so Learned a Divine For he had consented to the Changes had been made and was in a correspondence with Martin Bucer whom Herman brought to Colen as will appear by an excellent Letter of Bucers to him Number 19. which will be found in the Collection concerning that matter by which it is plain he went along with them from the beginning But it seems he did it covertly and fearfully and was afterwards drawn off either by the love of the World or the fears of the Cross of which it appears Bucer had then some apprehensions though he expressed them very modestly Groppers Memory being in such high esteem and this Letter being found among Bucers Papers I thought the publishing of it would not be unacceptable though it be of a Forreign Matter Germany being thus under the Power and Dread of the Emperor a Diet was summoned to Ausburg Where the chief Church was taken from the Protestants and put into the Cardinal of Ausburg's Hands to have the Mass set up again in it though the Town was so much Protestant that they could find none that would come to it but some poor People who were hired The Emperor among other Propositions he put in to the Diet pressed this That all differences in Religion which had so distracted Germany might be removed The Ecclesiastical Princes answered That the only way to effect that was to submit to the General Council that was at Trent Those that were for the Ausburg Confession said they could submit to no Council where the Pope Presided and where the Bishops were sworn to obey him but would submit to it if that Oath was dispensed with and their Divines admitted to defend their Opinions and all the Decrees that had been made were again considered In this difference of Opinion the Emperor thought that if the whole matter should be left to his discretion to which all should be bound to submit he would then be able to determine it as he pleased So he dealt privately with the Electors Palatine and Saxe and as they published it afterwards gave them secret assurances about the freedom of their Religion and that he only desired this to put him in a capacity of dealing on other terms with the Pope Upon which they consented to a Decree referring the Matter of Religion wholly to his care But the Deputies from the Cities who looked on this as a giving up of their Religion could not be wrought to do it without Conditions which they put into another Writing as explanatory of the Submission But the Emperor took no notice of that and only thanked them for their confidence in him and so the Decree was published All this was in some sort necessary for the Emperor who was then in very ill terms with the Pope about the business of Placenzia 1547. Sept. 10. Petrus Aloisius killed For the Popes Natural Son Petrus Aloisius being killed by a Conspiracy the Governour of Millain had seized on Placenzia which made the Pope believe the Emperour was accessary to it for which the Reader is referred to the Italian Historians The Pope saw the Emperor in one Summer delivered of a War which he had hoped would have entangled him his whole life and though in decency he could not but seem to rejoyce and did so no doubt at the ruine of those whom he called Hereticks yet he was not a little grieved to see the Emperor so much exalted The Proceedings at Trent At Trent the Legates had been oft threatned and affronted by the Emperors Ambassadors and Bishops who were much set on reforming abuses and lessening the Power of the See of Rome So they had a mind to break up the Council but that would have been so scandalous a thing and so resented by the Emperor that they resolved rather on a