excepting those that were Conventual and thereupon Summons was given to all the said Priors to appear on the Octaves of St. Hillary at Westminster and to bring with them all their Charters and Evidences whereby the King and his Council might be satisfied whether they had been Priories Conventual time out of mind or not But notwithstanding this Act and that the former seisures had been made upon this ground that by transportation of the revenues belonging to these English Cells to those Houses in France whereunto many of them belonged and were subordinate the King's Enemies at such times as he had warrs with the French were assisted in the Parl. held at Leic. An. 2 Henry the fifth it being considered that though a final peace might afterwards be made between England and France yet the carrying over such great summs of money yearly to those forraign Monasteries would be much prejudicial to this Kingdom and the People thereof there was an Act then made that all the possessions in England belonging to the said Priories-Alien should thenceforth remain to the King his Heirs and Successors for ever excepting such whereof special declaration was then made to the Contrary Rot. Parl. 2 Hen. 5. nu 9. Al intent sayes the Act que divine Services en les lieux avantdictz purront pluis duement estre fait per genti Anglois en temps avenir que n'ount este fait devant cest heurs en icelles per gents Francois c. intimating the mis-imployment of the same And so from thenceforth our Kings disposed of these Priories-Alien and all their revenues arising hence in such manner as they thought most conducible to the good and ease of themselves and the People Which Act of State proved a Praeludium to the dissolution which befel the intire English Monasteries in the raign of King Henry the eighth CHAP. XVIII Knights Templars and Hospitallers THE Orders of the Knights Templars and Hospitallers were also possessed of large revenues and lands here a great part of the profits whereof was transported away and spent out of the Kingdom For the Original Rule and nature of these Orders several have collected and exhibited them particularly Mr. Dugdale W. Dâ—gd Hist of Warw. fo 704 An. 1 Ed. 2. to whom those that would be satisfied therein are referred For our purpose let it be sufficient to note That in the year 1307. by the King 's special command Hen. d'Knighton coll 2531 and a Bull from the Pope the Templars were generally throughout the Kingdom laid hold on and cast into prison and all their possessions seised into the King's hands Th. Walsingh Hist fo 73. An. D. 1311. The crimes objected against them were very hainous contain'd in divers Articles but whether true or false we will not now examine And it was not long after that the whole Order was condemned and suppress'd in a General Council at Vienna under Pope Clement the fifth and their possessions given to the Knights Hospitallers who injoyed the same here till the 32. year of King Hen. Stat. 32 H. 8â— cap. 24. 8. when an Act of Parliament was made reciting That divers of the King's subjects called Knights of St. John of Jerusalem abiding beyond the Sea receiving yearly out of this Realm great summs of money have unnaturally and contrary to the duty of their allegiances substained and maintained the usurped power and authority of the Bishop of Rome lately used and practised within this Realm he the said Bishop being common Enemy to the King our Soveraign Lord and this his Realm and considering that it were better that the possessions in this Realm belonging to such as adhered to the Bishop of Rome should be imploy'd and spent within this Realm for the defence of the same than converted to and amongst such unnatural subjects c. It was enacted That the said Corporation of Knights Hospitallers within his Majesties Dominions should be utterly dissolved and that the King his Heirs c. should have all their Mannors Lands c. And so the Kingdom was freed of that mischief which their transporting so much money yearly out of it had occasioned Queen Mary a Princess more zealous than wise or politick made some attempt to restore the Convents dissolved by her Father Sand. de Schism lib. 2. fo 30â— and Brother particularly re-instating the Benedictines at Westminster The Carthusians at Shone The Brigetteans at Sion The Dominicans at Smithfield in London A sort of Franciscans heretofore zealous for the legality of her Mother's marriage at Greenwich And the Hospitallers of St. John's of Jerusalem in Clarkenwell But her example was not followed by any of the Nobility or others who had incorporated any of the Abby Lands into their estates but the Queen restored only what remained in the Crown un-aliened from the same But yet such a beginning of hers gave a shrewd alarme to all the rest that they should be attaqued in convenient time with some Acts of resumption which would compel them to refund and that the rather because Cardinal Pool in that Act in this Queen's raign to secure the Abby Lands to the then Owners without a formal passing whereof to quiet at present so many persons concerned Popery would not so easily have bin restored at that time would not absolve their consciences from restitution but only made as it were a temporary palliate cure the Church of Rome but suspending that power which in due time was to be put in execution But for our Hospitallers as I said before they were with some others restored and placed in their shatter'd mansion in Clarkenwell Stow. Survey fo 483. Sir Thomas Tresham being made the Prior of the Order But the short raign of that Queen prevented further restitutions And Queen Elizabeth coming to the Crown permitted all things to remain for some time as she found them so that at her first Parliament she sent writs to the Lo. Prior Tresham and Abbot Fecknam to appear as Barons therein but they were scarce warm in their Seats but they with all the rest of the late restored Orders were once again dissolved and the Kingdom 's fears of refunding and resumption for that time cured with addition of hope never to be so frighted again As Allies and Successors to these Knights Templars and Hospitallers it will not be amiss something to note of the Knights of Malta How they were first expulsed out of the Holy Land and then out of Rhodes by the Turks how afterwards they seated at Nice and Syracuse successively and at last setled in the Island Malta where now they are we referr those that would be satisfied therein to the Historians and Travellers that have taken notice of them Gro. Sandies Trav. lib. 4. fo 229. Travels of Jo. Ray. fo 303. But we are informed by our late Travellers That now in the City of Valetta in Malta they have Alberges Halls or Seminaries of the eight several Nations of the Order
3. Cap. 1 2. Stat. 38 Ed. 3. Cap. 3. Stat. Statutes of Pâ—ovâ—sors and Preminire 16 Ric. 2. Cap. 5. Stat. 2 Hen. 4. Cap. 3. Stat. 6 Hen. 4. Cap. 1. Stat. 7 Hen. 7. Cap. 6. Stat. 3 Hen. 5. Cap. 4. Stat. 1 Hen. 7. Cap. 4. Stat. 24 Hen. 8. Cap. 12. Stat. 25 Hen. 8. Cap. 21. Stat. 1 Eliz. Cap. 1. c. By all which with the foregoing Resolutions and Presidents to which a multitude more to the same purpose might be added it doth appear clearly that long before the time of King Hen. 8. divers Statutes and Laws were made and declared against forrain incroachments upon the Rights of the Crown in this matter and those as sharp and severe as any Statutes for that purpose have been made in later times though then both King Lords and Commons that made those Laws and the Judges that did interpret them did for the most part follow the same Opinions in Religion which were held and taught in the Church of Rome And therefore those that will lay upon this Nation the imputation of Schism for denying the Pope's Supremacy here Vid. Case de Premunire in St. John Davys Rep. must charge it many Ages before the time of King Henry the eighth For the Kings Lords and Commons of this Realm have ever been most eminent for asserting their just Rights and Liberties disdaining to become a Tributary Province as it were to the See of Rome or part of St. Peter's earthly Patrimony in Demesn And the Faith and Loyalty of the English race hath bin generally such though true it is that every Age hath brought forth some singular monsters of disloyalty as no pretence of zeal or Religion could ever draw the greater part of the Subjects for to submit themselves to a forrain Yoke no not when Popery was in greatest height and exaltation of all which the aforesaid Statutes are manifest Evidences being generally made at the Prayer of the Commons as by their Preambles may appear most worthy to be read Particularly in the Preamble to the Statute of 16 Ric. 2. They complain Sta. 16 Ric. 2. cap. 5. That by Bulls and Processes from Rome the King is deprived of that Jurisdiction which belongs of right to his Imperial Crown That the King doth lose the service and Counsel of his Prelates and learned men by translations made by the Bishop of Rome That the King's Laws are defeated at his will the Treasure of the Realm is exhausted and exported to inrich his Court And that by those means the Crown of England which hath ever bin free and subject unto none but immediately unto God should be submitted unto the Bishop of Rome to the utter destruction of the King and the whole Realm which God defend say they and thereupon out of their zeal and loyalty they offer to live and dye with the King in defence of the liberties of the Crown And then they pray the King to examine all the Lords in Parliament what they thought of these wrongs and usurpations and whether they would stand with the King in defence of his Royal liberties which being done the Lords Spiritual and Temporal did all answer that these usurpations of the Bishop of Rome were against the liberties of the Crown and that they were all bound by their Allegiance to stand with the King and to maintain his Honour and Prerogative Upon producing and averrement of all this it is requisite some satisfaction be given about the conclusion that hapned so different to these premises For if the Kings and People of England have in all times been so sensible of and zealous for their just Rights how could the Roman Power in derogation of those Rights arrive to such a consistence and height as here it was for many years To this as to the means and manner of that acquist to keep within our Historical compass First let it be premised as undoubtedly true That before the time of the Norman Conquest the Bishops of Rome had very little or nothing to do here as well in matter of Fact as of Right For before that time the Pope's Writ did not run in England His Bulls of Excommunication and Provision came not hither no Citations or Appeals were made from hence to the Court of Rome Our Archbishops did not purchase their Palls there Neither had the Pope the Investiture of any of our Bishopricks And Ingulphus who lived in the Conquerours time a Favourite and one preferred by him thus informs Ingulph Hist fo 901. A multis namque annis retroactis nulla Electio Praelatorum erat libera mere Canonica sed omnes dignitates tam Episcoporum quam Abbatum per annulum baculum regis curia pro sua Complacentia conferebat For as it is observable that under the Temporal Empire of Rome Brittain was one of the last Provinces that was won and one of the first that was lost again So under the Spiritual Empire of the Pope England was one of the last Countrys of Christendom that received the Yoke and one of the first that cast it off But for our purpose that the Bishops of Rome had any Jurisdiction or Hierarchical Authority in the times of the Brittains Saxons or Danes there is an altum silentium in all our Histories and Records For the times of the Brittains Eleuth Epist Eleutherius Pope about 180 years after Christ writes to Lucius the Brittish King and stiles him God's Vicar within his own Kingdom and sure he would not have given that Title to the King if himself under pretence of being God's Vicar-General on Earth had claimed Jurisdiction over all Christian Kingdoms After that Beda Eccl. Hist Matt. Westm Polychron Fab. Huntingd. c. about the year 600. Austin the Monk was sent by Pope Gregory into England to convert the Saxons to the Christian Faith But the Brittish Bishops then residing in Wales gave no regard either to his Commission or his Doctrines as not owing any duty to or dependence upon Rome but still retained their Ceremonies and Traditions which they received from the East Church upon the first plantation of Christianity being both divers and contrary to those of the Church of Rome which Austin did indeavour to impose upon them Usser de Prim. Eccl. Brit. Then about the year 660 there is a famous disputation celebrated between one Colman and one Wilfrid touching the Observation of Easter wherein the Brittains differed from the practice of the Roman Church from which is plainly inferrable that the Authority of the Bishop of Rome was at that time of no estimation in this Island And that the Primitive Churches of Brittain were instituted according to the form of the East and not of the West Church Nay upon the first coming of Austin and his retinue into Brittain there was such a strangness and averseness to him that one Daganus a British Beda Eccl. Hist lib. 2. cap. 4 Spelm. Concil Tom. 1. fo 129.
the same to have been Infinite I shall therefore only profess to give you a Remembrance of some for a taste of all the rest Ex ungue Leonem c. And in pursuance of our purpose we will begin with the Peter-pence which at first though but a Donative or Alms as shall be presently shewed yet by the inference of a Right from Prescription of Time and the manner of exaction at last it became a burden and an incumbrance to the whole Nation and though this was but small in respect of other payments yet time swelled them to a vast account CHAP. I. Peter-pence PEter-pence Cowell Interp in verbo Spelm. Gloss Matt. Westm in An. 727. Polychron lib. 5. cap. 24. Antiquit. Briâ—t fo 58. 69. Denarii Sancti Petri call'd in the Saxon Tongue Romefeoh the Fee of Rome and sometimes also Romescot and Rome-peny was if we may so properly term it a Tribute of Alms given by the ancient Saxon Kings to the See of Rome Some say that Ina a King of the West-Saxons was the first Donor about the year 720. at such time as he was in Pilgrimage at Rome Others say that Offa a King of the Mercians first gave them about the year 790. But probably the truth may be and Matt. Westm insinuates no less that these being Kings of several Kingdoms in the Saxon Heptarchy each of them might be the first Donor within their respective Dominions The occasion upon which Offa gave the same Spelm. Concil Tom. 1. fo 311. Acts and Mon. fol. 103. is storied thus Ethelbert King of the East-Angles a vertuous Prince being perswaded by his Council to marry against his own inclination went to Offa in design to obtain his Daughter Athilrid to Wife but King Offa's wife being averse to the match in treacherous manner caused Ethelbert to be slain whereupon Offa in some sort to expiate that horrid act Chro. Jo. Brompt Coll. 776. gave the Peter-pence to St. Peter's Church in Rome But at last by Adelwolph this tributary Alms was ratified and given throughout the whole Kingdom The Charter whereby King Offa gave the Peter-pence remains still extant under seal 1. Instit fo 7. a. W. Dugdale Antiq. of Warw. 133. 673. Vid. Matt. Paris in vita Rob rti Abb. S. Albâ—ni fo 80. as Sr. Edw. Coke affirms which if true it was not heeded by such as have affirmed that the first sealed Charter that we have in England is that of King Edward the Confessor upon his founding of Westminster Abby and that in imitation of the Normans amongst whom he had been educated But Sr. Edw. Coke adds further that the sealing of Charters and Deeds is much more ancient than some have imagined and to that purpose besides that sealed Charter of King Offa he makes instance in a Charter of King Edwin Brother of King Edgar bearing date An. Dom. 956. under his own seal with the seal also of the Bishop of Winchester to it and this long before the Normans entrance But this by the way only For the Peter-pence Sim Dunelm Coll. to 150. â—tow Annal. fo 26. which in the Saxon Laws are often termed Regis Eleemosyna it was a Penny for every House in which was Twenty Penny-worth of any kind of goods to be paid yearly on Lammas day Lambert fo 78. Jâ—rnall Col. 871. And in K. Edwards Laws there is a very strict constitution for the payment of them so that in time it was esteemed consuetudo quasi Apostolica as Matt. Westm hath it à qua neque Rex neque Archiepiscopus Abbas vel Prior aut aliquis in regno immunis erat Only I find that the Monastery of St. Camb. Britt fo 410. Spelm. Concil Tom. 1. fo 311. Alban's in honour of that Proto-Martyr to whose memory it was founded was alone quit as to that charge and that by the Indulgence of King Offa as Mat. Westm relates This payment as before is said at first and for a long time was termed and esteemed as indeed it was a Tribute of Alms being styled in the Laws of Canutus Leges Canut in Jornal 920. Larga Regis benignitas and in those of the Confessor Regis Eleemosyna and so it was received also by the Court of Rome Epist Hen. 1. in Eadmer fo 113. as Pope Paschalis the 2. to one of our Kings Eleemosyna beati Petri prout audivimus ita dolose collecta est ut neque mediam ejus partem hactenus Ecclesia Romana susceperit Sim. Dunelm Coll. fo 150. And Sim. Dunelmensis thus Hoc anno Eâ—helhelm comes Wilton Eleemosynam Regis Elfredi detulit Romam And all this importing no more but that Charity was the first foundation of it and the Pope to have been the King's Beads-man as it were and not the King the Popes Homager Yet the continuance occasioned the pretence of an absolute Tribute Pol. Verg. lib. 4. and Polydor Vergil the Historian and sometimes the Pope's Collector of the Peter-pence here improperly terming it Vectigal S. Cressy Church H st li. 29. ca. 15. S. Cressy is so ingenuous as to give him a reproof for so doing yet in that notion it was exacted a long time by the Pope's Officers But yet upon some distaste some of our Kings would sometimes adventure to deny payment as King Edward the Third did once in his time the reason whereof is storied to be this viz. Polychron Stow. Mat. Westm c. when in his raign was the great contest between the two Kings for the Crown of France and many of the Popes then residing at Avignion in the Territories of France being most of them French-men did too partially take part with the French King So that after the great and famous victory obtained by the Black Prince at the Battle of Poitiers this was set up in Vienna and several other places and after grew into a kind of Proverb viz. Ore est le Pape devenu Franceys Hen. de Knighton Coll. fo 2615. Et Jhesu est devenu Angleys Ore serra veou que ferra plus Le Pape ou Jhesus id est The Pope is now all Frenchify'd And Jesus on the English side And now you see which of these two The Pope or Jesus most can do And therefore because the Popes took part with the French our King Edw. 3. commanded the Peter-pence should be no longer paid which Prohibition all that King's time continued till the raign of his next Successor King Rich. 2. And some offers being then made to gather them again at a Parliament a Petition was preferr'd that it might be declared by Parliament whether the charge called Rome-penny should be levied of the Commons and paid to the Pope's Collector Rot. Parl. 1. R. 2 na 84. or no and the Answer to it was Soit fait come devant ad este use and so they were reviv'd again by that weak King But yet it was Resolv'd by the Casuists of those times of
the two and twentieth An. D. 1316. among whom Walsingham speaking of that Pope saith thus Tho Walsingh in Ed 2. fo 84. Summus Pontifex reservavit Camerae fuae primos fructus beneficiorum omnium in Anglia per triennium vacantium And Ranulph Cestrensis thus Johannes 22. Lib. 7. cap. 42. in H. Knighton Coll. fo 2534. Beneficiorum per mortem seu resignationem vacantium sive per translationem primos fructus reservavit But howsoever or by whomsoever these became first impos'd after the Popes had been absolutely and throughly seized of them then they claimed them Jure Divino by example of the High Priest amongst the Jews Numb 18.6 who had Tenths from the Levites But Pol. Vergil sings another note in the place above referr'd to insinuating the maintenance of the Pope's grandeur to be the first rise of them and that this was one of the fairest flowers in the Triple Crown but when the payment of them had been continued some competent time it was politickly done upon any questioning to assign them a Divine Original which was sure to satisfie such as used to take the Pope's word for far greater matters The payment of these with other great summs of which more anon so strangely impoverish'd the Kingdom that notwithstanding that allegation or pretence of Divine Right the Kings of England made no scruple sometimes to forbid the payment of them 2 Ed. 3. Claus Rot. m. 4. 25 Ed. 3. 47 Ed. 3. as K. Ed. 3. once discharged the Pope's Nuntio from collecting the First Fruits c. and many Prohibitions were granted against the Popes Collectors on complaint made by the grieved Commons in Parliament as appears by the several Collections thereof made by the Lord Coke Coke Jurisd of Courts cap. 14 Stat. 2 H. 4. cap. 1. 1 Ric. 2. and in one Statute made to remedy that grievance it was termed a Horrible Mischief and Damnable Custome and at another Parliament it was call'd a Very Novelty But herein did the policy of the Court of Rome notably appear that sometimes when the Kingdom complain'd of its burdens and the Kings in some exigency calling for the Subjects Aids and thereupon the Pope's revenue in danger of a temporary if not a total stop the Popes would in such a juncture and perhaps in a frolick of bounty concede or assign the First Fruits c. for some time to the King as for one year or more as the occasion seem'd to require and in particular Pol. Vergil Hist lib. 20. fo 405. Pope Vrban gave them to King Richard the second to aid him against Charls the French King And this project serv'd excellently well both to habituate the People to payment and to win the Kings for their continuance to whom they might be thus useful in any case of extremity But the policy of after Parliaments went a reach beyond that of the Popes for as a perpetual addition to the revenues of the Crown they were by a Statute in the time of King Henry the eighth given to the King his Heirs Stat 26 Hen. 8. cap. 3. and Successors for ever And then for the ordering of these First Fruits and Tenths there was a Court erected An. 32 Hen. 8. Stat. 32 Hen. 8. cap. 45. but this Court was dissolv'd again An. 1 Mariae but King Philip and Queen Mary gave them not again to the Pope but by Authority of Parliament discharged the Clergy thereof Afterwards by a Statute Stat. 1 Elâ—z 4. in the first year of Queen Elizabeth they were revived and reduced again to the Crown yet was the Court never restored but the First Fruits and Tenths were ordered to be within the Rule Survey and Government of the Court of Exchequer and a new Office and Officer created viz. a Remembrancer of the First Fruits and Tenths of the Clergy who taketh all compositions for them and maketh out Process against such as pay not the same And now they are to be paid in such manner as is directed and appointed in and by the said Statutes oâ— 26 Hen. 8. and 1 Eliz. The Stat. 26 Hen. 8. appointing that every Spiritual person shall pay or secure by Bond his First Fruits before his actual possession of his Benâ—fice and that an Obligation for First Fruits shall be of like force as a Statute Staple and that no more shall be taken for such an Obligation than eight pence and for an Acquittance four pence and if any person shall be convict by Presentment Verdict Confession or Witness before the Lord Chancellor or other Commissioners to have entred upon any Spiritual Living before composition or payment he shall forfeit the double value of the First Fruits Stat. 3 Ed. 6. cap. 20. And if Tenths being due shall not be paid within forty dayes after demand thereof made by the Bishop or his Officers and thereupon certificate made under Seal of the Bishop or Collector the party making default shall be deprived ipso facto of that one Dignity or Benefice Besides it is to be remembred Stâ—t 1 Eâ—iz 4. that Vicarages not exceeding Ten Pounds per annum and Parsonages not exceeding Ten Marks per annum shall not pay First Fruits but all are to pay Tenths Then for the valuation of Ecclesiastical Livings we are to know that antiently they were valued by a Taxation Book made An. 20 Ed. 1. Coke 4 Instir fo 120. which still remaineth in the Exchequer But then another Book of Taxation was made An. 26 Hen. 8. kept in that Court also and according to this latter Taxation are the values of Ecclesiastical Livings computed for the payment of the First Fruits and Tenths And so much as every Living is there valued so much it is said to be in the Kings Books and so much must be paid for First Fruits Yet every Spiritual person at his Composition and entring into Specialties to pay the same shall have deduction of the Tenth part thereof and that in respect of the Tenth as shall be by him paid that year for by the Stat. 27 Hen. 8. Stat. 27 Hen. 8. cap. 8. none shall pay Tenths the same year that they pay First Fruits therefore they are deducted as aforesaid The way now of Composition for First Fruits is for the Parson Presented Admitted c. with sufficient Sureties to enter into Four Bonds each conditioned for the payment of the Fourth part of the First Fruits deducting the Tenth as aforesaid the first Bond payable at half a years end the second Bond at a Twelve-moneths end the third at a year and halfs end and the fourth at two years end and so the party hath two years time to pay the First Fruits And then by the Statute of 1 Eliz. cap. 4. it is appointed That if an Incumbent continue in his Benefice half a year after the last avoidance and then dye or be legally outed before the end of the year then he his Executors Administrators or
much upon the Clergy afterward though the King and Temporal Lords oftentimes prov'd sturdy Matt. Paris fo 361 362. For Pope Gregory the ninth An. D. 1229. demanded a Tenth of the moveables both of the Lay and of the Clergy to which the Lords would not consent Nolentes Baronias vel Laicas possessiones Rom. Ecclesiae obligare but the Clergy with some grumbling pay'd it And eleven years after he demanded a fifth part of the goods of the Clergy upon which great debate was taken Matt. Paris An. 1240. fo 536. the Clergy appealing to the King that they held their Baronies of the King and could not charge them without his consent that having before given a Tenth this again of a Fifth might create a custom with divers other weighty reasons But all would not do for the King was not against it and the Archbishop for his private ends beginning to deposite all were drawn in at last to pay which occasion'd that complaint the year following Id. fo 549. That there remain'd not so much treasure in the Kingdom as had in three years bin extorted from it the vessels and ornaments of the Church excepted But notwithstanding that reluctancy Matt. Paris fo 549. 666. 701. notwithstanding that notable Remonstrance preferred in the Council of Lions An. D. 1245. from the body of the Kingdom of the heavy burdens the Nation lay under by the exactions of Rome and likewise to the Pope himself the year following Pope Innocent the fourth invented a new way to charge every Religious House to find a number of Souldiers yearly for his service and to fight for the Church militant and about the same time attempted also ut si Clericus extunc decederet intestatus ejusdem bonas in usus D. Papae converterentur that is the Pope would make himself heir or Executor to every Clark that should dye intestate and not long after it was that he received from the Clergy eleven thousand Marks as an addition to six thousand he had receiv'd the year before And then and from that time the Pope made no spare to drain and exhaust the English Clergy at his pleasure to the shameful scandal of the Holy See at that time and to the notorious ignominy poverty and contempt of this Church and the Clergy thereof Matt. Westm Flor. Hist in An. 1301. And of these times it was that Matthew Westminster makes this complaint Porro illis diebus sal terrae caput vulgi in magnum Hydropem ceciderunt quanto enim plus pecuniam humorem hauriebant tanto amplius eam sitiebant Sedit ergo in tristitia fidelium Ecclesia deducta per vocales tutores suos miserabiliter sub tributo In those dayes the Head of the people was fallen into a dropsie which the more money it suck'd in the more it thirsted after more therefore the Church of the faithful sat disconsolate being by her Governours brought under a most miserable tribute and servitude An. D. 1302. Annal. of Ireâ— in Camb. Brit. fo 163. At this time also it was that these grievous exactions reached into Ireland recorded in the Annals thereof That the Tenths of all Ecclesiastical Benefices in England and Ireland were exacted by Pope Boniface the eight for three years as a Subsidy to the Church of Rome against the King of Arragon Neither did our Hyperborean neighbours escape Scot-free in this deluge of exaction Tho. Walsing Hist fo 48. Ypodig Neust fo 89. Flor. Hist in Ed. 1. fo 417. H. Knighton Coll. c. Pol. Vergil Fabian Speed c. Nay no less there would satisfie the Pope but the whole Kingdom for it was that Boniface the eight that then claimed the whole Realm of Scotland as part of St. Peters Patrimony against our K. Edward the first and sent his Bull of demand to the King for that purpose between whom there passed several Answers and Replies in the point and the conclusion was That the incroaching Pope was glad to sit down worsted in the cause the transactions of all which stand registred amongst the Tower Records exemplified at large to posterity by Walsingham Matthew Westminster Knighton and more briefly by others But all this while the poor Clergy languished being continually pill'd poll'd and squeezed by the unlimited avarice of this Pope and his successors emptying the Kingdom of its money and filling it with complaints the product of its poverty CHAP. IV. King John 's Pension THe troublesom raign of our King John is sufficiently related by all our Historians in whose straits the Pope appeared sometimes for him and sometimes against him but once taking him in a great exigence Jo. Serres Hist in Phil. August Matt. Paris in An 1213. fo 236. the King was wrought upon to surrender his Crown to Pandulfus the Pope's Legate and substitute laying the same with his Scepter Robe Sword and Ring the Royal Ensigns at his feet subscribing also as is said to a Charter whereby he surrendred his Kingdom to the Pope and professing that thence forward he would hold his Crown as a Feudatary to the Pope and paying an annual Pension or Tribute of 1000 marks for both his Kingdoms of England and Ireland the insolent behaviour of the Legate at this the Historians fully describe which I list not now to insist on but cannot but remember that Matt. Paris says that with this Charter and 10000 l. sterl in hand Id. fo 237. Pandulfus goes triumphing away to Rome But then when or how long after this yearly rent or tribute of 1000 marks was paid our Writers seem not to agree though all concur in the invalidity of the surrender Vid. Speed Chron. in vita Johan Rot. Parl. An. 40 Ed. 3. And at a Parliament held at Westm An. 40 Ed. 3. the Chancellour then Bishop of Ely declared to the Lords and Commons How the King understood that the Pope for the Homage that K. John did to the See of Rome for the Realms of England and Ireland and for the Tribute by him granted meant by Process to cite the King to Rome to Answer thereunto wherein the King required their advice The Bishops for themselves desired respite of Answer till the next day as also did the Peers and Commons at which time the whole Estate came together and by common consent Enacted and Declared That forasmuch as neither King John nor any other King could bring this Realm and Kingdom in such thraldom and subjection but by common assent of Parliament the which was not done And therefore that which he did was against his Oath at his Coronation besides many others causes If therefore the Pope should attempt any thing against the King by process or other matters in deed that the King with all his Subjects should with all their force and power resist the same Then for the Tribute or Pension of 1000 marks it appears to have been sometimes paid with intermissions for Pope Honorius having gratified K. Hen.
so in stead of devotion this frequently proved great pastime to see a great lubberly fellow tugge and lift in vain at that which a Boy or Girl had easily took up before him The Blood of Christ at Hales in Glocester-shi Another the like imposture was practis'd at Hales in Gloucester-shire where the Blood of Jesus Christ brought from Jerusalem being kept as was affirmed for many ages had drawn many great offerings to it from remote places And it was given out and believed to have this property That if a man was in mortal sin and not absolved he could not see it otherwise he might see it very well Therefore every man that came to see this Miracle this most precious Blood confessed himself first to one of the Priests there and then offering something at the Altar was directed to a Chappel where the Miracle was shewed the Priest who confessed him in the mean time retiring to the back part of the said Chappel and putting forth a little Cabinet or Vessel of Crystal which being thick on the one side that nothing could be seen through it but on the other side thin and transparent they used diversly For if a rich and devout man entered they would shew him the thick side till he had paid for as many Masses and given as large Alms as they thought fit After which to his great consolation and the assurance of his not being in mortal sin they turned to him the thin side where he might see the Blood And all this at last was discovered to be the Blood of a Duck every week renewed by the Priests who to their great gain kept the secret a long time amongst themselves The curiosity of some possibly may here expect to be gratified in some memoirs of the once famous Lady of Walsingham and the notorious Sainted Becket of the riches of his shrine the confluence at his Jubile with the reverence to his Reliques and memory But in pursuance of my design of brevity I shall referr them to the learned Mr. Cambden Cambd. Brit. in Morfolk Will. Sommer Antiq Cant. fo 247. c. Vid. Erasm Coll. Pereg. Reâ— ergo Anatomy of the Nuns at Lisbon De Schism lib. 1. fo 171. for the first and the industrious Canterburian Antiquary for the other with the assurance they will not fail of satisfaction on the matter And for what concerns Becket I shall only add this That the English Nuns at Lisbon in Portugal do pretend that they have both the Arms of Thomas Becket and yet Pope Paul the third in a Bull exemplified by Sanders pittifully complains of the cruelty of K. Hen. 8. for causing all the bones of Becket to be burnt and the Ashes scatter'd in the winds the solemnity thereof recorded in all our Chronicles and then how his Arms should escape that bone-fire is very strange We will pack and shut up this show of Reliques with this one more memorable In the raign of K. Edw. 6. the Teeth of St. Apollonia were in great esteem as conceived effectuall to cure the Tooth-ach and for that purpose were bought by many ignorant people and carryed about with them this being notified to the King order was given that all her Teeth should be brought in to a publick officer appointed to receive them which being done they filled a Tunne therewith and so the cheat was discovered The consideration of the nature and use of these Reliques together with the Saints to whom they were affirmed to have belonged the Miracles and cures said to be wrought by them and also the Indulgences the subject of the last Chapter before unriddles to me a certain difficulty which hath puzled divers to give a satisfactory reason for And that is why the livings in London were antiently esteemed of so great value and so highly rated in the Kings Books for first Fruits and Tenths when it is well known the Tiths and Church dues there are very small and inconsiderable compared to the Country Livings whose certain profits by reason of the predial Tiths far out-strip those of London And certainly this was the reason because every Church in London was furnished either with some famous Saint some precious Relique some gracious Indulgences some wonderful Miracle or some other pia fraus whereby and whereunto people were continually enticed to be suppliants and visitors with their vows and offerings as at one Church was a Saint celebrated for giving easie travel to big-bellyed women Another gave safety to Merchants and Marriners in their Sea voyages here was cure for such a disease and there for another so that at every Church there was something virtual and peculiar to draw customers and profit to the Priests And then London being the Metropolis of the Kingdom unto which people flocked from all quarters both natives and strangers and none but had their Special and proper designs griefs and difficulties or at least curiosities for which if they wanted ease or satisfaction there as they were told they might be sure at one place or other to find it And so the Priests never wanted vent or customers for their wares as Mountebanks Juglers Punchinello's and such like with good success choose to open and show at Fairs and at times and places of the greatest resort and concourse of people But then at the Reformation when all these cheats were detected and exploded and the Churches cleared of them and the Priests reduced unto their standing legal revenues of Tiths and Church dues Stat. 37 Hen. 8. cap. 12. then all those City livings fell so low that the Parish dues respectively proved too small to maintain one Priest And thereupon the King and State thought good to make provision by a Decree confirmed by Act of Parliament that the Parsons and Ministers in London-should have a maintenance by the payment of the summ of two shillings and nine pence out of every Twenty shillings Per annum rent of Houses shops c. without which they could not have subsisted And more lately Stat. 22 23 Car. 2. for the better settlement of the maintenance of the Parsons Vicars and Curates in London an Act of Parliament hath passed since the late dreadful fire to ascertain the annual revenue and summs to be raised by every Parish for the maintenance of the Ministers and how the same is to be assessed and paid for which those that are further concern'd may consult the Act whilest we prepare our selves to go on to the Jubile's and Pilgrimages which now call us away CHAP. IX Jubile's Pilgrimages JUbile's Pilgrimages Vows c. and confluences to Rome both at stated and arbitrary times upon those accounts were means to carry vast summs thither out of the Kingdom the devout Travellers always when they came home though many of them hapned to drop short saying as Naomi after her peregrination We went out full but return empty Whilest others who stayed at home fearful or unable to take such long and perillous journeys
the whole Kingdom wherein all art and Rhetorick imaginable was used by suing Preaching and begging to draw people to unstring and deposite according to their respective abilities and inclinations by which means the Nation was always kept bare and poor whilst the wealth thereof was carryed away into forrain parts and mostly unto the Kings Enemies as appears by many complaints thereof for that purpose made Particularly Rot. Parl. An. 8 Ed. 3. in a Parliament held An. 8 Ed. 3. a special Petition and complaint was made by the Commons in that behalf And afterwards in several King's raigns a multitude more to the like effect as by our Parliamentary Records it doth appear which for brevities sake we here omit to specifie referring such as would receive further satisfaction therein to that excellent Abridgement of the Tower Records collected by the learned Sir Robert Cotton and lately printed Cardinal Woolsey at one time had raked up Twelve Barrels full of Gold Speed in H. 8. nu 77. and Silver to serve the Pope in his warrs c. CHAP. XII Courts COurts and Jurisdictions of the Pope both at Rome and within the Kingdom drew constantly out of the People's purses incredible Masses of money For to these Courts belonged Judges Officials Delegates Referendaries Commissaries Dataries Scribes Notaries Proctors Registers Summoners Apparitors Clarks Sollicitors and a multitude of other Officers who all by their places and practice grew rich sent great summs to their chief the Pope and help'd to beggar the people In these Courts all causes of Contentions and Instance between party and party as also ex officio were entertained and cherished And the charge and expence going this way was so much the worse in regard of the danger turmoil and vexation continually attending those that had to do in these Courts For by some other wayes men were wheadled and gull'd out of their money to their no small content but here they were squeezed racked and tortur'd as long as their purses or themselves could breath These Courts at first were pretended to be instituted for Ecclesiastical Persons and causes only But then at the instance of Ecclesiastical persons many of the Laicks were cited to Rome to make Answer concerning businesses not at all belonging to the Cognizance of that Court as matters of Inheritances Gages Pawns Contracts c. And Laicks also upon Oath or Allegation that they could not have Justice before their proper Judges were admitted and incouraged to bring their Causes to Rome or out of the King 's into the Pope's Court. And thereupon the Pope's Judges and Officers spared not to disturb all other places of Judicature in derogation of the King's authority excommunicating all that would not obey them And these Courts as they were managed became an accumulative charge and burden to the people For the right of Patronage belonging to divers Lay and Ecclesiastical persons was under Colour of Prevention or Provision by the power and authority of these Courts usurped by the Pope his Legats and Officers when Benefices were vacant and then the same usually conferred on Courtiers Favourites Italians and Strangers And these men dying either at Rome or in their way thither or thence their Benefices were conferr'd again by these Courts upon others to the great wrong of the right Patrons And then great Benefices would not he conferr'd on worthy persons or on any other unless temporary gratuities and continuing Pensions were first given and secured out of them to the Courtiers Dependants and Officers of the Pope And in granting these Benefices many Arts were used to get money under the names of Reservations Permutations Surrogations c. In these Courts also Excommunications were often denounced for trifles but not taken off without great charge Confirmations of Foundations Ecclesiastical Religious and charitable were here purchased with great summs of money When the Pope had any Aid or exhibition from the Ecclesiasticks here were contrivances that they should be sure to be repair'd again by the People All trifling frivolous causes drawn to these Courts but no dismission without good payment No Publick Penance here awarded without some private summs to be paid Licences for money to keep a feme putein Money exacted of Monks and Fryers for concubinage on presumption they had or might have quam pro quo Farming out Livings and Benefices to poor Vicars at such high rates as they were forced to get their money again of the People by Confessions Anniversaries Obits c. Burial denyed to all that died suddenly or by chance on presumption they dyed in mortal sin until here some good summ was paid With infinite other tricks and devices to draw money from the people practised by these Courts and their Officers tedious to enumerate but more intolerable to be born as may in some measure appear by the Stat. of Praemunire and Provisors Vid. Coke Plâ—cit Coren cap. 53. W. Prin Record of King John H. 3 Ed. 1. pointed at in the former discourse with the Suits Attachments and Prohibitions for suing for Lay Fees in these Courts in derogation of the Crown and impoverishing of the People exemplified by Mr. Prinne out of the Tower Records To these Courts also the Popes sometimes would be so audacious as to cite even Kings themselves as claiming Jurisdiction over them Thus Pope Boniface the eighth Matt. Wesâ—m in An. 1301.10.435 having a Controversie with our King Edw. 1. touching the Realm of Scotland which the Pope affirmed belonged to the Church of Rome wrote to the King That if he pretended any Title to the Realm of Scotland he should send his Proctors to the Court of Rome with all his evidences proofs and Instruments touching the same there to have and receive Justice in the premises At another time Pope Innocent the fourth summoned King Henry the third Westm Mâ—tt An. 1246. fo 3â—7 to appear to Answer to one of his Vassals David by name and to give him satisfaction for some wrongs as he said he had done him But in the first case the King by advice of his Lords and Barons slighted the citation and to the other nothing was return'd but scoffs and derision CHAP. XIII Contributions for the Holy Land COntributions for relief of the poor distressed Christians in the Holy Land and to carry on the War against the common Enemy of Christendom were frequently set on foot Sim. Dunelâ—â— Hist fo 249. And by that means great summs were as often drain'd out of the Kingdom but then a small or no part thereof imployed for those purposes Chron. W. Thorn Coll. 1926. Gerviâ—s Dorobern 1522. For to this end the Popes often prevailed with Princes to impose on their subjects and made them the Instruments on this pretence to hook money out of their pockets Johannes Ferentinus was sent hither from the Pope about that matter An. D. 1206. and sped so well in his negotiation and carryed such a great quantity of money away with
Pensions and Gratuities to servants and Officers through whose hands business ran for expedition Intelligence c. One memorable Record testifying all this with the King's care to transmit moneys to his Ambassadors for the purposes aforesaid it will not be amiss here to exhibit Paâ— 8 9 Joh. Reg. â— 5 m. 3. Rex omnibus Mercatoribus ad quos c. Sciatis quod quicunque mutuo tradiderit Hen. Abbati Belli loci Thomae de Ardinton Amfredo de Dene nunciis nostris quos misimus ad curiam Romanam pro negotiis nostris quingentas marcas nos ei vel nuncio suo has literas nostras referenti una cum literis praedictorum nunciorum summam illius mutui eas plene persolvemus Et ad hoc nos obligamus per nostras has literas patentes Teste Dom. P. Winton Episcopo apud Rokingham 20 die Febr. anno regni nostri 8. Et injunctum est Thomae de Ardinton Amfredo de Dene qui habent in hac forma quatuor paria chartarum singulas de D. Marcis ita quod per totum sunt M M marc quod nihil inde expendant sicut diligant corpora sua ante consummationem negocii pro quo remittuntur ad Curiam Et debent reddere Justic cartam de M marcis de priore itinere suo in quo tulerunt chartas de MMM marcis non expenderunt per totum nisi M M marcas vacatis inde 30 Marc. de uno anno de foedo P. fil Ric. fratri Dom. Papae O. Hanibal 60 Marc. ad dict termin cassand de 50 Marc. Et nepoti Dom. Port. 20 Marc. Et Praeceptum est Justicâ— quod cartam illam afferat Regi Et praeceptum est Thomae de Ardinton quod cartam nepotis Dom. Port quae liberetur antequam nomen inserebatur afferat quoniam nomen nesciebatur cum carta scripta fuit A notable Record this implying the King's care and caution in that affair So King Edward the First sending Franciscus Accursius and other Messengers to Rome about his Affairs there issued several Instruments for furnishing them with money and payment of the annual Pension to his Advocate in Rome and to a Cardinal at Rome granted to them till they could be preferred by him to Benefices or Offices of greater value all preserv'd to this day too long to be here transcrib'd Pat. 6. Ed. 1. m. 6. De Dâ—â—â—iis Fran. Accursio fociis nunciis Regis ad cur Romaâ—am and of which let this one satisfie as a specimen of the rest Rex Orlandino de Podio sociis suis mercatoribus de Luk salutem Mandamus vobis quod de denariis nostris vel vestris is custodia vestra existentibus habere faciatis dilecto Cierico nostro Domino Francisco Accursio sociis suis nunciis nostris ad curiam Romanam proficiscentibus rationabiles expensas suas quibus indigent in cundo ibidem morando redeundo ad expeditionem negotiorum praedictorum Et cum sciverimeâ— quantum eis liberaveritis nos debitam allocationem seu quietanciam vobis inde habere faciemus Teste Rege apud Shetwik xvij die Sept. Many other transcripts Chart. 1 John nu 12. Claus 10 Hen. 3. m. 1. dors Pat. 52 Hen. 3. nu 15. Pro R.S. Angeli Diacon Cardinal Claus 9 Ed. 1. and Instruments of like nature might here be produced as likewise promises and assurances of gratuities and annual pensions to Cardinals and others to ingage them to promote the King's businesses in the Court of Rome And in one year only King Edw. 1. sent Letters and Addresses with competent summs and arrears of Pensions to no fewer than seventeen Cardinals and Officers in the Court of Rome to ingage them to attend and promote his affairs there By these Ambassadors and Agents the Kings gratuities and bounty was handed to the Popes upon several occasions Lo. Herb. Hist fo 211. as King Henry the Eighth in the year 1526. sent to Pope Clement the seventh being in some distress Holinshead in Hâ—n 8. Thirty Thousand Ducats for a Present At another time in the same King's raign the Pope being under restraint and want by the Emperours means the Cardinal of York carryed at one time out of the Kingdom 240000 l. of the King's Treasure Speed in H. 8. to work his delivery The last publick Ambassador sent hence and residing at Rome was Sir Edward Carne Doctor of the Civil Law Knighted by the Emp. Charles the Fifth who lay Leiger there several years and there dyed about the beginning of the raign of Queen Elizabeth and ever since that way of negotiation and expence to the great ease of the Exchequer hath ceased CHAP. XVI Strangers Beneficed ANother way of draining infinite summs out of this Kingdom to Rome and Italy was the conferring of Bishopricks and all sorts of Ecclesiastical Benefices Offices and Promotions upon Strangers and chiefly Italians These constantly residing at Rome and in Italy had their Farmers Factors and Agents here to Collect their Rents and Revenues and transmit the same to Rome to be received and spent there In the year 1253. Matt. Paris in An. 1253. an Inquisition was taken of this whereby it appeared that the Ecclesiastical Revenues in England of the Italians whereof many were Boys more Dunces but all Aliens did amount to no less than Threescore and ten thousand Marks per annum esteemed a greater revenue at that time than that of the King which occasioned the sharp Letter of Rob. Grosthead to the Pope about that grievance with the Pope's disdainful reception of the same at large related by Mat. Paris and of which more hereafter At a Parliament held An. 1379. Rot. Parl. An. 3 Ric. 2. a great complaint was made of forrainers holding Ecclesiastical Benefices many Cardinals at Rome having the best Promotions and Livings conferred on them or granted to hold in Commendam Acts Mon. Tom. 1. f. 389. of which there are Catalogues yet extant And of this many mischiefs did insue As little or no Divine Service or Instruction of the People No Hospitality kept for relief of the Poor Decay of Houses and increase of Barbarisme so that between the Italian Hospitality which none could ever see and a little Latin Service which few or none could understand the poor English were ill fed but worse taught And lastly the exhausting the wealth of the land to the impoverishing of the People and weakning of the King and Kingdom in case of invasion or any attempts against them But how all this was then resented you shall hear more anon Memorable is it that in the raigns of King Hen. 7. and King Hen. 8. the Bishoprick of Worcester had four Italians successively of which none ever lived there Johannes Gigles or de Liliis Goâ—w de Pâ—aeful Angl. in Wâ—gâ—â—n born at Luca. Sylvester Gigles his Nephew succeeded Julius Medices a Cardinal of Rome Nephew to Pope Leo
the tenth and afterwards Pope himself by the name of Clement the seventh Hieronymus de Nugutiis upon the resignation of Jul. Medices injoyed it many years And such prevalence had the Popes and Cardinals in this matter that once King Edw. 1. having promised the Cardinal-Bishop of Sabine at his instance to present one Nivianus an Italian his Chamberlain to a Benefice in Licolnshire then in his gift by the death of another Italian the Popes Chaplain and forgetting his promise presented his own Clark thereunto but being reminded thereof to make good his promse Pâ—t 5 E. 1. m. 16. De praesemation pro M Aptonio de Niviano he revoked his first Presentation and Presented Nivianus to it as appears by his Patent for that purpose still preserved amongst our Records At such time as Rubeus Mar. Paris in An. 1240. fo 540 and Ruffinus two of the Pope's Factors were very busie here in England in Collecting money for the Pope one Mumelinus comes from Rome with Four and twenty Italians with orders that they should be admitted to so many of the best Benefices that should next fall void Mâ—â—t Pâ—jâ—â— codem anno And in the same year it was that the Pope made agreement with the People of Rome that if they would effectually aid him against Frederick the Emperour their Children should be put into all the vacant Benefices in England And thereupon order was sent to Edmund Arch-bishop of Cant. the Bishops of Lincoln and Salisbury that Provision should be made for Three hundred Romans Children to be served of the next Benefices that should fall unde stupor magnus corda haec audientium occupavit timebaturque quod in abyssum desperationis talia audiens mergeretur as the Historian hath it But this made such an impression upon the Archbishop being a tender man to see the Church in that manner wounded and so much evil in his days that he disposed of his affairs and retired into France where for a little while he lived Godw. in vita ejus bewailing the deplorable state of his Country and of grief dyed at Pontiniac CHAP. XVII Priories-Alien PRiories-Alien were another cause or means of carrying great summs for a long time out of the Kingdom And these were of this Original viz. according to the devotion of the times many forraign Monasteries and Religious Houses were endowed with possessions here in England and then the Monks beyond Sea partly to propagate more of their own Rule and Order and partly to place Stewards as it were to transmit a good proportion of the Rents and profits of these their new acquir'd possessions at so great a distance would either by themselves or the assistance of others build a Cell or competent and convenient reception for some small Covent to which they sent over from time to time such numbers as they thought fit and constituted Priors over them successively as occasion required and thereupon they were called Priories-Aliens because they were Cells to some Monasteries beyond the Seas And these Foundations became frequent after the Conquest So as in the raign of King Edward the third they were increased to the number of one hundred and ten in England With some proportion or allowance out of the revenues of these the Prior and Monks sent over were maintained and the residue transmitted to the Houses to which they were allyed to the great damage of the Kingdom and inriching of strangers In time the Foundations of these Priories-Alien became very numerous being spread all over the Kingdom Lamb. Peram of Kent Weav Fun. Mon. One John Norbury erected two the one at Greenwich the other at Lewsham in Kent both belonging to the Abby of Gaunt in Flanders At Wolston in Warwick-shire a Cell W. Dugd. Warw. in Wolston or Religious House was founded subordinate to the Abby of St. Peter Super Dinam in France Another at Monks-Kirby in the same County Id. fo 50. founded by Geffry Wirce of Little Brittain in France appropriated to the Monastery of Angiers the principal City of Anjou And another at Wotton Wawen in the same County Id. fo 604. a Cell of Benedictin Monks belonging to Conchis in Normandy of all which Mr. Dugdale hath several remarks of Antiquity At Hinckley in Leicester-shire Burton Descrip of Leic. fo 134. a Priory of Canons Aliens was founded by Robert Blanchmains Earl of Leicester or as some say by Hugh Grandmeisnell Baron of Hinckley belonging to the Abby of Lira in Normandy and this of a very good value Roger de Poictiers founded a cell for Monks-Aliens at Lancaster Cambd. Brit. in Lancast Edward the Confessor Id. in Glocest fo 362. by his Testament assign'd the religious place at Deochirst in the County of Gloucester and the Government thereof to the Monastery of St. Denis near Paris in France in this remarkable that it will be hard to given another instance of such an assignation before the Norman Conquest King Henry the third once gave licence to the Jews Stow Survey in Broadst Ward Lindwood Constit lib. 3. Tit. 20. at their great charge to build a Synagogue in London which when they had finished he order'd should be dedicated to the Virgin Mary and then made it a Cell to St. Anthony's in Vienna And near unto Charing-Cross there was another Stow Survey in Westm fo 495. annexed to the Lady of Runciavall in Navarre in the Diocess of Pampelone founded in the fifteenth year of King Edward 4. At Sion Cambd. in Midd. fo 420. in Middlesex there was antiently a Monastery for Monks-Aliens Mr. Cambden tells us when they were expuls'd and how it was converted into a Nunnery for Virgins to the honour of our Saviour the Virgin Mary and St. Briget of Syon But Lindwood tells us Lindwoed l. 3. Tit. 20. that the Superior House to which at first it belonged not mentioned by Mr. Cambden was at Wastena in the Kingdom of Sweden of the Rule of St. Austin But the richest of all for annual revenue Harpsfield Catalog Ae l. Rel. fo 762. was that which Yvo Talbois built at Spalding in Lincoln-shire giving it to the Monks of Angiers in France the yearly revenue whereof was valued at 878 l. 18 s. 3 d. per annum Instances might be made of a multitude more of the like Foundations all tending to carry money out of the Kingdom and most commonly to the King's Enemies beyond the Seas Which mischief being apprehended Rot. Parl. 50 E 3. nu 128. and great complaints thereof frequently made in Parliament these Priories-Alien became oftentimes seised into the King's hands and the revenues thereof sequestred to the King's use and then restitutions made and seisures again as occasion required untill the fourth year of King Henry the fourth Claus 4 Hâ—n 4. nu 30. when a new consideration was had in Parliament about these Priories-Alien and resolved that all should again be seised into the King's hands
something he got out of them as I remember about 3000 l. of which no doubt but he gave a good account At another time this Otho came to Oxford where he was entertain'd with good respect Ypod. Neustr fo 59 Knighton Coll. 2432 Polychron l. 7. c. 35. and the Schollers after dinner coming to give him a visite the rude Porter at the Gate gave them an uncivil repulse which with throwing scalding water in one of their faces and in revenge thereof the death of the Master Cook such a hubbub was raised that the Legate was glad for safety to get into the Steeple where sculking he might hear the rabble ranging about searching for him and crying out where is that Usurer that Simoniack that piller and poller and filcher of our money who perverting the King and subverting the Kingdom inricheth strangers with our spoils But in the dead of the night out he creeps and with some difficulty got over the River running to the King not far off to whom he tells a pittiful story with his hazards beseeching his protection for those of his Company in great danger left behind Whereupon the King presently sends a Company of armed men who apprehended thirty Schollers ingaged in the Riot which they carryed in Carts to Wallingford Castle and thence to London who being brought barefoot to the Legate's dore upon great intreaty of the Bishops and their penitent submission all were pardoned and the University released of Interdiction Petrus Rubeus comes next in play Pet. Rubeus for the understanding of whose Negotiation and Artifices I will give you only one Paragraph of Matthew Paris Matt. Paris in An. 1240. fo 533. Flor. Hist An. 1240. viz. Per eosdem dies venit in Angliam nova quaedam pecuniae exactio omnibus saeculis inaudita execrabilis Misit enim Papa pater noster Sanctus quendam exactorem in Angliam Petrum Rubeum qui excogitata muscipulatione infinitam pecuniam a miseris Anglicis edoctus erat emungere Intravit enim Religiosorum Capitula cogens seducens eos ad persolvendum exemplo aliorum Praelatorum quos mentitus asserebat gratanter persolvisse Dixit enim ille Episcopus ille ille Abbas ille jam libens satisfecit quidnam vos ignavi tam moramini ut grates cum muneribus amittatis Fecit enim praedictus Impostor jurare ut hoc genus pecuniam extorquendi nulli hominum infra dimidium anni facerent manifestum quasi eliciens hoc ex singulorum primitiva professione cum tantum de honestis sit Consilium Papale celandum Hoc faciendo more praedonum domesticorum qui fidem ab expoliatis extorquent ut nulli pandant nomina spoliantium Sed etiam si homines silerent lapides Ecclesiarum contra grassatores clamorem levarent Nec potuit hoc maleficium latere sub tenebris quomodo enim possent Praelati à suis sibi subjectis pecuniam exigere nisi causa exactionis exprimeretur To all which being so plain and notorious although there needs neither Translation nor Comment yet the English Reader may please to know the import of it to be this An D. 1240. That about that time came into England an abhominable way of exacting money never heard of before For our Holy Father the Pope sent a notable fellow Peter Rubeus by name who with a cunning mouse-trap trick wip'd the poor English of infinite summs of money For he would come amongst the Ecclesiasticks when they were met together in their Chapters and perswade and compel them to promise and pay certain summs telling them lies that many others had given freely That this Bishop and that this Abbot and that had given such and such summs and upbraiding them for their slackness Then the Impostor would make them swear that they would not discover to any one within half a year what they had given telling them that was the antient way of keeping the Popes secrets according to their Oath or promise at their first profession Therein doing like Thieves that extort Oaths from them they rob not to discover their names But here if men should hold their peace the very stones of the Churches would cry out against these robbers c. Contemporary with Rubeus Ruffious Mumelinus were Ruffinus and Mumelinus who acted their parts also in this Tragedy and of whom something before Stephanus Stephanus An. D. 1249. another of the Pope's Legates took his turn also to the great profit of his Master and the universal damage of the Kingdom For the Pope being at difference with the Emperour Frederick this Stephanus was sent to demand and collect the Tenths of all moveables of all the Clergy and Laity both in England Ireland and Wales on which occasion the Argument was apply'd That Rome being the Mother of all Churches ought to be relieved by her Children which was done very dutifully at that time Walo another Legat Walo must not be forgotten and his Province was to gather Procurations throughout all England of all Cathedrals Churches and Religious Houses which he managed strenuously William de Testa was another of the Pope's Legates and Collectors W. de Testa Flor. Hist An. 1307. Tho. Walsin fo 64. Ypod. Neust 97 98. Matthew Westminster and Thomas Walsingham end the raign of King Edward the first with the general Complaints of the Nobles Commons and Clergy of England against the grievances and exactions of this William de Testa and one Peter Hispan the Pope's Legat à Latere in the Parliament held at Carlile The Petitions and address to the King Ryley Placit Parliamentaria fo 376 377. Albertus c. for remedie of those grievances are very remarkable still preserved amongst our Records and lately exhibited to publick view Albertus Alexander Johannes Anglicus Johannes de Diva Ferentinus Martinus Rustandus Petrus Enguelbanck Gasper Pons Pol. Vergil and a multitude more might here be remembred but our Histories being generally fraught with their Acts and devices the curious are referred thither for more satisfaction if they please Besides these Legates Collectors Caursins Lombards and Factors there was another sort of men came over into England much instrumental in improving An. D. 1235. and transmitting the Pope's moneys And these were called Caursins and Lombards Mart. Paris in Hen. 3. fo 417. Italians by Country and terming themselves the Pope's Merchants these drove the trade of letting out of money of which they had great Banks and were esteemed far more severe and merciless than the Jews Matthew Paris gives this Etymology of the name Caursini quasi Capientes ursini because they worryed men like Bears Now because the Pope's Legates and Collectors were all for ready money when any summ by Levy First Fruits Tenths Dispensations c. became due and payable to the Pope by any Prelate Covent Priest or Lay person these Caursins would furnish them with present Cash upon their entring into some solemn Bond or
Obligation as security for so much money lent The form of which Bond or Obligation in English was as followeth To all that shall see this present writing Thomas the Prior and the Convent of Barnwell greeting c. Know ye that we have borrowed and received at London for our selves and profitably to be expended for the affairs of us and our House from Francisco and Gregorio for them and their partners Citizens and Merchants of Millain one hundred and four marks 13 s. 4 d. of lawful money Sterling being counted to every mark Which said one hundred and 4 marks we promise to re-pay at the Feast of St. Peter ad Vincula at the new Temple in London An. D. 1235. And if the said money be not fully payd at the said time and place we bind our selves to pay to the said Merchants or to any one of them or their certain Attorney for every Ten marks forborn two moneths one mark for damages by reason of non-payment with the expences of one Merchant with his horse and man till the money be all payd And for payment of Principal Interest damages and expences we oblige our selves our Church and successors and all our goods and the goods of our Church moveable and immoveable Ecclesiastical or Temporal which we have or shall have wheresoever they shall be found to the said Merchants and their heirs And do recognize and acknowledge that we possess and hold the said goods from the said Merchants by way of courtesie only untill the said money be fully payd And we renounce for our selves and successors all aid of Canon and Civil Law all Priviledges and Clerkship the Epistle of St. Adrian all Customs Statutes Letters Indulgences Priviledges obtained for the King of England from the See Apostolick as also we renounce the benefit of all Appeals or Injunctions with all other exceptions real or personal which may be excepted against the validity of this Instrument All which we promise faithfully to observe In witness whereof we have hereunto set the seal of our Covent Dated at London Die quinto Elphegi Fest S. Elph. April 19. in the year of Grace 1235. You see by this how sure and firm they made their security and then the severity of these Caursins oftentimes constrained their Debtors to sell even their Chalices and Church Plate to discharge these Obligations and secure the rest of their goods for which they became so hated and obnoxious that Roger Bishop of London once excommunicated them for their wicked oppressions but then they appealing to their good friend the Pope Stow Survey of London fo 217. he interpos'd and caused the Bishop to desist A street in London from their meeting and residing there then acquir'd and to this day retains the name of Lombard-street quasi Banker-street On sall of the Pope's revenues here these Caursins pack'd up and transplanted themselves into other Countrys CHAP. XXII Complaints of the People WHat sense the People had of all these grievances burdens and extorsions and what complaints they made upon the same if I should go about to exemplifie out of our Records and the Historians who have delivered them amply and at large it would be infinite and far exceed our designed limits Nay many learned Romanists themselves as Cl. Espencaeus Marsilius of Padua Nic. Clemanges Theodoric de Nyem Aeneas Sylvius Mantuan and a multitude more have with open mouths cryed out against the avarice and exactions of the Popes and Court of Rome one of them saying That Rome being at first founded by Robbers doth yet retain her first Original and that it is called Roma quasi rodens manus and this Rhime thereupon made Roma manus rodit quos rodere non valet Johan Andreas odit and this Dante 's custodit non dantes spernit odit And Germanus Matt. Paris in Hen. 3. Archbishop of Constantinople once signified to the Cardinals at Rome That the Grecians were much scandalized and stumbled at this That the Cardinals desired to be accounted his Disciples who said Silver and Gold have I none when they were altogether intent upon gathering of Silver and Gold Petrarch in an Epistle of his saith That the grim Porter is appeased with Gold That Heaven is open'd with Gold and Christ himself sold for money Impres Paris An. D. 1520. And for the prices and rates there is a notorious Book styled Taxa Camerae Apostolicae specifying what may be had at Rome for money and for how much For our selves what a multitude of complaints do we meet withall made in and by Parliaments in the raigns of King Hen. 3. Ed. 1. Ed. 3. and of other Kings of all these grievances An. 21 Ed. 3. An. 40 Ed. 3. Rot. Par. and mischiess all preserved upon the Rolls as so many scarrs of the wounds which that way our Ancestors received from Rome And what advices the Parliaments gave to our Kings in that case our Records abundantly testifie Anno 18 Ed. Rot. Parl. 18 Ed. 3. 3. The Commons find great fault with Provisions coming from Rome whereby strangers injoyed the best Dignities and Benefices causing decay of Hospitality transporting the Treasure of the Land to the Kings Enemies the discovering the secrets of the Realm with many other mischiefs and inconveniences humbly beseeching the King and Nobles to find some remedy whereupon by common consent the Act of Provision was made to remedy those mischiefs as by the Act at large it doth appear The transactions in Parliament held at Carlile are very memorable to this purpose Ryley Placit Parliament fo 376 c. consisting of Petitions to the King for some relief in these grievances which produced a Letter or Remonstrance of all the Papal oppressions and exactions drawn up in the name of the King Nobles and Commons of England and sent to Pope Clement by special messengers all still preserved amongst our Tower Records and lately published to the World A multitude more of Petitions Remonstrances Orders Ordinances and Statutes to the same purpose might here be amassed against the Pope and the intolerable exactions and extorsions of his Legates Nuncio's and Collectors but to avoid tediousness I referr the Reader to that excellent Abridgement of the Tower Records from K. Edw. 2. Sr. Rob. Cotton's Records Impres An. 1657. vid. ib. 50 Ed. 3. fo 128. to K. Ric. 2. by Sir Robert Cotton lately Printed where most plentiful satisfaction may be had Hitherto of publick complaints now for those of particular persons I cannot omit that of Robert Grosthead the devout and famous Bishop of Lincoln who observing the miserable burdens endured by his Countrey from these Romish exactions took the boldness to write a Letter thereof to Pope Innocent the fourth exemplified at large by Mat. Matt. Paris in Hen. 3. An. 1253. fo 870. Paris expostulating with him to this purpose That by his exactions and Instruments with non obstante he brought on this Nation a Noah's
12. but by matter of Record and that in regard of the Dignity of his Person Secondly Causa Necessitatis as in case to avoyd the Attainder of him that hath Right to the Crown As if the right Heir to the Crown be Attaint of High Treason yet shall the Crown descend to him and eo instanti when it happens without any other reversal the Attainder is purged as it fell out in the Case of King Henry 7. lest in the interim 1 Hen. 7. fo 4. b. there should be an Interregnum which the Law of England will not suffer any more than nature doth a Vacuum As also by vertue of this Politick Capacity though the King be within Age yet he may make Leases and Grants and the same shall be valid for otherwise his revenue would decay and the King would not be able to reward service c. Thirdly Causa Vtilitatis As when Lands and Tenements or Possessions descend from his collateral Ancestors being Subjects as suppose from the Earl of March c. to the King the King is seised or possessed of them jure Coronae in his Politick Capacity and they shall go with the Crown And in this Capacity it was that Queen Elizabeth had and injoyed all that belonged to Queen Mary though they were but Sisters of the half Blood which no others could do And as the Crown of England is Descendible to the Heirs males yet when a King dies and leaves no Son but Daughters only the Crown and Dignity Royal descends to the Kings eldest Daughter alone and to her Posterity and so it hath bin declared by a Parliament for Regnum non est divisibile Stat. 25 Hen. 8. cap. 22. And there shall be no Possessio fratris of the Lands of the Crown for the quality of the Person doth in these and many other likes cases alter the descent So as all the Lands and Possessions whereof the King is seised or possessed jure coronae shall attend upon and follow the Crown unto whomsoever it shall Descend for the Crown and the Possessions of the same are concomitantia The naturall Body of the King being thus invested with his Politick and Royal Capacity we behold him as the Representative and Lieutenant of God Almighty who is King of Kings All Power is from God and Imperium non nisi Divino fato datur And therefore Plato did say That God did not appoint and establish men that is men of a common sort and sufficiency and purely Humane to rule and govern others cautiously to be understood but such as by some Divine touch singular vertue and gift of Heaven do excel others and therefore they are called Heroes and stand in Comparison with others as we may conceive of the Air which if we do compare with the Heavens it is a kind of Earth but if we compare it with the Earth it is then a kind of Heaven So of King's if we compare them with God Almighty they are but a kind of men but if we compare them with other men they are a kind of gods both intimated in that of the Psalmist I have said ye are gods but ye shall dye like men This Royal majesty of the King of England is replenished with plenary and undoubted Right and Authority to rule and govern all his Subjects and that in all Causes as well Ecclesiastical as Temporal For this Kingdom of England is a Soveraign Empire or Monarchy consisting of one Head the Soveraign or King and of a Body Politick the People and this Body is distinguished into the Clergy and the Laity all of them intirely Subject to their Royal Head the King who as before is said is furnished and instituted with an intire Authority over every Subject of what degree or quality soever and that in all causes Ecclesiastical and Temporal For otherwise the King would be imperfect in his Authority contrary to the true notion of Soveraignty and thereby disabled to deliver Justice in all causes to all his Subjects or to punish all crimes and offences within his Dominions a consideration of high import for the necessary security both of Prince and People But notwithstanding the full and Soveraign Right of the King to rule and govern all his Subjects and that in all causes and consequently the just and necessary duty of all his Subjects to yield a full and intire Obedience to all the Kings good Laws for it is the Law that measures out and spiriteth the King's Authority as it directs and enforces the Subject's Obedience yet so it hath bin and so it is in our Antinomian times partly by the obstinacy and devotedness of some the weakness and ignorance of others and the peevishness and perversness of many that there is a multitude of natural born Subjects in this Kingdom who in defiance of the Laws both in their Opinions and Practices deny or oppose our Soveraigns Supremacy On the one hand there are the Sectaries who notwithstanding the Law is the Standard of true Allegiance make the ground the rule and measures of their Allegiance to be their own private fancies And though the Law is the bright Sun shining in the Horizon of this Kingdom by the Light whereof every one ought to guide his actions yet these men out-stare this Sun and giddily run some of them after the Ignis fatuus of a pretended Light within them some after the false fires of a misguided zeal too many after the Boutfeaus or male-content Incendiaries and some after the very fumes of Hypochondriacal fits mistaken for visions and Revelations On the other hand there are the Devoto's of Rome who in contempt of the King's Laws and Authority make the rules and measures of their Allegiance to be the will and pleasure of a Forrainer As the Sectaries set up a Pope in every man's Conscience whilst they invest it with a power to control the Decrees of Princes and new Lights for themselves to live and walk by these contrarily put out their own Eyes and give themselves up to be led by an infallible Head as they think to whom whilst they yield a blind Obedience they cannot see to be good Subjects These men of both sorts strike at our Supremacy the very foundation and heart-string of Government and by whom the very Sinews of Soveraignty are cut asunder when either upon the suggestions of fanatical delusions or the imperious awes of an extraneous Power the King 's natural Subjects shall audaciously lift up their Hands and Heels against him My Province at this time to wave all disputes shall only be to make some discovery of those Foundations of Law Right and Authority whereon our King's Supremacy is built by the Legal and unquestionable Historical Evidences and Manifesto's of the same and whilst I keep close there I shall be sure to be on a safe bottom I shall not pretend to wade into the vast Ocean of the King's Prerogative in all its extensions but shall confine my self to the affair
of the King's Supremacy in Ecclesiastical matters without professing yet a stature to reach the top of this sublime or the bottom of this profound concern In the first place then we are to know that the King 's just and lawful Authority in Ecclesiastical matters is in part declared by a statute made in the first year of Queen Elizabeth Stat. 1 Eliz. Ca. 1. Non novam introduxit sed antiquam declaravit Coke 5. Rep. Cawdrys Case fo 8. And it was one of the Resolutions of the Judges in Cawdry's Case That the said Act of the First year of the Queen concerning Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction was not a Statute introductory of a new Law but Declaratory of the Old But for our purpose it will be sufficient to transcribe the Preamble of the Act which runs thus Most humbly beseech your most excellent Majesty your faithful and obedient Subjects the Lords Spiritual and Temporal and the Commons in this your present Parliament assembled that where in time of the raign of your most dear Father of worthy memory King Henry 8. divers good Laws and Statutes were made as well for the better extinguishment and putting away of all usurped and forrain powers and authorities out of this your Realm and other your Highness Dominions and Countrys as also for the * Nota. restoring and uniting to the Imperial Crown of this Realm the ancient Jurisdictions authorities Superiorities and preheminences to the same of right belonging by reason whereof we your most humble and obedient Subjects from the 25. year of the raign of your said dear Father were continually kept in good order and were disburdened of divers great and intolerable charges before that time unlawfully taken and exacted by such forrain power and authoritie as before that was usurped until such time as all the said good laws and Statutes by one Act of Parliament made in the first and second years of the raigns of the late King Philip and Queen Mary your Highness Sister Intituled An Act repealing all Statutes Articles and Provisions made against the See Apostolick of Rome since the 20th year of King Henry 8. and also for the establishment of all Spiritual and Ecclesiastical possessions and hereditaments conveyed to the Laity were all clearly repealed and made void as by the same Act of repeal more at large appears By reason of which Act of repeal your said humble Subjects were est-soons brought again under an usurped forrain power and authority and yet do remain in that bondage to the intolerable charges of your loving Subjects if some redress by the Authority of this your High Court of Parliament with the assent of your Highness be not had and provided May it therefore please your Highness for the repressing of the said usurped forrain power and the restoring of the Rights Jurisdictions and preheminences appertaining to the Imperial Crown of this your Realm that it may be Enacted by the Authority of this present Parliament c. And then it proceeds to Repeal the said Act of Philip and Mary and revives the former Statutes of King Hen. 8. and King Edw. 6. abolisheth all usurped forrain powers and authorities and restoreth and uniteth all Jurisdictions Priviledges Superiorites and Preheminences Spiritual and Ecclesiastical to the Imperial Crown of this Realm This Statute doing Right to the Queen and her Successors ever since as in Temporal Causes the Kings of England by the mouths of their Judges in the Courts of Justice have judged and determined the same by the Temporal Laws of England So in all Ecclesiastical and spiritual Causes as Blasphemy Ecclesiastical Causes Stat. de circumsuecte agatis 13 Edw. 1. Articuli Cleri 9 Edw. 2. Fitzh Nat. Bre. 41 42 43 c. Apostasie from Christianity Heresie Schisme Ordering Admissions and Institution of Clarks Celebration of Divine service Rites of Matrimony Divorces Bastardy Substraction and Right of Tiths Oblations Obventions Dilapidations Reparation of Churches Probate of Wills and Testaments Administrations and Accounts upon the same Simony Fornication Incest Adulteries Sollicitation of Chastity Appeals in Ecclesiastical causes Commutation of Penance Pensions Procurations c. the Conusans of all which belongs not to the Common Law but the determination and decision of the same hath been by Ecclesiastical Judges according to the King 's Ecclesiastical Laws of this his Realm And although the said Stat. 1 Eliz. declares how and by whom the King may appoint the same to be done yet as is intimated before the King by Law may do the same although that Statute had not bin made And hence it was that Stephen Gardiner the noted Bishop of Winchester Significantiori vocabulo competentem Principi jure Divino poâ—estâ—tem exprâ—mi clarius voluâ—runt in his Oration De vera Obedientia once said That by the Parliaments stiling of King Hen. 8. Head of the Church it was no new invented matter wrought only their mind was to have the power pertaining to a Prince by God's law to be more clearly expressed by this Emphatical compellation And certainly this was the ground of that answer which King James gave to the Non-conforming Divines at the conference at Hampton Court upon the seven and thirtieth Article of the Church of England the said Divines urging that these words in the Article viz. Confer at Hamp Court fo 37. The Bishop of Rome hath no Authority in this land were not sufficient unless it was added nor ought to have To which the King being somewhat moved roundly replyed What speak you of the Pope's authority here Habemus jure quod habemus and therefore in as much as it is said He hath not it is plain and certain enough that he ought not to have Nor is this Authority united to the Crown of England only but of right also to all other Christian Crowns and accordingly avowed by all other Christian Princes And to this purpose I could multiply the Suffrages of many antient Fathers and Doctors of the Church but my aim being rather at matter of fact I will forbear the particularizing the explicite Judgements and Declarations of those Devout and just men who were as careful in its degree and proportion to give unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's as to God the things that are God's But for the matter of practice And in the first place here I cannot but take notice That in the first Ages of Christianity Religion did not only subsist but spread by immediate influence from Heaven only but when by vertue of the same influence it had once prevailed and triumphed over all oppositions of Pagan superstition and persecution and subdued the Emperours themselves and became the Imperial Religion then Ecclesiastical Authority assumed and fixed it self in its natural and proper place and the excercise of its Jurisdiction and what that was I shall shew also was restored to the Imperial Diadem and Constantine was no sooner setled in his Imperial Throne but he took the settlement of all Ecclesiastical
Sero recusat ferre quod subiit jugum But notwithstanding the infinite subtle arts and mighty efforts for that purpose the Papacy found it at any time a most difficult thing to carry any thing here by a high hand and to bring the Ecclesiastical State of this Nation to depend on Rome For our Princes never did doubt but they had the same Authority within their own Dominions as Constantine had in the Empire and our Bishops the same as St. Peter's Successors in the Church Ego Constantini Ailred Rival Coll. 361.16 Vos Petri gladium habetis in manibus said King Edgar in an eminent Speech unto his Clergy And what Power in the Church our Kings took themselves anciently to have appears by their Laws and Edicts published by themselves Leg. Edv. confess cap. 17. fo 142. Leg. Canut Inae apud Jornal Mart. Paris w. 2. and acknowledged by their subjects All speaking thus That the ordering and disposition of all Ecclesiastical Affairs within their own Dominions was their sole and undoubted Right the Foundation thereof being that Power which the Divine wisdom hath invested the Secular Magistrate withal for the defence and preservation of his Church and People against all attempts whatsoever And all our Laws and Lawyers concurring in this Rex sub nullo nisi tantum sub Deo Bracton Leg. Sanct. Edw. cap. 19.17 That the King of England is subject to no Power on Earth but to God only and in King Edwards Laws he is called Vicarius summi Regis as also in Bracton that being the Cognomen as it were given by Pope Eleutherius long ago to King Lucius here as not being under the power of any other And this in effect acknowledged by the whole Body of the English Clergy Reg. Hoveden in Hen. 2. pa. post fo 510. in a Letter of the Bishops of the Province of Canterbury to Tho. Becket An. D. 1167. as it stands recorded at large by Roger Hoveden To this it will be but seasonable and pertinent to add the Historical Instances and evidences some of them as occurr demonstrating as the continual claim and when they could the exercise of this Right by the Kings of this Island so the worthy resistances as from time to time have been made against all forraign usurpations and incroachments upon the same sufficient to shew that our Princes did not command the Ecclesiasticks here who made up so great a part of their subjects according to the will and pleasure of any forrain Potentate nor that they were only lookers on whilest others governed the English Church Therefore we may observe All Councils and Convocations Eadmer fo 25.5.11 Florent Wigorn An. 1070. fo 434. Stat. 25 H. 8.19 assembled at the King's appointment and by the King 's Writt Jubente praesente Rege as one says and that upon the same Authority as the Emperour Constantine had long before assembled the Council of Nice Some appointed by the King to sit in those Councils and supervise their actions Matt. Paris ad An. 1237. fo 447. ne ibi contra regiam coronam dignitatem aliquid statuere attentarent And Mat. Paris gives us the names of the Commissioners for that purpose in one of the Councils held in the time of King Hen. 3. And when any did otherwise he was forced to retract such Constitutions as did Peckham or they were but in paucis servatae Lyâ—dw de soro competent cap. 1. as were those of Boniface as Lyndwood ingenuously doth acknowledge No Synodical Decree suffered to be of force but by the King's allowance Eadmer fo 6.29 and confirmation In hoc concilio ad emendationem Ecclesiae Anglicanae assensu Domini Regis Gervas Dorobern An. 1175. fo 1429. Mat. Paris Hen. Huntingd Eadm passim Pat. 8 9 Johan R. m. 5.8 primorum omnium regni haec subscripta promulgata sunt capitula as Gervasius Dorobern informs us No Legate suffered to enter into England but by the King's leave and swearing to do nothing prejudicial to the King and his Crown All matters of Episcopacy determined by the King himself Eadmer 115.23 inconsulto Romano Pontifice No Appeals to Rome permitted None to receive Letters from the Pope Thorn Coll. 2152. Coke 3. Instit cap. 54.10.127 Hoveden Hen. 2. fo 496. without shewing them to the King who caused all words prejudicial to him or his Crown to be renounced and dis-avowed by the bringers or receivers of such Letters Permitted no Bishops to Excommunicate Eadmer fo 6.31 or inflict any Ecclesiastical censure on any Peer nisi ejus praecepto Caused the Bishops to appear in their Courts Addit Mat. Paris fo 200 to give account why they excommunicated a subject Bestowed Bishopricks on such as they approved Forent Wigorn An. 1070. fo 536. and translated Bishops from one See to another Erected new Bishopricks Godwin de Praef. Angl. So did King Hen. 1. An. 1109. Ely taking it out of Lincoln Carlile 1133. out of York or rather Durham Commanded by Writ Coke 2. Instit 625. Addit Mat. Paris fo 200. nu 6. the Bishops to Residency Placed by a Lay hand Clerks in Prebendary or Parochial Churches Ordinariis penitus irrequisitis as it is phrased in Matt. Paris By these and many other instances of the like nature exercised by our Kings it appears that the English ever took the outward Policy of this Church or Government of it in foro exteriori to depend on the King And therefore the writs of Summoning all Parliaments express the calling of them to be Pro quibusdam arduis urgentibus negotiis nos statum defensionem Regni nostri Angliae Ecclesiae Anglicanae concernentibus c. In the Reign of King Edward the first Broâ—k Tit. Praemunire pl. 10. A subject brought in a Bull of Excommunication against another subject of this Realm and published it to the Lord Treasurer of England and this was by the ancient Common Law of England adjudged Treason against the King his Crown and Dignity for which the Offendor should have bin drawn and hang'd but at the great instance of the Chancellor and Treasurer he only abjur'd the Realm King Edw. Trin. 19 Ed. 3. Fitzh Quare non admisit pl. 7. presented his Clark to a Benefice within the Province of York who was refused by the Arch-bishop for that the Pope by way of Provision had conferred it on another The King thereupon brought a Quare non admisit the Archbishop to it Pleaded that the Bishop of Rome had long time before Provided to the said Church as one having Supream Authority in that case and that he durst not nor had power to put him out who was possessed by the Pope's Bull. But for this high contempt against the King his Crown and Dignity in refusing to execute his Soveraign's commands against the Pope's Provision by Judgement of the Common Law the Lands of his whole Bishoprick were seized
into the King's hands and lost during his life And this Judgement was before any Act of Parliament made in that case Nota. And there it is said That for the like offence the Archbishop of Canterbury had bin in worse case by the Judgement of the Sages in the Law if the King had not extended favour to him Although by the Ordinance of Circumspecte agatis Coke 5 Rep. Case de jure R. Eccl. made in the thirteenth year of King Edward the first and by a general allowance and usage the Ecclesiastical Court held Plea of Tithes Oblations Obventions Mortuaries Redemption of Penance Laying of violent hands on a Clark Defamations c. yet did not the Clergy think themselves assured nor quiet from Prohibitions purchased by subjects till King Edward the second by his Letters Patents under the Great Seal Staâ— 9 Edw. 2. Artic. cler ca. 16. in and by consent of Parliament upon Petition of the Clergy had granted them Jurisdiction in those cases An Excommunication by the Archbishop Finzh Excom 4.16 Ed. 3. Broâ—k Excom pl. 5.14 H. 4. although it be dis-annulled by the Pope or Legate is to be allowed Neither may the Judges give any allowance of any such sentence of the Pope or his Legate And it hath often bin adjudg'd 30 Ed 3 Lib. Assiz pl. 19.12 Ed. 4.16 and declared That the Pope's Excommunication is of no force in England It is often Resolved in our Books that all the Bishopricks in England were founded by the King's Progenitors and the Advowsons vowsons of them all belong to the King and at first they were * Per traditionem annuli pastorasis baculi Donative And that if an Incumbent of any Church with cure dyes if the Patron Present not within six months the Bishop of that Diocess ought to collate that the cure be supply'd if he neglect by the space of six moneths the Metropolitan of that Diocess shall confer one unto that Church and if he also neglect six moneths then the Law gives to the King as Supreame within his own Kingdom and not to the Pope power to provide a Pastor The King may not only exempt any Ecclesiastical Person from the Jurisdiction of the Ordinary but may grant unto him Episcopal Jurisdiction as it appears the King had done of antient time to the Archdeacon of Richmond 17 Ed 3.13 20 Ed. 3. And the Abbot of Bury was exempted from Episcopal Jurisdiction by the King's Charter The King Presented to a Benefice 21 Ed. 3.40 and his Presentee was disturbed by one that had obtained Bulls from Rome for which offence he was condemned to perpetual imprisonment If Excommunication be the final end of any suit in the Court of Rome as indeed it is and be not allowed Fitzh Nat. Br. fo 64. f. or allowable in England as it hath often bin Declared It then follows that by the Ancient Common Law of England no suit for any cause though it be spiritual arising within this Realm may or can be determined in the Court of Rome Quia frustra expectatur eventus cujus effectus nullus sequitur At a Parliament held An. Stat. 25 Ed. 3. de Provisorib 25 Edward the third It was Enacted That as well they that obtained Provisions from Rome as they that put them in execution should be out of the King's Protection and that they should be dealt withal as the King's Enemies and no man so dealing with them should be impeached for the same At a Parliament held An. Stat. 16 Ric. 2. cap. 5. 16 Ric. 2. It is declar'd That the Crown of England hath bin so free at all times that it hath bin in subjection to none but immediately subject to God and none other and that the same ought not in any thing touching the Regality of the said Crown to be submitted to the Bishop of Rome nor the Laws and Statutes of this Realm by him frustrated or defeated at his Will And the Commons in that Parliament affirmed that the things attempted by the Bishop of Rome be clearly against the King's Crown and his Regality used and approved in time of all his Progenitors in which points the said Commons professed to live and dye and to all which the Lords assented also as being thereto bound by their Allegiances It is resolved that the Pope's Collector 2 Hen. 4 fo 9. though he have the Pope's Bull for that purpose hath no Authority within this Realm And there it is said That the Archbishops and Bishops of this Realm are the King 's spiritual Judges And in another place it is said Papa non potest mutare Leges Angliae 11 Hen. 4. fo 37. Per Curiam In the raign of King Henry the sixth 1 Hen. 7. fo 10. the Pope wrote Letters in derogation of the King and his Regality and the Church-men durst not speak any thing against them But Humfrey Duke of Glocester for their safe keeping put them into the fire In the raign of King Edward the fourth 1 Hen. 7. fo 20. the Pope granted to the Prior of St. John's to have Sanctuary in his Priory and this was pleaded and claim'd by the Prior but resolved by the Judges Keilway Reports 8 H. 8. fo 191. b. That the Pope had no power to grant any Sanctuary within this Realm and therefore the same was disallowed by Judgement of Law In Brook Tit. Presentation al Esglise Bro. Present al Esglise p. 12. It is affirmed That the Pope was permitted to do certain things within this Realm by usurpation and not of right untill the Raign of King Kenry the eighth quod nota sayes the Book Stat. 24 Hen. 8. ca. 12.25 H. 8.21 And in what esteem the Pope's Authority here was in that King's time may sufficiently be collected from the Tenor and Purview of the Statutes about that affair in his raign made In the raign of King Kenry the sixth Henry Beaufort Uncle to the King being Bishop of Winchester was made Cardinal and thereupon purchased from the Pope a Bull Declaratory that he might still hold his Bishoprick yet it was held and adjudged that the See of Winchester was become void by the assumption of the Cardinalship and therefore the Cardinal fallen into a Praemunire 4 Hen. 6. in Arch. Turr. Lond. for which he was glad to purchase his pardon as by the Records of all this it doth appear It was Adjudged in the Court of Common Pleas Dier 12 Eliz. by Sir James Dyer Weston and the whole Court That a Dean or any other Ecclesiastical Person may resign as divers did to King Edward the sixth Vid. Grend ca. in Plowd Com. for that he had the Authority of the Supream Ordinary With all this may be noted also the several Statutes heretofore made against the usurpations of the Bishops of Rome in this Kingdom the principal whereof these viz. Stat. 25 Ed. 3. de Provisorib Stat. 27 28 Ed.
this clause or words non obstante was first invented and used in the Court of Rome whereupon Marsil Petav. pronounces a dreadful Vae against that Court for introducing this clause of non obstante as being a bad president and mischievous to all the People of Christendom for when the Temporal Princes perceived the Pope to dispence with his own Canons they made no scruple to imitate him and dispence with their Penal Laws and Statutes Vid. le Case de Penal stat in Coke 7. Rep. and hereupon one Canonist said thus Dispensatio est vulnus quod vulnerat jus commune and another thus That all abuses would be reform'd if these two words viz. non obstante did not hinder And Matt. Paris reciting several Decrees made in the Council of Lions beneficial to the Church Mat. Paris in An. 1245. says thus Sed omnia haec alia per hoc repagulum non obstante infirmantur But now to return We have seen how by several steps and gradations it was after the Norman Conquest that the Court of Rome usurp'd upon the Crown of England in four main points of Jurisdiction under four of our Kings not immediately succeeding for of King Will. Rufus the Pope could gain nothing viz. 1. Upon the Conquerour by sending Legats or Commissioners to hear and determine Ecclesiastical causes and other purposes 2. Upon King Hen. 1. the Donation and Investiture of Bishopricks and other Benefices 3. Upon King Stephen in drawing of Appeals to the Court of Rome 4. Upon King Hen. 2. in the exemption of Clerks from the secular Power all rivetted and clinch'd by the new Decrees and Canons which were continually multiplyed and obtruded here and all this notwithstanding the generous resistances which at several times were made to all Neither would all this satisfie till an entire surrender of the Crown it self was obtain'd from King John re-granted him again to hold in Fee-Farm and Vassallage of the Court of Rome For it was both before in and after this King's time that by the boldness and activity of strangers and treachery or pusillanimity of subjects co-operating with the weaknesses and necessities of Princes the Papacy arrived to that height as to domineer in a most intolerable way both over the Purse the Conscience the Regality and all the most weighty concernments of the Nation Now to redress all this some unequal resistances were at divers times made Vid. Mat. Paris in H. 3. in toto King Hen. 3. was totally born down and his Kingdom and subjects reduced to utter poverty and slavery by this usurpation After him comes the noble King Edw. 1. who truly may be stiled Vindex Libertatis Anglicanae at his Father's death he was abroad in the Holy Land but no sooner return'd and Crown'd and finding his Kingdom in such a bad plight his first work was to put some stop to the career of Papal incroachments For the Pope having then summoned a General Council he would not suffer his Bishops to repair to it till he took a solemn Oath of them for their Loyalty and good abearing Then the Pope forbidding the King to War against Scotland he slights his prohibition and proceeds The Pope demands the First Fruits of Ecclesiastical Livings but the King forbids the payment thereof to him The Pope sends forth a general Bull prohibiting the Clergy to pay Subsidies to Temporal Princes whereupon a Tenth being granted to the King in Parliament the Clergy refused to pay it but the King seiseth their Temporalties for the Contempt and obtained payment notwithstanding the Pope's Buâ— After this he made the Statute of Mortâ—â—ain that the Church might not grow monstrous in temporal possessions In his time one of his subjects brougth in a Bull of Excommunication against another and the King Commanded he should be executed as a Traitor according to the ancient law but the Chancellor and Treasurer on their knees begged that he should be only banished He caused Laws to be made against bringing in of Bulls of Provision and Breves of Citation and made the first Statute against Provisors His Successor King Edw. 2. being but a weak Prince suffered the Pope to grow upon him but then the Peers and People withstood him all they could and when that unhappy King was to be depos'd amongst the Articles fram'd against him one of the most hainous was That he had given allowance to the Pope's Bulls After him King Ed. 3. a magnanimous Prince couragiously resisted the Pope's incroachments and caused the Statutes against Provisors to be severely put in execution and the Bishops of Winchester and Ely and Abbot of Waltham convicted and punished for their high contempts Yet during the nonage of King Rich. 2. the Pope's Bulls Stat. 16 R. 2. ca. 5. Breves and Legats became very busie and daring again whereof the People became so sensible and impatient that upon their special prayer the Stat. 16. R. 2. of Praemunire was enacted more severe and penal than all the former Statutes against Provisors and yet against this King as against King Ed. 2. it was objected at the time of his depose that he had allowed the Pope's Bulls to the enthralling of the Crown After this comes a weak King Hen. 6. and then another attempt was made if possible to revive the usurped Jurisdiction for the commons denying the King money when he was in great wants the Archbishop of Canterbury and the rest of the Bishops offered the King a large supply if that he would consent that all the Laws against Provisors and especially that of 16 Ric. 2. might be repealed but the Duke of Glocester who before had burnt the Pope's Letters caused this motion to be rejected so that all those Laws by especial providence have stood in force untill this day All which with the Resolutions and Judicial Judgements before specified founded upon the ancient and good Laws of the Land have enabled our Kings at all times since to vindicate the just Rights of their Crown But King Hen. 8. designing a further Reformation which could not be effected whilest the Pope's authority had any life in England took this course First he writes to the Universities the Great Monasteries and Churches in his Kingdom and in particular May 18. 1534. to the University of Oxford requiring them as men of vertue In Archivis Oxon. ad An. 1534. Antiq. Eccl. Brit. fo 384. 37. Integrity and profound Learning diligently to examine discuss and resolve a certain Question of no small import viz. An Romanus Episcopus habeat majorem aliquam jurisdictionem sibi collatam in Sacra Scriptura in hoc regno Angliae quam alius quivis externus Episcopus and to return their Opinion in Writing under their common seal according to the meer and sincere truth thereof To which after mature deliberation and examination not only of the places of the Holy Scriptures but of the best Interpreters of the same for many days they returned Answer Jun. 27. 1534.
Romanum Episcopum majorem aliquam Jurisdictionem non habere sibi à Deo collatam in Sacra Scriptura in hoc regno Angliae quam alium quemvis Externum Episcopum Conformable to which was also the Resolution of all the English Clergy Upon which and presently after King Hen. 8. was by Parliament agnized Supream Head of the Church in these his Dominions Stat 26 Hen. 8 cap. 1. whereby it was also Enacted and Declared That the King his Heirs and Successors Kings of England should have and enjoy united and annexed to the Imperial Crown of this his Realm as well the Title and Stile thereof as all Honours Dignities Jurisdictions c. to the said Dignity of Supream Head of the Church of England belonging or appertaining with full power and authority to visit redress reform order correct restrain and amend all errours heresies abuses c. which Act Io. Hâ—rb Hist of Hen. 8 fo 380. though much to the support of the Regal Authority seem'd not suddenly to be approv'd by the King nor before he had consulted with his Council who shewed him many precedents of Kings of England that had used this power and with his Bishops who having fully discussed the point in their Convocations Declared That the Pope had no Jurisdiction in this Kingdom warranted by Gods word suitable to what was Declared by the Universities Colledges and Religious Houses with learned men of all sorts maintaining it necessary that such a power should be extant in the Realm for the Peace good Order and Government of the same the Reasons and Arguments of all which were couched in a Book of the King 's about that time published De vera differentiae Regiae Ecclesiasticae potestatis whence also the Learned Bishop Andrews in his Tortura Torti seems to have drawn diver assertions of the Regal Authority to which the Reader is referred A practice this I mean of consulting the Clergy and the Learned in a case of so great an import agreeable to former Presidents Tho. Walsing in An 1408. fo 420. as I find in Tho. Walsingham In concilio cleri celebrato Londoniis assistentibus Doctoribus Vniversitatum Cantabrigiae Oxoniae tractatum est de censu obedientia Papae subtrahendis vel non subtrahendis And as King Hen. 2. Rog. Hoveden in Hen. 2. pa. prior professed he would proceed in the great cause depending between him and his Archbishop Becket Now when King Hen. 8. was by Parliament agnized Supream Head of the Church within his own Dominions and by him for the reasons aforesaid owned and accepted what they meant by this may well enough be collected from the premises and from that notable Oration of Stephen Gardiner of True Obedience before mentioned which Title he neither took nor the Parliament gave in other sence than the French have always attributed it to their Princes and what the Royal Ancestors of King Hen. 8. Spelm. Conc. 437. Seld. ad Eadm 1â—5 â—â—g Edvard c. himself assumed under the Homonymous names of Tutors Protectors Governours Domini Christi Vicarii Agricolae c. and the like And this is the Supremacy which the Kings of England have always claimed and exercised within their own Dominions with the temporary obstructions above mentioned that is in Soveraign way to Rule and Govern all their Subjects of what degree and quality soever to call their own Clergy and Church-men together and with their advice to see the Church reformed and by Act of Parliament to have all Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction restored and united to the Crown as in the First year of Q. Eliz. was done inlarged on before And here it will not be unnecessary to observe and know how that Restitution was resented by the Queen's Subjects at that time And for that observe and observable it was the general complyance and complacence of the People in it as also that from the First until the Eleventh year of that Queen's raign Cokâ— 5 Rep. de ure Reg. Eâ—câ—esiastico fo 35. no person of what perswasion of Christian Religion soever at any time refused to come to the Publick Divine Service celebrated in the Church of England and established by publick Authority within this Realm until the Bull of Pope Pius Quintus in the Eleventh year of her Majesties Raign came out against her whereby he deprived her of all her Right Authority Dignity and Priviledge in or unto these her Realms and Dominions and absolved all her Subjects of their Allegiance After this Bull it was that those who regarded the Pope's power or threats more than their Prince's just Authority or their own Allegiance refused to come to Church and from that occasion first acquired the stile of Recusants Vid. Camb. Annal. This gave rise also to a multitude of treasonable practices and conspiracies against the Queens life taken up also against King James Vid. Arth. Crohagans case in Crook 1. Rep. continued against our late Soveraign King Charls the First and still fermenting to break forth upon all opportunities to promote the Catholick cause and all abetted by the traitorous Doctrine of King-killing justified and proclaimed to the World by Bellarmin Co licenzâ— con priviâ—egio Baronius Mariana Emanuel Sa Allen Creswell and others both Natives and Strangers the consequence whereof was this That though Treason was always in the intention yet God be praised nothing hath yet been brought to Execution but the Traitors In this affair St. Jo. Davys D sc of Ireland fo 242. I find a memorable Observation of a grave Statesman That in the Indentures of submission of the Irish to King Hen. 8. all the Irish Lords did acknowledge him to be their Soveraign Lord and King and owned his Supremacy in all causes utterly renouncing the Pope's Jurisdiction most worthy of note says he in that when the Irish had once resolved to obey the King they made no scruple to renounce the Pope Besides these which have been experienc'd in our own Country infinite have been the mischiefs occasion'd in the World upon this score of Supremacy and Dominion and that by the mighty strugling and bickerings that have been maintained between the Papacy and the Princes of the Earth about the gaining and keeping this Power Besides the general Observations that a great means of the growth of the Turkish Empire to it s now formidable stature hath been the Wars and disturbances wrought upon this ground amongst the Christians themselves Also the decay and corruption of sincere piety and devotion by the turning the current of Religion out of its pure primitive channel into the sink of disputes and controversies about the Rights and Bounds of Dominion when Christ himself hath told us That his Kingdom is not of this world This caused Divine Religion to degenerate into Humane Policy and upon this it was that Machiavel too truly observed Mach. Disc on Tit. Liv. lib. 1. cap. 12. That there was now here less Piety
And that of Vzziah a King indeed proclaming aloud both the sin and danger in trespassing beyond the stated and just bounds and limits in Religious Offices whilst under his usurped Pontifical Robes 2 Chron. 26.21 he wore a loaâ—hsome leprosie to his dying day as a most signal mark of the Divine vengeance for Exchanging his Scepter for a Censer to offer up unwarranted and noisome Incense But God be thanked neither of these is the case of our Kings who otherwise have taken f r their patterns divers other Noble Hâ—zekiah Jâ—siah c. vertuous and Religious Princes to whose Honour it is recorded how though they neither offered Sacrifice nor Incense yet that they cleansed the polluted Temple reformed the corrupted Religion and manners of their times and caused Judah and Jerusalem to serve the Lord. So ours never assumed to themselves a Power or Authority of Preaching Teaching binding or loosing in foro animae Administring the Holy Sacraments conferring Orders or any thing in particu ar properly annexed to those Orders But only in matters External that is of Jurisdiction external the last Branch of Ecclâ—siastical Authority and what belongs to the outward Polity of the Church they look upon it as their duty and honour to become Nursing Fathers to see that the true God be publickly worshipped to see that Atheists Polyâ—heists and all such as break the Moral and eternal Law be Corrected chastised and restrained upon which acconut it is often said that Rex est Custos utriusque Tabulae To see that good and wholesome Laws be made and established for the good government of the Church That both the Church and Church-men be regulated and defended in their respective Rights Possessions Interests and concerns and that such as do transgress the lawful constitutions of the Church be duely punished and to this purpose the Regal Office is thus described in King Edward's Law Rex Leg. Edv. Confes cap. 17. fo 142. quia vicarius Summi Regis est ad hoc est constitutus ut regnum terrenum populum Domini super omnia Sanctam veneretur Ecclesiam ejus regat ab injuriosis defendat Jo. Brompt Coll. 761 923. c. And much to the same purpose in those of Ina Canutus and others And hence it also is that in those Laws we often find the Prince extending his Commands unto the same things the Priest did his Exhortations And thus the premises considered it plainly may be collected wherein the formalis ratio of our King's Supremacy and Ecclesiastical Authority doth consist which being inherent in their Crowns they do and may at all times put in practice sine ulla labe Christianitatis and without praying the Aid of any forraign Power or Potentate whatsoever And further to anticipate all prejudice and Scandal in this matter Queen Elizabeth in the same year of the Restitution of Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction to her Crown did declare she did not challenge any other authority Admoniâ—ions annexâ—d unto the Injâ—â—ctions 1 El. then was challenged and lately used by King Henry the eighth and King Edward the sixth which is and was of ancient time due to the Imperial Crown of this Realm that is under God to have the Soveraignty and rule over all manner of persons within her Realms and Dominions c. And for the Oath of Supremacy appointed by the said Stat. 1 Eliz. whereby her Highnesse's Supremacy was Declared in the stile aforesaid It was Dâ—clared in a Statute made the next Parliament Stâ—t 5 El. Ca. 1. That the said Oath shall be taken and expounded in such form as is set forth in an Admonition annexed to the Q. Majesty's Injunction c. At which time also a Synod being held for avoiding of diversity of Opinions and establishing of consent touching true Religion c. It did expresly declare Artic. 37. That they did not give to our Princes the ministring of God's word or the Sacraments But only that Prerogative as is given in the Holy Scriptures by God himself viz. That they should rule all Estates and degrees committed to their charge by God whether they be Ecclesiastical or Temporal and restrain with the Civil sword the stubborn and evil doers c. Stat. 13 Eliz. cap. 12. And thâ— Articles of this Synod were likewise confirmed by Parliament So that now no man need doubt but that all this was but acknowledgement that what our Kings and Princes had done in former Ages might lawfully be continued by their Royal Successors and that therein they did not usurp upon the Rights and Offices of others but only maintained their own and that all these Declaratory Supervening Statures passed and Enacted upon the most weighty Reasons of State were not Introductory of any new Law but only Assertory of the just Rights and Prerogative of the Kings and Crown of England Like as a Reformation once made in the ancient Roman Empire Jul. Capitolin vit Ant. 〈◊〉 by the Emperour Antoninus Philosophus is thus celebrated by Julius Capitolinus in his life Jus autem magis vetus restituit quam novum fecit Applicable as well to all the other points and branches of the Reformation here as to that of the King 's Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction But the clearing that I leave to the Divines And thus have taken a brief view only for much more might have bin added out of our authentick Records and Histories as of the ancient Rights of Kings and Princes in general so particularly of our own in matters Ecclesiastical How the same have for some time been suppressed and usurp'd upon by the Papal Faction but happily Vindicated and restored in these latter Ages In which affair no Country hath proceeded more regularly laudably or legally than this our Kingdom of England the Princes of the same as Supream within their own Dominions calling together their own Clergy and with their assistance and advice reforming the Church And what remains now but my submission and pardon for the presumption of this attempt upon my Soveraign's Supremacy seeing that Prince may be said in a manner to be deposed that is made the Subject of an usurping Pen. FINIS