at length he must brag of the Jugler's promises as he did to a Gentleman named Charles Knevet to whom he boldly unmasked himself and gave a reason of his actions Upon Knevet's accusation he was arraigned and condemned the thirteenth of May and on the seventeenth publickly beheaded His death was lamented by many and the rather for that he was no way faulty but in his vanity and pride which overthrew him Being a child I have heard antient men say that by his bravery of Apparel and sumptuous Feasts he exasperated the King with whom in these things he seemed to contend But he could by no means bear with the intolerable pride of the Cardinal whose hatred not improbably proved fatal unto him rather than did the King's displeasure for many times Princes are with less danger offended than their Mignons There goes a tale That the Duke once holding the basin to the King the Cardinal when the King had done presently dipped his hands in the same water the Duke disdaining to debase himself to the service of a Priest shed the water in his shooes The Cardinal therewith incensed threatned him that He would sit upon his skirts The Duke to shew that he slighted his threats and withal that the King might take notice of the Cardinal's malice came the next day to Court richly as he usually was apparelled but without skirts to his Doublet The King and many others demanding what he meant by that strange fashion he answered readily That it was done by way of prevention for the Cardinal should not now sit upon his skirts He thought he had put a jest upon the Cardinal to whose informations as proceeding from envy and spleen he hoped the King would hereafter give the less credit But he missed his mark for most men were of opinion that the Cardinal's malice crushed him rather than did the weight of his own offences It was the saying of Charles the Emperour upon the report of his death That the Butcher's Dog had killed the fairest Hart of England Howsoever it came to pass the King who had hitherto ruled without bloodshed induced by the former reasons so the Records run permitted his hands to be stained with the blood of this poor Prince many lamenting that the indiscreet credulity of one man having not attempted ought against the Estate should be the overthrow of so noble a Family If I might lawfully pry so far into God's judgments which are indeed inscrutable I would be bold to impute the punishment of the Son to the Father's treachery who conspired with the Usurper against his lawful Prince Edward the Fifth who by his assistance was deprived of his Life and Kingdom But forasmuch as that being touched in conscience he manifestly repented this fact for seeking to oppress the Tyrant whom he himself had raised he perished miserably the Divine Justice I think so far regarded his repentance that his posterity are nevertheless Peers of the Realm by the title of Lord Stafford The first point of Wisdom is not to run into Errour the next quickly to amend it The King having written a Book against Martin Luther sent it as a Present to Pope Leo the Tenth This Leo not yet thirty eight years old was by the combination of the Junior Cardinals elected Pope In which dignity he behaved himself according to his years profusely spending the Treasures of the Church in hawking and hunting and other pleasures not deemed over-honest Need began at length to pinch him and money must be had Whereupon he resolves to make use of his Keys against the most subtil locks and strongest bars ever yet held prevalent Indulgences of all sorts without distinction of time or place must now publickly be set to sale St. Peter's Church this was the pretence was out of repair towards which a certain summ of money given would purchase Pardon of Sins not only for the Living but for the Dead also whose Souls should thereby be redeemed from the pains of Purgatory But whatsoever was pretended every one palpably saw that these Pardons were granted to get money for his own relief And forasmuch as the Commissioners demanded it after an impudent and shameless manner they in most places incurred the dislike and indignation of the people especially in Germany where they saw this faculty of redeeming Sould from Purgatory was either sold for little or nothing or played away in their Taverns But what speak I of the Commissioners That which made the Germans most impatient was that the heedless Pope had given to his Sister Magdalen the profit of the exactions of Indulgences in many parts of Germany and that so openly that every one must needs know it For all Germany spake it 〈◊〉 this money was not gathered for the Pope or the Treasury of the Church whereby peradventure some part of it might be employed to good uses but was exacted to satisfie the greediness of a Woman At that time lived Martin Luther a Doctor of Divinity and an Augustine Monk one who under a religious Habit did not consecrate himself to idleness but to God It is reported how truly I know not that recreating himself in the fields his companion with whom he then discoursed was suddenly stricken dead with Thunder He thereupon falling into due consideration of the uncertainty of death and of judgement left the study of the Civil Law to which he then applied himself and renouncing the world betook himself to a Cloister where for his deportment he was beyond exception for Learning especially divine he was scarce matchable Upon this horrible abuse of the authority of the Keys being inflamed with a pious zeal he could not contain himself but boldly and bitterly inveighed against this gross impiety Neither stayd he there but storm the Pope never so much proceeds to other enormities in the Church of Rome some whereof that Church hath since reformed the rest religious Princes by Luther awakened out of their dead sleep of Superstition notwithstanding the practices of Rome have God be thanked exploded New opinions especially in matters of Religion are of themselves always odious Henry being offended with Luther's new as the world then deemed them Tenets thought it would prove to his honour by writing against Luther to manifest his Learning and Piety to the world Hereupon under his name a Book was set forth better beseeming some antient and deep Divine than a youthful Prince whom although he earnestly endeavoured it yet his affairs would not permit to bury himself among his Books which many thought to have been compiled by Sir Thomas Moor some by the Bishop of Rochester and others not without cause suspected to be the work of some other great Scholar Whosoever wrote it Luther replied in such sort that although his holy zeal were approved by many yet those many could have wished him more temperate and respective of the Majesty of Kings This Book was so acceptable to the Pope that according to the example of Alexander
much endeavoured Reformation in point of Religion The rest who were addicted to the Doctrine of Rome could for private respects temporize fearing indeed restitution of Church goods wherein each of them shared unless an irreconcilable breach were made with that See So that whiles some eagerly oppose Popery and others coldly defend it not only what had been enacted by Henry the Eighth concerning the abrogation of the Pope's authority is confirmed but many other things are added whereby our Church was so purged from the dregs of Superstition that for Purity of Doctrine and Institution of select Ecclesiastical Rites it excelled the most Reformed Churches of Germany All Images are pulled down Priests are permitted to marry the Liturgie set forth in the English tongue the 〈◊〉 administred under both kinds Auricular Confession forbidden no man prohibited the reading of the Scriptures no Masses to be said for the Souls of the departed and many other things ordained so far differing from the Institution of our Forefathers that it administred matter to the common people who are wont to judge not according to Reason but Custom of breaking out into Rebellion And it is somewhat remarkable that the same day wherein the Images whereof the Churches were dispossessed were publickly burned at London we obtained that memorable Victory over the Scots at Musselburgh This year at Archbishop Cranmer his invitation came into England Peter Martyr a Florentine Martin Buter of Selestadt and Paulus Phagius born in the Palatinate Who being very courteously received by the King and Nobles having reposed themselves some while at Canterbury were sent Martyr to Oxford Bucer and Phagius to Cambridge there publickly to Read Divinity but Phagius having scarce saluted the University deceased of a Quartan Ague the twelfth of November in the five and fortieth year of his age Neither did Bucer long survive him who died at Cambridge the last of February 1551 being then threescore years old Martyr shortly after his coming to Oxford maintained publickly in the Schools and that with solid Arguments against Tresham and Chedsey Opponents that the Popish Transubstantiation was but a meer fiction which Disputation he after published and enlarged ANNO DOM 1548. REG. 2. THe English having this year fortified and put a strong Garrison into Hadinton a Town seated in the most fertil soil of all Scotland did from thence and Lauder make often inroads upon the bordering Countrey burning and spoiling whatsoever might be useful to the Enemy from whom they expected a Siege In the mean time had the French sent six thousand ten thousand say we men into Scotland whereof three thousand were Lansquenets led by the Rhinegrave The Lord of Essé a man of tried valour famous in the Siege of Landrecy and other Expeditions was chief of the Army These adventures landing at Dunbar march speedily for Hadinton and joyning with the Scottish Forces consisting of eight thousand men straightly besiege it At the Abbey near the Town they call a Council treat of transporting the Queen into France and marrying her to the Daulphin They whom the respect of private ends had not corrupted and withdrawn from the care of the publick weal objected That they should so draw on them a perpetual War from England and betray themselves to the slavery of the French That the Propositions made by the English were reasonable who offered a ten years Truce and sought not to entrap the Scot in any bands or prejudicial compacts their demands being no other than this That if within the ten years either the King of England or the Queen of Scots should decease all things should on each side remain entire and in their former estate Delay had often in the like cases proved advantageous whereas speedy repentance commonly followeth precipitated hast The Popish Faction especially the Clergy to whom the amity of England was little pleasing in regard of the differences in Religion and some others obliged to the French either in respect of received benefits or future profit with might and main interposed to the contrary and chiefly the Regent bought with a Pension of four thousand Crowns and the Command of one hundred Lances The French Faction prevailed for her transportation The Fleet from Leith where it harboured setting sail as if for France fetching a compass round about Scotland put in at Dunbritton where they embarqued the six-year-old Queen attended by James her base Brother John Areskin and William Leviston who being put back by contrary winds and much distressed by tempest arrived at length in Little Bretaigne and from thence set forward to the Court of France so escaping our Fleet which hovered about Calais to intercept them if as we were perswaded they needs must they crossed those neighbouring Straights Hadinton in the mean time being straightly beleaguered Sir Robert Bowes and Sir Thomas Palmer are with seven hundred Lances and six hundred light Horse sent to relieve it Buchanan saith there were but three hundred Horse the rest Foot Of what sort soever they were it is certain that before they could reach Hadington they were circumvented and slain almost to a man Yet did not the besieged let fall their courages but bravely defended themselves until Francis Earl of Shrewsbury with an Army of twelve thousand English and four thousand Lansquenets disassieged them and forced the French to retreat The Earl having supplied the Town with necessaries and reinforced the Garrison returned to Berwick What they could not by force the Enemy hopes more easily to effect by a surprisal To this end D'Essé with some select Bands arrives at Hadinton about the break of day where having killed the Centinels and taken an Half-moon before the Port some seek to force the Gates some invade our adjoyning Granaries The noise and shouts of the assailants gives an alarm to the Garrison who give fire to a Cannon planted before the Port the Bullet whereof penetrating the Gate makes way through the close ranks of the Enemies and so affrights them that they seek to save themselves by flight Fortune was not so favourable to the Garrisons of Humes and Fastcastle where by the negligence of the Centinels the designs of the Enemy were crowned with success At Humes being conducted by some that knew all the secret passages they climb up a steep Rock enter massacre the secure Garrison and enjoy the place At Fastcastle the Governour had commanded the neighbouring Husbandmen at a prefixed day to bring in their contribution of Corn and other necessary provision The Enemy makes use of this opportunity Souldiers habited like Pesants at the day come fraught with their burthens whereof easing their Horses they carry them on their shoulders over the Bridge which joyned two Rocks together and so gain entrance The watch-word being given they cast down their burthens kill the Centinels open the Gates to their fellows and become masters of the place Neither were our Naval enterprises fortunate being at St. Minian and Merne repelled with loss
of mind to accept of and retain this Benefit which God by his Vicar's Legate did proffer them For now nothing else remained but that he being present with those Keys which should open the Gates of the Church they should also abrogate those Laws which lately Enacted to the prejudice of the Church had rended them from the rest of its Body Having spoken a great deal to this purpose and ransacked Antiquity for examples of our Forefathers devotion to the See of Rome his grave delivery excellent language and methodical contexture of his speech wrought so effectually in the minds of those who were addicted to Popery that they thought not themselves until this day capable of Salvation But many of the lower House who deemed it a rare felicity to have shaken off the yoak of Rome eagerly withstood the readmittance of it But by the endeavours of the King and Queen all things were at last composed to the Cardinal 's liking The Authority which the Popes heretofore usurped in this Realm is restored the Title of Supreme Head of the Church is abrogated and a Petition drawn by the whole Court of Parliament for the Absolution of the People and Clergy of England from Schism and Heresie is by the Bishop of Winchester presented to the Legate who they all kneeling by the Authority committed unto him absolved them This being done they went to the Chappel in Procession singing Te Deum and the next Sunday the Bishop of Winchester in his Sermon at Pauls Cross made a large relation of what had passed These things being thus setled the Queen intends an honorable Embassy to Rome whereof she had at her first coming to the Crown made promise For having resolved to replant the Religion of Rome she had privily written to Pool requiring his advice therein The Pope was therefore pleased to send into England Giovanni Francisco Commendono his Chamberlain afterward Cardinal for the more perfect notice of the estate of the Realm To him the Queen after much private conference did under her Hand promise Obedience to the See of Rome desiring withal that the Kingdom might be absolved from the Interdict for the obtaining whereof she would by a solemn Embassy petition his Holiness as soon as the Estate was setled So now about the end of this year the Bishop of Ely Sir Anthony Brown and Edward Carne Doctor of Law are by the Kings sent to proffer their Obedience to the See of Rome But these costs and pains were fruitless For before they came to Rome the Pope was dead In the mean time the Queen considering all her actions hitherto to have passed with full applause began to treat with the Nobility to condescend that if not the Royal at least the Matrimonial Crown of our Queens might be imposed on Philip. But it being a matter without precedent and that might perchance to an ambitious Prince give some colour for claim to the Kingdom they proved averse and she content to surcease The next care was of restitution of Church-Lands But Henry had so divided them and that among the Nobility that nothing could be done therein Only it was decreed that the First-Fruits and Tenths granted to the King by the Clergy Anno 1534 should be remitted which Decree upon consideration of the Treasuries poverty and of the many Pensions granted by Henry to the ejected Religious Persons was quickly revoked About the same time an absurd I might say ridiculous accident happened by the Queens own credulity and the flattery of fawning Courtiers By reason of a Disease which Physicians term a Mole her Belly began to swell and some other reasons giving her cause to conjecture that she was with Child she not entertaining the advice of any Physicians but of Midwives and old Women believing what she desired should be affirmed that she felt the stirring of the Embryo in her womb To those that are affected with this malady that fleshy and inform substance which is termed Mola doth seem sometimes to move but that slowly and with the general motion of the whole Belly By this and other symptoms Physicians would quickly have discovered her Disease which unless very maturely prevented is commonly incurable So that in process of time her Liver being over-cooled she fell into a Dropsie which as Fuchsius and other Physicians write doth usually happen But these flattering hopes betrayed her to the laughter of the World and to her Grave For on the seven and twentieth of November the Lords of the Council sent some Mandates to the Bishop of London to disperse certain forms of Prayers wherein after Thanks given to God for his Mercies to this Kingdom by giving hopes of an Heir to the Crown and infusing life into the Embryo they should pray for the preservation of the Queen and the Infant and her happy delivery and cause Te Deum to be sung every where Then by Parliament many things were Enacted concerning the Education of the Babe and much clutter was otherwise kept about preparations for the Child's Swadling-clouts Cradle and other things requisite at the Delivery until in June in the ensuing year it was manifested that all was little better than a Dream This year were many Barons created On the eleventh of March William Howard was created Lord Howard of Effingham he was Father to Charles Lord Admiral and late Earl of Nottingham on the fifth of April John Williams Lord Williams of Tame on the seventh of April Edward North Baron of Chartlege on the eighth of April John Bruges Lord Chandois on the fourteenth of May Gerard Fitz-Gerard of whom before Earl of Kildare and on the second of September Anthony Brown Viscount Mountague And in September deceased Thomas Duke of Norfolk ANNO DOM. 1555. REG. MARIAE 2 3 PHILIPPI 1 2. ON the eighteenth of January the Lord Chancellour coming to the Tower with six other Lords of the Council set many brave Prisoners at liberty viz. the Archbishop of York Sir John Rogers Sir James Croft Sir Nicholas Throckmorton Sir Nicholas Arnold Sir George Harper Sir William Sentlow Sir Gawin Carew Sir Andrew Dudley the Duke of Northumberland's Brother William Gibs Cutbert Vaughan Harington Tremaine and others The Archbishop having married a Wife was deprived and Nicholas Heath sometimes Bishop of Worcester but deprived by King Edward and Hooper being ejected and condemned to the Fire lately restored by Queen Mary was substituted in his place Rogers and Croft were afterward Privy Counsellors to Queen Elizabeth under whom they many years flourished in great Authority Throckmorton a subtil man was thought to have been the plotter of Wyat's Rebellion his Head was therefore especially aimed at But being indicted and ten whole hours spent in sifting him he by such witty answers voided the accusation of his Adversary that the Jurors found him Not guilty for which they were afterward soundly fined About the beginning of April the Marquess of Exceter and a little after the Lady Elizabeth were
called Dixmue where part of the Flemish Forces joyned with them While they lay at this siege the King of England upon pretence of the safety of the English Pale about Calice but in truth being loth that Maximilian should become contemptible and thereby be shaken off by the States of Britain about this Marriage sent over the Lord Morley with a thousand men unto the Lord Daubigny then Deputy of Calice with secret instructions to ayd Maximilian and to raise the siege of Dixmue The Lord Daubigny giving it out that all was for the strengthning of the English Marches drew out of the Garrisons of Calice Hammes and Guines to the number of a thousand men more So that with the fresh Succours that came under the Conduct of the Lord Morley they made up to the number of two thousand or better Which Forces joyning with some Companies of Almains put themselves into Dixmue not perceived by the Enemies and passing through the Town with some re-enforcement from the Forces that were in the Town assailed the Enemies Camp negligently guarded as being out of fear where there was a bloody Fight in which the English and their Partakers obtained the Victory and slew to the number of eight thousand men with the loss on the English part of a hundred or thereabouts amongst whom was the Lord Morley They took also their great Ordnance with much rich spoils which they carried to Newport whence the Lord Daubigny returned to Calice leaving the hurt men and some other Voluntaries in Newport But the Lord Cordes being at Ipre with a great power of men thinking to recover the loss and disgrace of the Fight at Dixmue came presently on and sate down before Newport and besieged it and after some days siege he resolved to try the fortune of an Assault Which he did one day and succeeded therein so far that he had taken the principal Tower and Fort in that City and planted upon it the French Banner Whence nevertheless they were presently beaten forth by the English by the help of some fresh Succours of Archers arriving by good fortune at the instant in the Haven of Newport Whereupon the Lord Cordes discouraged and measuring the new Succours which were small by the Success which was great levied his Siege By this means matters grew more exasperate between the two Kings of England and France for that in the War of Flanders the auxiliary Forces of French and English were much blooded one against another Which Blood rankled the more by the vain words of the Lord Cordes that declared himself an open Enemy of the English beyond that that appertained to the present Service making it a common by-word of his That he could be content to lye in Hell seven years so he might win Calice from the English The King having thus upheld the Reputation of Maximilian advised him now to press on his Marriage with Britain to a conclusion Which Maximilian accordingly did and so far forth prevailed both with the young Lady and with the principal persons about her as the Marriage was consummate by Proxy with a Ceremony at that time in these parts new For she was not only publickly contracted but stated as a Bride and solemnly Bedded and after she was laid there came in Maximilian's Ambassador with Letters of Procuration and in the presence of sundry Noble Personages Men and Women put his Leg stript naked to the Knee between the Espousal-Sheets to the end that that Ceremony might be thought to amount to a Consummation and actual Knowledge This done Maximilian whose property was to leave things then when they were almost come to perfection and to end them by imagination like ill Archers that draw not their Arrows up to the Head and who might as easily have Bedded the Lady himself as to have made a Play and Disguise of it thinking now all assured neglected for a time his further proceeding and intended his Wars Mean-while the French King consulting with his Divines and finding that this pretended Consummation was rather an Invention of Court than any ways valid by the Laws of the Church went more really to work and by secret Instruments and cunning Agents as well Matrans about the young Lady as Counsellors first sought to remove the point of Religion and Honour out of the mind of the Lady her self wherein there was a double labour For Maximilian was not only contracted unto the Lady but Maximilian's Daughter was likewise contracted to King Charles So as the Marriage halted upon both feet and was not clear on either side But for the Contract with King Charles the Exception lay plain and fair for that Maximilian's Daughter was under years of Consent and so not bound by Law but a power of Disagreement left to either part But for the Contract made by Maximilian with the Lady her self they were harder driven having nothing to alledge but that it was done without the consent of her Sovereign Lord King Charles whose Ward and Client she was and he to her in place of a Father and therefore it was void and of no force for want of such Consent Which defect they said though it would not evacuate a Marriage after Cohabitation and Actual Consummation yet it was enough to make void a Contract For as for a pretended Consummation they made sport with it and said That it was an argument that Maximilian was a Widdower and a cold Wooer that could content himself to be a Bridegroom by Deputy and would not make a little Journey to put all out of question So that the young Lady wrought upon by these Reasons finely instilled by such as the French King who spared for no Rewards or Promises had made on his side and allured likewise by the present Glory and Greatness of King Charles being also a young King and a Batchelor and loth to make her Countrey the Seat of a long and miserable War secretly yielded to accept of King Charles But during this secret Treaty with the Lady the better to save it from Blasts of Opposition and Interruption King Charles resorting to his wonted Arts and thinking to carry the Marriage as he had carried the Wars by entertaining the King of England in vain belief sent a solemn Ambassage by Francis Lord of Luxemberg Charles Marignian and Robert Gaguein General of the Order of the Bonnes Hommes of the Trinity to treat Peace and League with the King accoupling it with an Article in nature of a Request that the French King might with the King 's good will according unto his right of Seigniory and Tutelage dispose of the Marriage of the young Duchess of Britain as he should think good offering by a Judicial proceeding to make void the Marriage of Maximilian by Proxy Also all this while the better to amuse the World he did continue in his Court and custody the Daughter of Maximilian who formerly had been sent unto him to be bred and educated in France not dismissing or renvoying her
consecrated by the Archbishop but he on whom the King by his Congé D'eslire or other his Letters had conferred that Dignity And whereas many complained that now all commerce with Rome was forbidden all means were taken away of mitigating the rigour of the Ecclesiastical Laws of Dispensation Papal authority is granted to the Archbishop of Canterbury the King reserving to himself the power of dispensing in causes of greater moment And that all Appeals formerly wont to be made from the Archbishop to the Pope should now be from the Archbishop to the King who by Delegates should determine all such Suits and Controversies Furthermore the King's Marriage with the Lady Catharine is again pronounced incestuous the Succession to the Crown established on the King's Issue begotten on Queen Ann. And all above the age of sixteen years throughout the Kingdom are to be bound by Oath to the observance of this Law Whosoever refused to take this Oath should suffer loss of all their goods and perpetual imprisonment Throughout all the Realm there were found but two who durst refractorily oppose this Law viz. Fisher Bishop of Rochester and Sir Thomas More the late Lord Chancellor men who were indeed very learned but most obstinate sticklers in the behalf of the Church of Rome who being not to be drawn by any perswasions to be conformable to the Law were committed to prison from whence after a years durance they were not freed but by the loss of their lives But the King fearing that it might be thought That he took these courses rather out of a contempt of Religion than in regard of the tyranny of the Court of Rome to free himself from all suspition either of favouring Luther or any authors of new Opinions began to persecute that sort of men whom the Vulgar called Hereticks and condemned to the cruelty of that merciless Element Fire not only certain Dutch Anabaptists but many Professors of the Truth and amongst others that learned and godly young man John Frith who with one Hewet and others on the two and twentieth of July constantly endured the torments of their martyrdom The five and twentieth of September died Clement the Seventh Pope in whose place succeeded Alexander Farnese by the name of Paulus the Third who to begin his time with some memorable Act having called a Consistory pronounced Henry to be fallen from the Title and Dignity of a King and to be deposed reiterating withal the thunder of Excommunication with which bugbear his predecessor Clement had sought to affright him But this peradventure happened in the ensuing year after the death of Fisher and More A Parliament is again called in November wherein according to the Decree of the late Synod the King was declared Supreme Head of the Church of England and the punishment of all crimes which formerly pertained to the Ecclesiastical Courts is made proper to him So the Kingdom is vindicated from the usurpation of the Pope who before shared in it and the King now first began to reign entirely Also all Annats or First-fruits formerly paid to the Pope are granted to the King And Wales the seat of the remainder of the true antient Britans hitherto differing from us compounded of Normans and Saxons as well in the form of their Government as in Language is by the authority of this Parliament to the great good of both but especially that Nation united and incorporated to England Edward the First was the first who subdued this Countrey yet could he not prevail over their minds whom the desire of recovering their lost liberty animated to many Rebellions By reason whereof and our suspitions being for two hundred years oppressed either with the miseries of Servitude or War they never tasted the sweet fruits of a true and solid Peace But Henry the Seventh by blood in regard of his Father and birth a Welchman coming to the Crown as if they had recovered their liberty whereto they so long aspired they obeyed him as their lawful Prince So the English being freed of their former jealousies permitted them to partake of their Priviledges since common to both Nations the good whereof equally redounded to both I could wish the like Union with Scotland That as we all live in one Island professing one Faith and speaking for the most part one Language under the government of one and the same Prince so we may become one Nation all equally acknowledging our selves Britans and so recover our true Countrey Britain lost as it were so many hundreds of years by our divisions of it into England Scotland and Wales ANNO DOM. 1535. REG. 27. THe Coronation of the new Queen and other passages of entertainment had exhausted the Treasury The Pope and the Emperour were both enemies to Henry watchfully attending all opportunities to do him mischief Neither in regard that so many sided with the Pope were all things safe at home The King was therefore forced to a course seemingly rash and full of dangerous consequences but very necessary for the time He resolves to demolish all the Monasteries throughout England He is content the Nobility should share with him in the spoil so enriching and strengthening himself by their necessary revolt from the Popish faction To this end they that were thought more especially in maintaining the Pope's authority to withstand the King's proceedings were condemned of high Treason and they that refused to acknowledge the King under Christ Supreme Head of the Church of England are hanged For this cause on the third of May were executed John Houghton Prior of the Charterhouse in London Augustine Webster Prior of Bevaley and Thomas Lawrence Prior of Exham and with them Richard Reignalds a Monk and Doctor of Divinity and John Hales Vicar of Thistlehurst On the eighteenth of June Exmew Middlemore and Nudigate all Charterhouse-Monks suffered for the same cause And four days after John Fisher Bishop of Rochester a man much reverenced by the People for his holy life and great learning was publickly beheaded and his Head set over London Bridge Our Histories hardly afford a president of the execution of such a man But the Pope was the occasion of his death who to ease the burthen of his now a years imprisonment by the addition of a new Title had on the one and twentieth of May created him Cardinal The news whereof hastened him to a Scaffold The sixth of July Sir Thomas More for the same stiffness in opinion with Bishop Fisher suffered the like death This was that More so famous for his Eutopia and many other Works both in English and Latin As for his conversation the most censorious fault him in nothing but his too too jesting I will not say scoffing wit to which he gave more liberty than did beseem the gravity of his person not tempering himself in the midst of his calamity no not at the very instant of death After his condemnation he denied to give
the Judges and chief Lawyers of the Realm at his left hand sate the Temporal Lords and behind them the Gentlemen of the Privy Chamber Lambert being brought to the Bar Day Bishop of Chichester by the King's appointment made an Oration wherein he declared the cause of this meeting saying That Lambert having been accused of Heresie before his Ordinary had made his Appeal unto the King as if expecting from his Majesty more favour for Heresie than from the Bishop So that he now found it to be true whereof he had been oft informed That the credulous People were verily perswaded that his Majesty abhorring the Religion of his Ancestors had embraced the new Tenets lately broached in Germany True it was the tyranny of the Court of Rome had been troublesom to his Predecessors but to Him intolerable and therefore had He shaken it off That Religion might no longer patronize Idleness He had expelled Monks who were no other than Drones in the Bee-hive He had taken away the idolatrous worship of Images had permitted to his Subjects the reading and knowledge of God's Word hitherto prohibited by the Church of Rome lest their wiles and cozenages should be discovered And had made reformation in some other things peradventure of less moment which no man could deny would much redound to the good both of Church and Commonwealth But as for other things He had determined there should be no change in the Church during his Reign Which his Resolution He now intended publickly to manifest His Majesty's desire was That the Delinquent renouncing his Errours should suffer himself to be received into the bosom of the Church To which end partly and partly to shew that He thirsted not after any one's blood out of his elemency He had procured the presence of those Grave and Learned men meaning the Bishops who by Authority and force of Arguments should if it were possible bring back this strayed Sheep into the Fold of the Church But if he perversly oppugned the Truth and all perswasions notwithstanding became immoveable He would by this man's exemplary punishment make known what others should in the like Case expect and instruct the Judges and Magistrates what they ought to do therein The Bishop having ended the King demanded of Lambert What he thought of the presence of Christ's Body in the Sacrament Whose answer being little to the King 's liking reasons and arguments were produced as if a Disputation in the Schools and not a Justiciary Session had been appointed Five whole hours this Disputation lasted the King being as it were Prior Opponent Archbishop Cranmer also and nine other Bishops forcibly pressing upon poor Lambert But neither this course nor the battery of threats and terrours prevailing against his constancy the King commanded the Lord Cromwell to pass sentence of condemnation upon him by virtue whereof within a day or two after he was burned Neither this dreadful Sentence nor his torturing death did any way appale him which he so little regarded that going to his death he merrily took his Breakfast with some Gentlemen into whose company he chanced as if he had been going to some sportful Game rather than his Execution ANNO DOM. 1539. REG. 31. ON the third of March Sir Nicholas Carew Knight of the Garter and Master of the Horse was beheaded for being of Counsel with the Marquess of Exceter and the Lord Mountague And on the eight and twentieth of April a Parliament began wherein Margaret Countess of Salisbury Mother to Cardinal Pool and Daughter to George Duke of Clarence who was Brother to Edward the Fourth was attainted of high Treason and condemned without hearing and with her the Cardinal her Son Gertrude Widow to the Marquess of Exceter Sir Adrian Fortescue and Sir Thomas Dingley Dingley and Fortescue were beheaded on the tenth of July and the Countess being then aged threescore and ten years suffered two years after In the same Parliament it was Enacted That the King might erect new Episcopal Sees in opportune places of the Realm For the performance whereof and of some other things no less specious the late dissolution of those Abbeys whereon the King seised was confirmed and all Religious Houses as yet unsuppressed were granted to the King for ever Upon notice whereof many either out of guilt of conscience or desirous to purchase the King's favour surrendred their charge even before they were required And first of all the Abbot and Convent of St. Albans the first Abbot of the Realm as St. Alban was the first Martyr which Honour was conferred on this House by Pope Adrian the Fourth whose Father had long lived a Monastical life therein forsake their rich Abbey seated near the ruins of Verolamium once a great and antient City and leave it to the mercy of the Courtiers Which dereliction afforded matter of example to many other few enjoying that security of conscience that they durst lay claim to their own Only three were found whose innocence made them so regardless of threats promises or reward that they could never be induced to betray the goods of their Churches to the merciless impiety of sacrilegious Harpies Which three were John Bech Abbot of Colchester in Essex Hugh Faringdon Abbot of the Abbey of Reding built by Henry the First for the place of his Sepulture and Richard Whiting Abbot of Glastonbury one of the stateliest and antientest Monasteries of Europe being first builded by Joseph of Arimathea who buried the Body of our Saviour Christ and is himself there interred as is also beside some Saxon Kings that most renowned King Arthur whose glorious Acts had they been undertaken by a fit Historian would have ranked him among the antient Worthies without the help of a fabulous Romance Against these men therefore other courses not availing that one was taken of administring the Oath of Supremacy which they refusing are as enemies to the Estate condemned of high Treason Bech was hanged at Colchester and Faringdon with two Priests named Rug and Ognion at Reding Whiting a man very aged and by reason thereof doating scarce perceiving that he had been condemned returning from the place of Judgment which was in the Bishop's Palace at Wells distant from Glastonbury four miles with conceit that he was restored to his Abbey was suddenly rapt up to the top of the Tor a Hill that surveys the Countrey round about and without leave of bidding his Convent farewel which he earnestly begged was presently hanged the stain of ingratitude sticking fast to the authors of this speedy execution of whom the poor Abbot is reported to have better deserved With Whiting were two Monks also executed named Roger James and John Thorn their Bodies all drawn and quartered and set up in divers places of the Countrey The punishment of these few so terrified the rest that without more ado they permitted all to the King's disposal The number of those that were supprest is not easily cast But the names of
admitted to intimate familiarity and made use of their counsels and endeavours as if he had advanced them to no other end but to depress them Wolsey had his turn Cromwell succeeds whose sudden downfal there want not those who attribute to God's Justice inflicted on him for the Sacriledge whereof he was reported to be the Author committed in the subversion of so many Religious Houses And indeed even they who confess the rouzing of so many unprofitable Epicures out of their dens and the abolishing of Superstition wherewith the Divine Worship had by them been polluted to have been an act of singular Justice and Piety do notwithstanding complain of the loss of so many stately Churches dedicated to God's service the goods whereof were no otherwise employed than for the satisfaction of private mens covetousness and although many have abused the Vail of Religion yet was that Monastical life instituted according to the pious example of antient Fathers that they who found themselves unfit for the execution of worldly affairs as many such there are might in such their voluntary retirements spend their days in Divine Writings or Meditations and are verily perswaded that for the taking away of these things God was offended both with the King and Cromwell But Sleidan peradventure comes nearer the matter touching the immediate cause of his death About this time saith he the King of England beheadeth Thomas Cromwell whom he had from fortunes answerable to his low parentage raised to great Honours repadiates the Lady Ann of Cleve and marrieth Catharine Howard Daughter to the Lord Edmond Howard who was Brother to the Duke of Norfolk Cromwell had been procurer of the Match with Ann. But the King loving Catharine is thought to have been perswaded by her to make away Cromwell whom she suspected to be a Remora to her advancement The actions of Kings are not to be sifted too nearly for which we are charitably to presume they have reasons and those inscrutable But let us see the process of this Divorce Six months this conjugal band lasted firm without scruple the King and Queen giving daily testimonies of their mutual love On the twentieth of June the Queen is willed to remove from London where the King stayed by reason of the Parliament to Richmond a place pretended in regard of the situation and air to be more for her health On the sixth of July Reasons are proposed by certain Lords purposely sent to the lower House of Parliament demonstrating the invalidity of the King's Marriage with the Lady Ann so that it was lawful for them both to marry where they pleased The same reasons are alledged in the Convocation-House and generally approved Whereupon the Queen also whether forced or willing consenting the Parliament pronounced the Marriage void What the allegations were is uncertain Some relate disability by reason of some defects to be objected to her which seems the more probable for that in her Letters wherein she submitted her self to the judgment and determination of the Parliament she affirmed that the King never knew her carnally Whether for this or for that Nature having not over-liberally endowed her with Beauty but a private woman she became and as such not enduring to return to her friends with dishonour she lived upon some Lands assigned her by the King who always used her respectively until the fifteenth of July Anno 1557 at what time she ended her discontented life and lieth buried at Westminster on the South side of the Quire in a Tomb not yet finished Scarce had the resolution of the Convocation-House and the Decree concerning it passed both Houses when this lusty Widower with as good success as before marrieth his fifth Wife Catharine Howard When their Nuptials were celebrated is not known but on the eighth of August in Royal habiliments she shewed her self as Queen The fautors of Reformation were much dismayed at the sudden unqueening of Ann fearing not without cause lest it proving occasion of enmity between Henry and the Princes of Germany he must of necessity rely on them who misliked our divorce from Rome But the King proceeding still in the course he had begun like a torrent bearing all before him not only caused three Anabaptists to be burned but also many sincere Professors of the Truth for not subscribing to the Six Articles Among whom three Divines were most eminent viz. Robert Barnes Doctor of Divinity Thomas Gerard and William Jerome Bachechelors who by Parliament unheard being condemned for Heresie were on the one and thirtieth committed to the torments of the merciless fire At the same time and place three other Doctors of Divinity viz. Powel Able and Fetherston were hanged for denying the King's Supremacy the sight whereof made a French-man cry out in these words Deus bone quomodo hic vivunt gentes suspenduntur Papistae comburuntur Antipapistae Good God how do the people make a shift to live here where both Papists are hanged and Antipapists burned In August the Prior of Dancaster and six other for defending the Institution of the life Monastical a crime now become as capital as the greatest being also condemned by Act of Parliament were hanged The same day with the Lord Cromwell the Lord Hungerford was also Beheaded As their causes were divers so died they alike differently Cromwell's conscience quietly welcomed death to the other suffering for that most unnatural crime of Sodomy death presented it self with that horror that the apprehension of it made him as impatient as if he had been seised with a frenzy ANNO DOM. 1541. REG. 33. THe late Yorkshire Rebellion was not so throughly quenched but it again began to shew it self but by the punishment of the chief Incendiaries it was quickly suppressed Fourteen of the Conspirators were put to death Leigh a Gentleman Thornton a Yeoman and Tattershall a Clothier at London Sir John Nevil and ten others at York Which Commotion whether raised in favour of Religion or being suspected that it had any abettors beyond the Seas is thought to have hastened the death of the long since condemned Countess of Sarisbury who on the seven and twentieth of May was Beheaded in the Tower The eight and twentieth of June the Lord Leonard Grey Deputy of Ireland did on the Tower Hill publickly undergo the like punishment He was Son to the Marquis of Dorset near allied to the King and a brave Martial man having often done his Countrey good service But for that he had suffered his Nephew Gerard Fitz-Gerard Brother to Thomas lately executed proclaimed enemy to the Estate to make an escape and in revenge of some conceived private injury had invaded the Lands of the King's friends he was arraigned and condemned ending his life with a resolution befitting a brave Souldier The same day Thomas Fines Lord Dacres of the South with some other Gentlemen for the death of one Busbrig slain by them in a fray was hanged at Tyburn Many in
In Autumn the Earl of Rutland with three thousand Lansquenets and some Bands drawn out of the frontier Garrisons arrives at Hadington Who duly considering that this Town could not be kept any longer without the excessive charges of a just Army forasmuch as the Countrey about being miserably forraged it could not be victualled without great difficulty and danger rased the Walls fired the Houses brought away the Artillery and finding no resistance returned in safety to Berwick Buchanan refers it to the ensuing year but I follow the record of our own Historians And having thus far spent the year abroad I at length return home where I find Stephen Gardiner Bishop of Winchester in the Tower He was a man very learned and no less subtil adhering to the Popish Faction yet so as that he would be content to accommodate himself to the current of the times King Henry had employed him in many Embassages and that with ample authority under whom he durst not oppose the proceedings confirmed by enacted Laws And under Edward he repressed himself for a time seemingly consenting to the commenced Reformation But his dissimulation was at length manifestly discovered to the Privy Council who had commanded him in a Sermon at Pauls Cross to signifie his approbation of the present estate of the Church which he accordingly did on the nine and twentieth of June but so ambiguously and obscurely that he satisfied them not And being expresly forbidden to speak any thing concerning the Eucharist he knowing that by the Laws nothing was definitively determined in that point did so eargerly assert that Papistical I will not say Capernaitical Corporal and Real Presence of Christ in the Sacrament that he wonderfully offended the minds of many but especially of the Lords of the Council Wherefore he was on the thirtieth of June committed and obstinately refusing to acknowledge his errour was two years after deprived of his Bishoprick and as he was of a turbulent spirit lest he should practise any thing against the Estate detained nevertheless in prison until the death of Edward In the mean time Archbishop Cranmer by writing oppugned that gross and carnal assertion of the Church of Rome concerning Christ's Presence in the Sacrament whom Gardiner secretly answered under the fictitious name of M. Constantius Neither did that Blood-sucker Boner Bishop of London who in Queen Maries Reign so heated the Kingdom with the Funeral Piles of so many Saints speed any better than Winchester For being likewise enjoyned to Preach at the Cross he did it so coldly omitting many of those points whereof he was commanded to speak that he was likewise committed deprived of his Bishoprick and so lived until Queen Mary set them both at liberty What the Objections were against Cutbert Tonstall Bishop of Duresm and George Day Bishop of Chichester I do not find but that they ran the same fortune is manifest They were both very Learned Prelates but especially Tonstall a mild man and of most sweet conditions in regard whereof I do not a little wonder that he was so hardly dealt with But the drift of the punishments of such men who in Henry's time were accounted the chief Lights of our Church I conceive to have been that the rest of that Order might by their example be admonished without dissimulation either to resign their Bishopricks to others that were thought more worthy or be induced to conform themselves to the present Reformation of the Church according to the prescript of the Laws in that behalf lately Enacted And yet I would there were not sufficient cause to suspect that this was but a made opportunity the removal of these obstacles making way for the Invasion of these widow Seas For as soon as Tonstall was exautorated that rich Bishoprick of Duresm by Act of Parliament was wrecked the chief revenues and customs of it being incorporated to the Crown and the rest in despight of the Tenants so gelded that at this day it scarce possesseth the third part of its antient Revenues Yet did Queen Mary seriously endeavour the restitution of those religious portions Queen Elizabeth would hardly consent that it should lose any of its plumes yet some it did and King James hath lately enacted against the Alienation of Church-lands yea even to the Crown otherwise than upon reservation of a reasonable Rent and the return of them to the Church after the expiration of three lives or one and twenty years The hungry Courtier finding how good a thing the Church was had now for some years become acquainted with it out of a zealous intent to Prey Neither could the horridness of her sacred Skeleton as yet so work on him as to divert his resolutions and compassionately to leave the Church to her religious poverty Beside the infancy of the King in this incertain ebb and flow of Religion made her opportune to all kind of Sacriledge So that we are deservedly to thank the Almighty Guardian of the Church that these Locusts have not quite devoured the Maintenance of the Labourers in this English Vineyard For we yet retain that antient form of government in the Primitive Church by Bishops who have for the most part wherewith to support their honourable Function as likewise have other those subordinate Prelates Deans Archdeacons and Canons of Cathedral Churches And as for our Preachers of the more polite and learned sort we think him little befriended by Fortune who long liveth in expectation of a competent preferment I would the residue of the Reformed Churches of Christendom had not been pared so near the quick by precise hands that but some few of them might in this kind be paralleled with ours And now behold two Brothers acting their several Tragedies Jealousie Envy and Ambition infernal Furies had armed them against each other and the Pride of the Feminine Sex prepared them for the Lists A lamentable exigent wherein the loss of his Adversary must be the destruction of each wherein the Kingdom must groan at the loss of one both being in the Estate incompatible wherein the King himself must as most suspect he did suffer that he might not suffer Thomas Seymour Lord Admiral had married Catharine Parr the Widow of the deceased King What correspondence there might be between Her who had been the Wife of the late Sovereign and the Duchess of Somerset whose Husband being Protector of the Realm in point of command little differed from a Sovereign and had over his Brother the Admiral the Advantages of Age Dignity and general Esteem if any man cannot without difficulty conjecture I refer him to the first Book of Herodian where let him observe the contentions arising between Crispina the Wife of Commodus and Lucilla who had been formerly married to L. Verus the Emperour But in this the divers dispositions of the Brothers set on edge on the emulous humours of their Wives The Duke was mild affable free open and no way malicious the Admiral was naturally turbulent
the Water is scarce tainted with the Seas brackishness On the seventh day of October were three Whales cast up at Gravesend And on the third of August at Middleton in Oxfordshire was born a Monster such as few either Naturalists or Historians write of the like It had two Heads and two Bodies as far as the Navil distinct where they were so conjoined that they both had but one way of egestion and their Heads looking always contrary ways The Legs and Thighs of the one did always ly at the trunk of the other This Female Monster lived eighteen days and might have longer peradventure if it had not been so often opened to satisfie curiosity that it took cold and died This year the Monastery of the Franciscan Friers in London was converted into a brave Hospital wherein four hundred poor Boys are maintained and have education befitting free-born men It is at this day called Christ-Church In Southwark also was another like place provided for the relief of Poor sick persons and is dedicated to the memory of St. Thomas ANNO DOM. 1553. REG. 7. THis year sets a period to young Edward's Reign who by the defluxion of a sharp Rheum upon the Lungs shortly after became hectical and died of a Consumption Some attribute the cause of his sickness to Grief for the death of his Uncles some to Poison and that by a Nosegay of sweet Flowers presented him as a great dainty on New-years-day But what hopeful Prince was there ever almost immaturely taken away but Poison or some other treachery was imputed Our deluded hopes being converted into grief out of passion we bely Fate Had there been the least suspition of any such inhumane practice Queen Mary would never have suffered it to have passed as an act of indifferency without an inquest It was doubtless a posthumous rumour purposely raised to make the Great ones of that Reign distastful to the succeeding times Howsoever it were the Nobility understanding by the Physicians that the King's estate was desperate began every one to project his own ends The Duke of Northumberland as he was more potent than rest so did his ambition fly higher It was somewhat strange that being not any way able to pretend but a shadow of Right to the Crown he should dream of confirming the Succession of it in his Family But he shall soar so high that he shall singe his Wings and fall no less dangerously than he whom the Poets feign to have aspired to a like unlawful Government As for the Ladies Mary and Elizabeth two obstacles to be removed he doubted not by reasons drawn from their questionable Births to exclude them The next regard must be of the Daughters of Henry the Seventh But of the Queen of Scots who was Niece to Margaret the eldest Daughter of Henry the Seventh he was little solicitous For by reason of our continual Enmity with the Scots and thence inveterate Hatred he imagined that any shew of Reason would put her by especially she being contracted to the French whose insolent Government he was confident the English would never brook In the next place consideration is to be had of Lady Frances Daughter to Charles Brandon Duke of Suffolk by Mary Dowager of France the second Daughter of Henry the Seventh who her two Brothers then alive had been married to Henry Gray Marquis of Dorset The two Brothers as before dying of the late mortality the Marquis is in the right of his Wife created Duke of Suffolk and this was another stop to his Ambition For the removal whereof he intends this course He imparts his designs to the Duke of Suffolk and desires that a Match may be concluded between the Lord Guilford Dudley his fourth Son and Lady Jane Grey the Duke of Suffolk's eldest Daughter And because if only right of Inheritance should be pretended the Duchess of Suffolk were in reason to be preferred before her Daughter he undertakes to perswade the King not only to disinherit his Sisters by Will and Testament but also by the same to declare the Lady Jane his next and immediate Successour Suffolk biting at this bait they complot by drawing the chiefest of the Nobility to contract Affinity either with the one or the other to procure the general assent of them all So on the same day that Lady Jane under an unhappy Planet was married to Lord Guilford the Duke of Suffolk's two youngest Daughters are married Catharine to Lord Henry eldest Son to the Earl of Pembroke and crouch-backed Mary to Martin Keyes Groom Porter Northumberland's eldest Daughter also named Catharine was married to the Lord Hastings eldest Son to the Earl of Huntington These Marriages were in June Solemnized at London the King at that time extremely languishing Having thus brought these things to a desired pass nothing now remained but to act his part with the weak King To Him he inculcates In what danger the estate of the Church would be if He dying provision were not first made of a pious Successour and such a one as should maintain the now established Religion How the Lady Mary stood affected was well known Of the Lady Elizabeth there might be peradventure better hopes But their causes were so strongly connexed that either both must be excluded or the Lady Mary be admitted That is was the part of a Religious and Good Prince to set apart all respects of Blood where God's Glory and the Subject's weal might be endangered They that should do otherwise were after this Life which is short to expect Revenge at God's dreadful Tribunal where they are to undergo the tryal either of eternal Life or eternal Death That the Duke of Suffolk had three Daughters nearest to him in degrees of Blood they were such as their Virtues and Birth did commend and from whom the violation of Religion or the danger of a Forein yoak by any Match was not to be feared for asmuch as their Education had been Religious they had as it were with their Milk suckt in the Spiritual food of true Christian Doctrine and were also matched to Husbands as zealous of the Truth as themselves He could wish and would advise that these might be successively called to the Crown but with this caution That they should maintain the now established Religion And although Lady Jane the eldest of the three were married to his Son he would be content that they should be bound by Oath to perform whatsoever his Majesty should decree For he had not so much regard to his own as the general good These Reasons so prevailed with the young King that he made his Will and therein as much as in him lay excluded both his Sisters from the Succession to the Crown and all thers whatsoever beside the Duke of Suffolk's Daughters This Will was read in presence of the Council and chief Judges of the Realm and by each of them confirmed with a strict command that no man should publish the contents of it
conceiving this answer to proceed from a desire of longer date of Life prevails with the Queen for three days more and returning to Lady Jane certifies her what he had done beseeching her to hearken unto him and to reform her Opinion in point of Religion To whom she answered with a smiling countenance Alas Sir it was not my desire that her Majesty should be troubled with the report of my words For think not that I am touched with any desire of prolonging my days No I am so far from it that ever since your departure Life hath afflicted me with its tediousness and as for Death being wholly intent to the attaining of Life Eternal I utterly despise it and her Majesties pleasure being such I willingly undergo it Fecknam again reiterated his perswasions that she would embrace the Religion of the Church of Rome To whom her replies were such that whosoever shall read the Conference between them for it was after published cannot without amazement wonder how so tender an age especially the Sex considered should be capable of such Constancy Learning Wisdom Wit Her Husband Lord Guilford being first to suffer desired leave to see her converse with her and take his last farewel Whereto she would by no means consent desiring him To omit this foment of Grief rather than Comfort in Death for they should shortly behold each other more really united in a better place and more happy estate Yet she unappalled saw him conducted to Tower-hill and with the same setled spirit beheld his headless Trunk when it was returned to be interred in the Chappel of the Tower The Death of this innocent Lady it was conceived would not be without almost a general distaste But to decline it as much as might be it was thought good that she should not be publickly Beheaded wherefore there was a Scaffold erected within the Tower whereon about an hour or two after her Husband on the twelfth of February she submitted her neck to the Ax. When she was conducted from the place of her imprisonment to the place of her suffering the Lieutenant of the Tower desired her to vouchsafe him something or other which might serve as a Monument to him whereby to remember her whereupon she demanded Writing-Tables and therein wrote three short Sentences in Greek Latin in which Languages she was admirably skilled and English wherein she signified her Innocence and although she confessed she had committed an Errour which deserved Death yet Ignorance might among men without prejudice to the Laws sufficiently excuse it At last saluting the People as she went with a countenance setled and void of fear and commending her self to their Prayers she came to the place of Execution leading 〈◊〉 by the Hand whom she kindly embraced saying God I beseech him abundantly reward you for your Kindness toward me although I must needs say it was more unwelcome to me than my instant Death is terrible Then having to the Assembly in very modest language discoursed of her Action she said I am condemned not for having aspired to the Crown but because I refused it not being offered and shall serve for a memorable Example to Posterity that Innocence excuseth not great Misdeeds if they any way tend to the destruction of the Weal publick for he hath abundantly plunged himself in Ill whosoever even perforce hath become the Instrument of another's Ambition Having spoken thus much and implored God's mercy by the help of her Gentlewoman she first disrobed her self of her Gown then her Attire and vailing her Eyes with her Handkerchief laid her Head on the Block and exhorted the lingring Executioner to the performance of his office which he at length did his action drawing tears from the Eyes of the Spectators yea even of those who from the very beginning were affected to Queen Maries Cause This was the end of Jane a Lady renowned for the greatness of her Birth but far more for her Virtues and excellency of Wit who swayed by the Ambition of her Father-in-Law and imperious Mother took on her that Fatal Title of a Queen and being presently hurried from a Kingdom to a Scaffold suffered for the faults of others having overcome all the frowns of adverse Fortune by Constancy and Innocence Much more just was that Execution which within three days after ensued Twenty Gibbets as well for terrour of others as for present punishment being erected in divers parts of the City on the fourteenth and fifteenth of February fifty of the Kentish Rebels were hanged on them On the eighteenth of the same month Alexander Bret who drew those five hundred Londoners into a Revolt from the Duke of Norfolk was with a multitude of others whereof many were of the Gentry sent into Kent there to undergo exemplary punishment On the twentieth of February four hundred of the same Crew with Halters about their Necks were presented before the Queen all humble suppliants on their Knees whom the Queen pardoned and commanded their present liberty On the three and twentieth of February Henry Gray Duke of Suffolk Father to Lady Jane having been Condemned on the seventeenth of the same month was publickly Beheaded A man whose facility to by-practices had occasioned all the Troubles wherewith this Reign had hitherto been distracted whose 〈◊〉 Ingratitude the Queen having once Pardoned him beyond expectation diverted the current of the Queens clemency toward his Daughter and brought him to a deserved end The next turn was Wyat's and that on the eleventh of April Who upon a kind of promise of Pardon if he would detect the rest of the Conspirators suborned as is conceived by some malevolent persons among the rest traduced young Courtney as that having been refused by Queen Mary he aspired to marry the Lady Elizabeth to depose the Queen and so to reign as it were in the right of his Wife This Accusation had procured their Commitment the Lady Elizabeth's on the eighteenth of March Courtney's on the twelfth of February But Wyat finding himself deluded and being toucht with the horridness of so treacherous an Accusation going to the place of his Execution desired the favour of a few words with the Marquess of Exceter which which was granted him Of the Marquess he on his knees craved pardon for that irreparable Injury which he had done him not out of Malice but desire of Life The Sheriffs of the City with many others were then present and after testified the certainty of this acknowledgement But the Bishop of Winchester Lord Chancellour who out of fear of change of Religion if Queen Mary dying Elizabeth should come to the Crown was content to lay hold on any occasion to cut her off affirmed in the Star-Chamber and thereto cited the testimony of the Lord Chandois that Wyat a little before his Death exhorted the Marquess to acknowledge his Crime and to submit himself to the Queens mercy But what apparance of truth can there be in this it being certain that Wyat having
purposely arraied him and bitterly taunted at to be dragged to death and that death by the horrid tortures of Fire Being now fastned to the Stake as soon as ever the flame began to ascend lifting up his left Hand to Heaven he thrust forth his right hand into the flame and there with admirable constancy continued it until it was consumed only once drawing it in and with it stroaking his Beard At length the raging flame spreading it self lifting up his Eyes toward Heaven he cried out Lord receive my Spirit and his Body abiding as immoveable as the Stake whereto he was fastened he patiently endured the Fires violence until he at last expired His Body being consumed to ashes his Heart was found entire and untoucht Had any of the Romanists found the like in any one of their Faction it should have been recorded for a Miracle and that Miracle sufficed to have Sainted him Give me leave though it be contrary to the method of History to insert a few Verses written by Ralph Skinner concerning this great man's Martyrdom Succubuit sanctus Praesul Cranmerus iniquâ Pontificum rabie fraude doloque perit Quòd Verbi invicto dejecer at Ense Papatum Quòd docuit purâ quaerere mente Deum Quódque Antichristi subverterat impia regna Regna piis Anglis heu tolerata diù Hinc pius clemens crudeli addicitur igni Dantur innocui membra cremenda viri Huc ubi jam ventum est Dextram projecit in ignem Projectamque tenens talia dicta dedit Primùm peccasti primùm sentire dolorem Debes ah Christo dextra inimica meo Immotamque tenet dum deflagraverat omnis In cineres totam dum cecidisse videt Caetera cùm pereant flammâ mirabile dictu Cor manet illaesum post ubi flamma perit Ecce invicta fides cor inviotabile servat Nec mediis flammis corda perire sinit Which Verses may be thus rendred in English Through Papists rage and fraud good Cranmer dy'd Because he put their Doctrine to the Sword The two-edg'd Sword of Scripture and discri'd Christ's Foe instructing England with the Word For this meek man he had a Martyr's hire His Soul was burnt with Zeal his Corps with Fire But when he came unto the stake he thrust His right Hand in the flames Thou first he said Because thou first did'st sin here suffer must Thou first thy Lord and Master hast betrai'd There held he it his Eyes did see it fall Soon afterward he sent those Eyes withal But lo a wonder Heaven's sacred Oracle Had sure decreed that so admir'd a creature Should not be put to death sans Miracle His Body burnt his Heart in perfect feature Was found unsing'd See see the Faith he cherisht Once in that Heart preserv'd it still unperisht Beside Cranmer the cruelty of those times did the same year devour many Professors of the same Religion Of both Sexes no fewer than eighty four were this year martyred by Fire Neither did their cruelty exercise it self on the living only The Bones of Martin Bucer and Paul Phagius long since dead were digged up formally accused of Heresie and no man undertaking their Cause as who durst condemned and publickly Burned in the Market-place at Cambridge And Peter Martyr's Wife who died at Oxford was disinterred and with barbarous and inhumane cruelty buried in a Dunghil To Bucer and Phagius Queen Elizabeth did afterward with great solemnity restore their memory and honour And as for Peter Martyr's Wife she caused her Bones to be translated from that unclean place to be reinterred in the Church and commixed with the Relicks of Frideswid by Papists reputed a Saint that the like occasion of mockage might not again be offered On the same day whereon Cranmer thus ended his life Cardinal Pool was ordered Priest at Greenwich and the next day Naboth being dead took possession of his Vineyard being consecrated Archbishop of Canterbury Three days after being the Feast of the Annunciation accompanied by many Nobles Pool with great solemnity received the Pall at Bow-Church About the same time a notable Conspiracy was detected some having projected to rob the Exchequer at that time full of Spanish coin to the value of fifty thousand Pounds The names of the Conspirators were Udal Throckmorton Pecham Daniel Stanton and besides others that fled for it White who discovered his fellows The rest were all taken and suffered as Traitors Sir Anthony Kingston as partaker in their intentions was also apprehended but died before he could reach London In July new Tumults begun to be set on foot in Norfolk were maturely suppressed Cleber and three Brothers called Lincolne the authors of it suffering for their seditious attempt On the one and twentieth of November John Fecknam Dean of Pauls was installed Abbot at Westminster which Henry the Eighth had erected to an Archiepiscopal See There being at that time no Monks in England fourteen were found who were content with Fecknam to take the Religious habit of Benedictines ANNO DOM. 1557. REG. MARIAE 4 5 PHILIPPI 3 4. NOw after four or five years we found the effect of our Northern Navigation set on foot by Cabota About the beginning of this year arrived in England Osep Napea Ambassador from Basiliwitz Emperour of Russia for the Treaty of a perpetual League between our Kings and his Prince On the Scottish Coast he had suffered wrack and beside Merchandize of infinite value he lostthose Presents which were from the Emperour destinated to their Majesties But the loss of Richard Chanceller was beyond all these inestimable who being a most expert Pilot first discovered the passage into those Northern Regions and now more solicitous of the Ambassador's safeguard than of his own this man most worthy of immortal Memory was swallowed up in the Seas insatiate gulf I think the Entertainment of any Ambassador with us was never more Royal. On the five and twentieth of May Philip having about seven days before returned out of Flanders he was admitted into the presence of the Kings declared the purport of his Embassy and continued in London until the third of May and having then got a convenient season laden with Gifts he set sail for his Countrey On the sixth of March Charles Lord Stourton for having in his house cruelly murthered one Hargill and his Son with whom he had long been at variance was by a wholesom example to posterity Hanged at Sarisbury with four other of his Servants who were not only conscious but actors in the cruelty After he had beaten them down with Clubs and cut their Throats he buried their Carcases fifteen foot deep in the ground hoping by such sure work to stop the voice of Blood crying for revenge or if peradventure it were discovered the regard of his zealous persistance in the Religion of Rome would he hoped procure the Queens pardon But Murther is a sin that God hath by many memorable Examples manifested
Lieutenant-general in the Netherlands who having speedily out of the neighbour Garrisons of Betune St. Omer Aires Burburg and others assembled an Army of fifteen thousand puts himself between Dunkirk and Calais Termes had hitherto expected the Duke of Guise but upon notice that the Countrey was up in Arms he somewhat too late bethought himself of a retreat He was now every way enclosed and passage not to be gained but by dint of Sword The French therefore valiantly charge their Enemies and overthrow some Squadrons of Horse indeed despair animated them to do wonders and the Flemings were set on fire by the desire of revenging late Injuries The Spanish Troops renew the fight which was with equal order long maintained on both sides In the heat whereof ten English Men of War fortunately sailing by for De Termes had for his security betaken him to the shoar hoping that way with much less hazard to have gained passage upon discovery of the French Colours let fly their Ordnance furiously among the French making such a slaughter that they began to give ground were at last routed and overthrown The French in this Battel lost five thousand Their chief Commanders were almost all taken the Marshal himself was hurt and taken with d'Annebalt the Son of Claud the late Admiral the Earl of Chaune Senarpont Villebon Governour of Picardy Morvilliers and many others Two hundred escaped to our Ships whom they might have drowned but giving them Quarter they were brought Captives into England This Battel was fought on the thirteenth of July The Queen desirous by some action or other to wipe out the stain of the ignominious loss of Calais about the same time set forth a Fleet of one hundred and forty Sail whereof thirty were Flemings the main of the Expedition being from Brest in Bretaigne But the Lord Clinton Lord High Admiral of England finding no good to be done there set sail for Conquet where he landed took the Town sacked it and set it on fire together with the Abbey and the adjacent Villages and returned to his Ships But the Flemings somewhat more greedy after prey disorderly piercing farther into the Countrey and regardless of Martial discipline which commands obedience to their General being encounted by the Lord of Kersimon came fewer home by five hundred Philip about the same time lodging near Amiens with a great Army Henry with a far greater attended each motion of his They encamp at last Henry on the North of the River Somme Philip on the South of the River Anthy so near to one another that it might be thought impossible for two such spirited Princes commanding so great Armies to depart without a Battel But divers considerations had tempered their heat Philip being the weaker of the two saw no reason why to engage himself Henry had an Army which had twice felt the other victorious and was therefore loath on them to adventure his already shaken estate Wherefore they so entrenched themselves and fortified their Camps with Artillery as if they expected a Siege from each other Some months thus passed without any other exploits than Inroads and light Skirmishes At length they mutually entertain a motion of Peace both of them considering that their Armies consisting of Strangers the fruits of the Victory would be to the Aliens only but the calamity and burthen of the Defeat would light on the shoulders of the Vanquished or which comes all to one pass of the Subjects These motives drew together for a Treaty on Henry's side the Constable the Marshal of St. Andrew the Cardinal of Lorain Morvilliers Bishop of Orleans and Aubespine Secretary of Estate For Philip the Duke of Alva the Prince of Orange Puyz Gomes de Silva Granvell Bishop of Arras and others Much altercation was had about the restoring of Calais which the French were resolved to hold and Philip would have no Peace unless it were restored to Mary whom in point of Honour he could not so forsake But this difference was ended by the death of Mary a little before whom on the one and twentieth of September died also the Emperour Charles the Fifth which occasioned both the change of place and time for another Treaty And if the continual connexion of other memorable Affairs had not transported me I should ere this have mentioned the Marriage celebrated at Paris with great pomp on the eight and twentieth of April between the Daulphin Francis and Mary Queen of Scots But the fruits thereof were not lasting For two years after died Francis the Crown by the death of his Father Henry having been first devolved to him and left his Bed to a more auspicious Husband Henry the eldest Son to the Earl of Lenox Of these Parents was born our late Sovereign of ever sacred memory who was Nephew by his Mother to James the Fifth by Margaret the eldest Daughter Nephew to that wife King Henry the Seventh who the Issue of Henry the Eighth being extinct as the next undoubted Heir most happily united the Crowns of England Scotland and Ireland But now at length to draw nearer home this Autumn was very full of Diseases Fevers especially quartan reigning extraordinarily in England whereby many chiefly aged persons and among them a great number of the Clergy perished Of the sole Episcopal rank thirteen died either a little before the Queen or some few months after her Among the rest Cardinal Pool scarce survived her a day who having been for some weeks afflicted by this kind of Disease and brought to extreme weakness of Body as if he had at the news of the Quens death received his deaths wound expired at three a Clock the next morning His Corps inclosed in Lead was buried in his Cathedral at Canterbury with this brief Elogy on his Tomb instead of an Epitaph Depositum Cardinalis POLI. He was a man admirably learned modest mild of a most sweet disposition wise and of excellent dexterity in the managing of any affairs so that he had been incomparable if corrupted with the Religion of the Church of Rome he had not forced his nature to admit of those cruelties exercised upon the Protestants The Queen died at St. James on the seventeenth of November some few hours before day She was a Lady very godly merciful chast and every way praise-worthy if you regard not the errours of her Religion But her Religion being the cause of the effusion of so much innocent Blood that of the Prophet was necessarily to be fulfilled in her Blood-thirsty men c. shall not finish half their days For she was cut off in the two and fortieth year of her age having reigned only five Years four Months and eleven Days whereas her Sister who succeeded her most happily in a more mild Government ruled nine times as long and almost doubled her age Concerning the cause of Queen Maries Death there are divers conjectures To relate what I find in approved Authors it is reported that in the
Crown whose Reign lasted but to the beginning of Queen Elizabeth And now the affairs of Scotland which have without doubt been great and memorable crave a part in our History We have before made mention of our League with Scotland wherein it was determined concerning the Marriage between the now King Edward and the Queen of Scots The times since then were full of continual 〈◊〉 We at length resolved not to dally with them but to undertake the War with forces agreeable to the cause The Duke of Somerset by consent of the Privy Council is sent into Scotland with ten thousand Foot and six thousand Horse besides Pioners and Artificers thirteen hundred and and fifteen pieces of Brass Ordnance To the Lord Clinton is assigned a Navy consisting of four and twenty men of War one Galley and thirty Ships of burthen wherewith he was to scour the Seas and infest the maritim parts of Scotland On the third of September the Duke of Somerset made an hostile entrance upon the Enemies Countrey and forthwith dispatched Letters to the Earl of Arren Regent of Scotland much to this effect That he wished the Scots would consider that this War was waged among Christians and that our ends were no other than a just Peace whereto the endeavours of all good men should tend An occasion not only of a League but of a perpetual Peace was now happily offered if they would suffer the two differing and emulous Nations by uniting the Heads to grow together This as it had been formerly sought by us so had it been generally assented to by the Estates of Scotland Therefore he could not but wonder why they should rather treacherously recurr to Arms the events of War being usually even to the Victor sufficiently unfortunate than maintain inviolate their troth plighted to the good of both Nations They could not in reason expect that their Queen should perpetually live a Virgin-life And if she married where could she bestow her self bettter than on a puissant Monarch inhabiting the same Island and parlying the same language They saw what inconveniencies were the consequents of forein Matches whereof they should rather make tryal by the examples of others than at their own peril He demanded nothing but equity yet he so much abhorred the effusion of Christian blood that if he found the Scots not utterly averse from an accord he would endeavour that some of the Conventions should be remitted He would also permit that the Queen should abide and be brought up among them until her age made her marriageable at what time she should by consent of the Estates her self make choice of a Husband In the mean time there should be a Cessation of Arms neither should the Queen be transported out of her Realm nor entertain treatise of Marriage with the French or any other foreiner This if they would faithfully promise he would forthwith peaceably depart out of Scotland and whatsoever damages the Countrey had suffered by this invasion he would according to the esteem of indifferent Arbitrators make ample satisfaction The Scottish Army consisted of thirty thousand Foot some speak a greater number The chief Commanders whereof puffed up with confidence of their strength although they had lately lost eight hundred in a tumultuary skirmish and misconceiving our offers to proceed out of fear reject all Conditions of Accord And lest upon knowledge of the equity of our demands the Council should incline to resolutions of Peace they conceal our Letters And not only so but upon assurance of Victory spread a rumour that nothing would content the insolent English but the delivery of the Queen which if they could not otherwise they would by force obtain and proceed to the absolute conquest of the Kingdom This report enraged the Souldiers whom no motives could disswade from present engaging themselves in Battel The wiser sort were not ignorant of the necessities that long since began to press us who were brought to that pass that by reason of the difficulties of passages we could not make a safe retreat nor force the Enemy to fight in regard of the strength of the place where he was encamped But the vain hope of Victory had possessed the minds of the greater part and excluded reason Necessity forced us to a resolution brave and expedient which was to seek the Enemy in his lodging and endeavour to draw him to combat But the hot-spur Scots issuing from out their fastnesses seemed willing to prevent us So both Armies entertain a mutual resolution A little before the joyning of the Armies an accident happened which did not a little make way to our Victory The Enemy marching along near the Sea-shoar a piece of Ordnance discharged from our Galley took away five and twenty of their men whereof the eldest Son of the Lord Grimes was one Four thousand Archers terrified with so unexpected a slaughter made a stand and could never after be brought on The two Armies approaching each other the Duke of Somerset commanded the Lord Gray with the Cavallery to charge the Scots and find them employment until the Infantry had seized on an adjoyning Hill and if he could without much hazard to disorder the Enemy But they were gallantly received by a strong Squadron of Pikes whereon some of the formost having too far engaged themselves were cast away the rest retreated affirming that it was as easie to force a Wall as through the Scottish Ranks The Duke makes a second trial by the light Horse seconding them with the Ordnance and the Archers The Enemy either not able to stand so violent a charge or as some relate to draw us from the favour of our Cannon begins to give ground which we perceiving give a shout crying out withal They fly they fly which so amazed them that some began to fly indeed and at length the whole Army was routed The Scots complain that we tyrannized over the Captives especially the Priests and Friers whereof many served in this Field because by their instigation chiefly our Conditions were so arrogantly rejected Of the Enemies were flain thirteen thousand and among them beside the Earl of Lohemor and the Lord Fleming the chief of the Scottish Gentry with their Tenants who thought it a disgrace to survive their Lords In the chase were taken fifteen hundred among whom were the Earl Huntley Chancellour of Scotland the Lords Hefter Hobbey and Hamilton beside many other persons of Quality This lamentable overthrow was given the tenth of September The English become Victors beyond their expectation ransacked the Countrey five miles about fortified in the Forth the forsaken Islands Keth and Haymon took Brocth Castle by their terrour forced the Garrisons of Humes and Fastcastle to yield and having built a Fort at Lauder and repaired the ruines of Roxburgh by their departure recreated the dejected minds of the distressed Scots Our affairs thus succeeding abroad the Church at home had her changes Many of the Council but especially the Protector