make it known what they were Prestons Chantery THis was Founded by John Preston for two Priests to Sing Mass daily for the good Estate of Him the said John during this mortal Life and afterwards for the health of his Soul as also for the Souls of his Parents and Benefactors and all the Faithful Deceased Thus Mr. Dugdale Of Gilds or Fraternities The word Gild Proceeds from the Saxon word Gelo or Gilo which signifies Money because that such as were either for Charity Religion or Merchandize sake associated did cast their Money Goods yea and sometimes Lands together for the publick support of their own common charge These had their Annual Feasts â—…nd Neighbourly Meetings The First and most Ancient of these Gilds here in Coventry was Founded in the Fourteenth year of Edward the Third At which time the King granted Licence to the Coventry men That they should have a Merchants Gild and a Fraternity of Brethren and Sisters of the same in this Town with a Master or Warden thereof to be chosen out of the same Fraternity And that they might make Chantries bestow Alms do other works of Piety and Constituted Ordinances touching the same with all Appurtenances thereto And in the Seventeenth year Edward the Third gave leave to several to enter into a Fraternity and make a Gild consisting of themselves and such others as would joyn with them to the Honor of St. John Baptist. As also to purchase certain Lands Tenements and Rents for the Founding of a Chantry of Six Priests to Sing Mass every day in the Church of the Holy Trinity and St. Michael in Coventry for the Souls of the King's Progenitors and for the good Estate of the King Queen Isabel his Mother Queen Philippa his Wife and their Children As also of Walter Chesthunt and William De-Belgrave during their lives here on Earth and for their Souls after their departure hence and for the good Estate of the said John John Tho. Rich. Pet. and William and the rest of the said Gild with their Benefactors and likewise for the Soul of John Eltham late Earl of Cornwal and all of the Faithful Deceased Which Gild being so Founded within Two years after the same King Edward gave Licence to Queen Isabel his Mother to Give and Assign thereunto a parcel of Land to build thereupon a Chappel to the Honor of our Bâ—…essed Saviour and St. John Baptist for Two Priests to Sing Mass daily for the good Estate of the said King Edward Queen Isabel his Mother Queen Philippa his Wife Edward Prince of Wales and of the Brethren and Benefactors of the same Gild whilst they lived in this World and for their Souls after their Departure hence As also for the Soul of John of Eltham Earl of Cornwal and the Souls of the said Brethren and Benefactors with all the Faithful Deceased Thus Mr. Dugdale p. 119. There were great store of these and such like Pious Foundations throughout all England as appears by the same History All destroyed by King Henry the Eighth and his Son This Change being made something must necessarily be established in order to Religion CHAP. III. A Book of Religion Published THE Clergy held a Convocation in St. Paul's Church where after much disputing and debating of matters they Published a Book of Religion Entituled Articles Devised by the King's Highness c. In which Book is mentioned but Three Sacraments Baptism Eucharist and Penance The Articles contained in this Book were Six And by an Act of Parliament all were condemned for Hereticks and to be Burnt that should hold the contrary to them Asserting 1. That the Body of Christ was not really present in the Sacrament of the Eucharist after Consecration 2. That Priests entred into Holy Orders might Marry 3. That the Sacrament might not truly be Administred in one kind 4. That Vows of Chastity made upon mature deliberation were not to be kept That Private Masses were not to be used That Auricular Confession was not necessary in the Church Thus Sir Rich. Baker pag. 408. Here followeth the Act it self out of the Statute Book An Act of Parliament made in King Henry the Eighth's time for abolishing diversity of Opinions in certain Articles concerning Religion THe King 's Most Royal Majesty most prudently considering that by occasion of various Opinions and Judgments concerning some Articles in Religion great discord and variance hath arisen as well amongst the Clergy of this Realm as amongst a great number of the vulgar People And being in a full hope and trust that a full and perfect Resolution of the said Articles would make a perfect Concord and Unity generally amongst all His Loving and Obedient Subjects of His most Excellent Goodness not only Commanded that the said Articles should Deliberately and Advisedly by His Archbishops Bishops and other Learned Men of His Clergy be Debated Argued and Reasoned and their Opinions therein to be Understood Declared and Known But also most Graciously vouchsafed in his own Princely Person to come unto his High Court of Parliament and Council and there like a wise Prince of most high Prudence and no less Learning opened and declared many Things of most high Learning and great Knowledge touching the said Articles Matters and Questions for an Unity to be had in the same Whereupon after a great and long deliberate and advised Disputation and Consultation had and made concerning the said Articles as well by the consent of the King's Highness as by the Assent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal and other Leaned Men of His Clergy in their Convocations and by the Consent of the Commons in Parliament Assembled it was and is finally resolved accorded and Agreed in manner and form following that is to say 1. First That in the most Blessed Sacrament of the Altar by the strength and efficacy of Christ's mighty Word it being spoken by the Priest is present really under the Forms of Bread and Wine the natural Body and Blood of our Saviour Jesus Christ conceived of the Virgin Mary and that after the Consecration there remains no substance of the Bread or Wine nor any other Substance but the Substance of Christ God and Man 2. That the Communion in both kinds is not necessary to Salvation by the Law of God to all Persons and that it is to be Believed and not Doubted but that in the Flesh under the Form of Bread is the very Blood and with Blood under the Form of Wine is the very Flesh as well apart as if they were both together 3. That Priests after the Order of Priesthood received may not Marry by the Law of God 4. That Vows of Chastity Widowhood c. are to be kept 5. That it is meet and necessary that Private Masses be continued and admitted in the King 's English Church and Congregation as whereby good Christian People orcering themselves accordingly do receive both Godly and Goodly Consolations and Benefits and it is agreeable also to God's Law 6. That
Historical COLLECTIONS Out of several Grave Protestant Historians Concerning the CHANGES OF RELIGION AND The strange Confusions following In the Reigns of KING HENRY the Eighth EDWARD the Sixth QUEEN MARY and ELIZABETH With an Addition of several Remarkable Passages taken out of Sir Will. Dugdale's Antiquities of Warwickshire relating to the Abbies and their Institution Published with Allowance LONDON Printed by Henry Hills Printer to the Kings Most Excellent Majesty for His Houshold and Chappel And for him and Matâ—… Turâ—…er at the Lamb in High holbourn 1686. THE PREFACE HAving perused several of our Histories of England and standing amazed to find in them That the Alteration of Religion here hath been totally carried on by worldly Interest I thought it would not be ungrateful to the Reader to have those various Passages concerning the Changes of Religion collected together out of those Histories for the informing him exactly how those Changes have been made And withal of the Beginning and Progress of Presbytery in this Nation and the Ground of Multiplying other Sects which hath been the cause of all our late Confusions I have laboured to connect these Passages together in as good an order as I think could be expected in matters â—…ulled out of such large volumns Much more might have been Collected concerning these matters out of diverse other Histories But I think the chief matters are here sufficiently handled which may satisfie the curiosity of any indifferent Reader To add more Authority to what shall be here taken out of Dr. Heylyns History of Reformation from whence the chiefest matters of these Collections are gathered I will here Insert a Passage out of the Preface of it by which it will appear what diligence he hath used in composing this History The words of the Preface are these IN this following History you will find more to satisfie your curiosity and inform your judgment then can be possibly drawn up in this general view As for my performance in this work In the first place I am to tell you that towards the raising of this Fabrick I have not borrowed my materials only out of vulgar Authors but searched into the Records of the Convocation consulted all such Acts of Parliament as concerned my purpose advised with many Forein Writers of great name and credit exemplified some Records and Charters of no common quality many rare pieces in the Cottonian Library and not a few Debates and Orders of the Council-Table which I have laid together in as good a form and beautified it with a trimming as agreeable as my hands could give it Thus Dr. Heylyn A Preamble to the following Collections concerning the great Kindness and good Correspondence between King Henry the Eighth and some Popes FIrst King Henry the Eighth for writing a Book against Luther received a Bull from the Pope whereby he had the Title given him to be Defender of the Faith for him and his Successors for ever The Relation concerning which Book and the Reception of it by the Pope is thus set down in the History of the Lord Herbert of Cherbury pag. 104. OUr King being at leisure now from Wars and delighting much in learning thought he could not give better proof either of his Zeal or Education then to write against Luther To this also he was exasperated That Luther had oftentimes spoken contemptuously of the learned Thomas of Aâ—…uin who yet was in so much requst with the King that he was therefore called Thomistious Hereupon the King compiles a Book wherein he strenuously opposed Luther in the point of Indulgences Number of Sacraments the Papal Authority and other particulars to be seen in that his work Entitled de Septem Sacramentis c. a principal Copy whereof richly bound being sent to Leo I remember my self to have seen in the Vatican Library The manner of the delivery whereof as I find it in our Records was thus Doctor John Clark Dean of Windsor our Kings Embassador appearing in full Consistory the Pope knowing the glorious Present he brought first gave him his cheek to kiss and then receiving the Book promised to do so much for the Approbation thereof as ever was done for St. Augustine or St. Hierome's Works Assuring him withal that the next Consistory he would bestow a publick Title on our King which having been heretofore privately debated among the Cardinals those of Protector Defensor Romanae Ecclesiae or Sedis Apostolicae or Rex Apostolicus or Orthodoxus produced they at last agreed on Defensor Fidei a Transcript of which Bull out of an Original sub plumbo in our Records I have here inserted Leo Bishop Servant of the Servants of God to his most dear Son Henry King of England Defender of the Faith All health and happiness God having called Us although infinitely unworthy of it to the Government of the whole Church We bend all Our thoughts to promote the Catholick Faith without which none can be saved and labour by all means as belongs to Our duty to make use of and promote all such helps as have been wisely ordained for the preserving the integrity of Christian Faith amongst all but most especially amongst Princes and to suppress the endeavours of those who labour to corrupt it by lies and false Doctrines And as other Bishops of Rome our Predecessors have been accustomed to confer special favours upon Catholick Princes according to the exigency of Times and Affairs Especially upon such as have not only remained unmovable in their Obedience to the Holy Roman Catholick Church with an entire Faith and servent Devotion in the tempestuous times and raging perfidious fury of Schismaticks and Hereticks But likewise as legitimate Children and stout Champions of the same Church have opposed themselves both temporally and spiritually against the mad fury of such Schismaticks and Hereticks as have opposed it So we also desire to extol your Majesty with condign and immortal Praises for your excellent and immortal works and actions in favour of Us and this Holy See where by Gods permission we are established and to grant you those things which may enable and engage you to have a care to preserve our Lords Flock from Wolves and to cut off with the material Sword rotten members that seek to infect the mystical Body of Christ confirming in the solidity of Faith the Hearts of such as waver or are in danger of falling When our beloved Son John Clark your Majesties Orator or Embassador deliver'd unto Us in Our Consistory before Our Venerable Brethren Cardinals of the Holy Roman Church and many other Prelates of the Roman Court a Book which your Majesty hath composed out of your great Charity and Zeal of Catholick Faith enflamed with a fervour of Devotion towards Us and this Holy See as a Noble and proper Antidote against the errors of divers Hereticks often condemned by this Holy See and lately raised up again by Martin Luther he then likewise further declared unto Us your Majesties desire that this
after mine own brain and affection Wherefore I exhort you all to beware how and after what sort you come to read God's Holy Word For it it is not a trifle or playing-game to deal with God's Holy Mysteries Stand not too much in your own conceits For like as the Bee of one Flower gathers Hony and the Spider Poyson of the same Even so you unless you humbly submit your selves to God and Charitably read the same to the intent to be edified thereby it is to you as Poyson and worse and it were better to let it alone And then after he had asked the Queens Highness forgiveness and all the World he desired the People of their Charity to Pray unto God with him for remission of his sins and then refusing the Kerchief laid down his Head which was strucken off at Three blows Sir Thomas Palmer as soon as he came to the Scaffold took every Man by the Hand and desired them to Pray for him and then said these Words It is not unknown to you wherefore I come hither which I have worthily well deserved at God's Hands For I know it to be his Divine Ordinance by this means to call me to his mercy and to teach me to know my self what I am and whereunto we are all Subject I thank his merciful Goodness For he hath caused me to learn more in one little dark corner in yonder Tower than ever I learned by any Travel in so many places as I have been For there I have seen what God is and how inscrutable his wondrous Works and how infinite his Mercies be I have there seen my self throughly and what I am Nothing but a lump of sin earth dust and of all vileness the most vile I have there seen and known what the World is how vain deceitful transitory and short how wicked and loathsome the works thereof are in the sight of God's Majesty how he neither regards the menacâ—…s of the proud and mighty nor dispises the humbleness of the poor and lowly Finally I have there seen what Death is how near hanging over every Mans head and yet how uncertain the time is and how little it is to be feared And should I fear Death or be sad therefore Have I not seen two die before mine Eyes yea and within the hearing of my Ears No neither the sprinkling of the Blood nor the shedding thereof nor the Blood it self shall make me afraid And now taking my leave to the same I pray you all to Pray for me Come on Good-fellow Are you he that must do the deed I forgive you with all my Heart And then kneeling down and laying his Head upon the Block he said I will see how fit the Block is for my Neck I pray strike not yet for I have a few Prayers to say and that done strike on God's Name His Prayer ended and again desiring all to Pray for him he laid down his Head which the Executioner took off at one stroke Thus Howes concerning the Death of these two Persons CHAP. II. Of Her Coronation and of a Tumult raised and of Her moderate proceeding upon it Dr. Heylyn pag. 20. SHe came with great Magnificence to the Abby-Church where She was met with Three Silver Crosses and Fourscore Singing-men all in rich and noble Copes so sudden a recruit was made of those Sacred Vestments Amongst whom went the New Dean of Westminster and divers Chaplains of Her own each of them bearing in their hands some Ensign or other After them marched Ten Bishops which were as many as remained of her Perswasion with their Miters rich Copes and Crosier-Staves c. Thus Dr. Heylyn concerning Her Coronation Upon Her being Proclaimed Queen She Declared That She would persecute none for Religion nor force their Consciences But this could not hinder Factious Spirits from raising Tumults whereof this was one Howe 's upon Stow pag. 613. Mr. Bourn a Canon of Paul's-Cross not only Prayed for the Dead but also declared that Dr. Bonner Bishop of London lately restored and there present for a Sermon by him Preached in the same place upon the same Gospel was about Four years since unjustly cast into the vile Prison of the Marshalsea and there kept curing the Reign of King Edward the Sixth which saying so offended some of the Audience that they breaking silence said The Bishop had Preached Abomination Other some cryed Pull him out pull him out And some being nearer the Pulpit began to climb wherewith the Preacher stept back and one Mr. Bradford a Preacher of King Edwards time stept into his place and perswaded the Audience to Quietness and Obedience Nevertheless Mr. Bourn standing by Mr. Bradford one threw a Dagger at him Whereupon Mr. Bradford broke off his Speech and forced himself with the help of John Rogers another Preacher to conveigh Mr. Bourn out of the Audience whom with great labour they brought into Pauls-School Thus Howes Dr. Heylyn pag. 21. Upon occasion of this Tumult the Lords of the Council ordered the Mayor and Aldermen of London to call the next day a Common Council of the City and that they should charge every Housholder to cause their Children and Apprentices to keep to their own Parish Churches upon Holy days and not suffer them to attempt any thing to the violating of the Common Peace Willing them all to signifie to the said Assembly the Queens Determination uttered to them by Her Highness in the Tower which was That albeit Her Graces Conscience was settled in matters of Religion yet She Graciously meant not to compel or constrain other Mens otherwise than God should as She trusted put into their Hearts a perswasion of the Truth which she was in through the opening of his Word unto them by Godly Virtuous and Learned Preachers She further set out this following Proclamation THe Queens Highness well remembring what great Inconveniences and Dangers have grown to this Realm in times past through the diversities of Opinions in Questions of Religion And hearing also that now of late the same Contentions be again revived through Writings false Reports and Rumors spread abroad by some evil-disposed Persons Informs all Her Subjects That she cannot now hide that Religion which God and the World knows she hath ever Professed from her Infancy hitherto which as her Majesty is minded to observe and maintain for her self by God's Grace during her time so doth her Highness much desire and would be glad the same were of all Her Subjects quietly and charitably entertained And yer She doth signified unto all Her Majesties loving Subjects That Her Highness mindeth not to compel any of Her said loving Subjects thereunto forbidding nevertheless the moving of any Seditions by the interpreting the Laws after their brains and fancies applying their whole care study and travel to live in the Grace of God exercising their Conversations in such Charitable and Godly doings as their lives may indeed express the great hunger and thirst they have of God's
Book might be approved by Our Authority and withal in a copious Oration manifested unto Us that as your Majesty hath confuted the notorious Errors of the same Martin Luther from true and convincing Reasons and unanswerable Authorities of the holy Scriptures and Fathers so that you will be ready with all the Forces and Arms of your Kingdom to punish and prosecute all such as shall presume to follow or defend any of the said Opinions Whereupon we have with all care and diligence perused the same Book and finding it to contain admirable Doctrine and full of the Spirit of God do give God infinite thanks from whom proceeds every good and perfect Gift for having thus inspir'd your mind and enabled you by his Grace to compose this Work for the defence of his holy Faith against this raiser up of old condemned Errors and to the inviting of other Kings and Christian Princes to follow your example in protecting Orthodox Faith and Evangelical Truth now expos'd to great danger and many oppositions We upon this likewise judging it just and reasonable to confer all Honour and Praises upon such as have employ'd their pious Labours in the defence of the said Christian Faith do not only extol and magnifie approve and confirm by Our Authority what your Majesty hath with so much solid Learning and Eloquence written against the same Martin Luther but do likewise confer upon your Majesty such a Title of Honour that by it all the Faithful may understand both now and for all future times how grateful and acceptable this your Majesties Gift hath been unto Us especially offered at this time We who are the true Successor of St Peter whom Christ ascending up to Heaven lest as his Vicar upon Earth committing to him the care of his Flock We I say sitting in this holy See having with mature Deliberation considered of this business with Our Brethren do with their unanimous Counsel and consent grant unto your Majesty the Title of Defender of the Faith which We do by these presents confirm unto you commanding all the Faithful to give your Majesty this Title and when they write unto you after the word King to annex this other of Defender of the Faith And assuredly if the excellency and dignity of this Title and your singular merits be well weigh'd and considered We could not have thought of any name more Noble nor better agreeable to your Majesty then this which as often as you hear and read you will have occasion to reflect upon your own Virtue and Merit not becoming more proud thereby but according to your wonted Prudence rather more humble and more establish'd in the Faith of Christ and respect towards this holy See rejoycing in our Lord the Giver of all Good things and leaving unto your Posterity this perpetual and immortal monument of your Glory shewing them the way that if they desire to possess this Title they labour to do works of this kind and to imitate your Majesties example who having deserv'd so much from Us and this See We give you Our Benediction and also to your Wife and Children and all that shall be born of them In the name of him from whom We have receiv'd this Power Beseeching the Almighty who said By me Kings reign and Princes command and in whose Hands the Hearts of all Kings are that he will confirm you in this holy Resolutiand encrease your Devotion and make your Actions for the preservation of Faith so illustrious throughout the whole World That no Man may have occasion to judge that this Title is confer'd upon you in vain And lastly Our Prayer is That your Majesty having happily pass'd the course of this present life may be made partaker of Eternal Glory Dated at Rome at St. Peters c. Thus far my Lord Herberts History I will now relate some other favours shew'd to him by Popes HE receiv'd from Pope Clement a Rose of Gold for a Present The reception of it is thus related by Sir Rich. Baker page 391. Doctor Thomas Hannibal Master of the Rolls was receiv'd into London by Earls Bishops and diverse Lords and Gentlemen as Embassador from Pope Clement who brought with him a Rose of Gold for a Present to the King and on the day of the Nativity of our Lady after a Solemn Mass sung by the Cardinal of York the said Present was delivered to the King which was a Tree forged of fine Gold with Branches Leaves and Flowers resembling Roses Thus far Sir Rich. Baker ANother Present was sent him by Pope Julius whereof there is this Relation in the same History page 376. Pope Julius the second sent to King Henry a Cap of Maintenance and a Sword and being angry with the King of France tranferred by Authority of the Lateran Council the Title of Christianissimo from him upon King Henry which with great solemnity was published the Sunday following at the Cathedral Church of St. Paul Thus far Sir Rich. Baker CHAP. I. The First Ground of the change of Religion in England was the business of the Kings Divorce from Queen Catherine which when it came to be publickly examined the Queen made this following Speech THe Queen according to the Form being called upon to come into the Court made no Answer but rose out of her Chair and came to the King kneeling down at his Feet to whom she said The Queens Speech SIR IN what have I offended you or what occasion of displeasure have I given you intending thus to put me from you I take God to be my Judge I have been to you a true and humble Wife ever conformable to your Will and Pleasure never contradicting or gain-saying you in any thing being always contented with all things wherein you had any delight or took any pleasure without grudge or countenance of discontent or displeasure I lov'd for your sake all them whom you lov'd whether I had cause or no whether they were my Friends or my Enemies I have been your Wife these twenty years or more and you had by me divers Children and when you had me at first I take God to be my Judg that I was a Maid and whether it be true or no I put it to your own Conscience If there be any just cause that you can alledge against me either of dishonesty or matter lawful to put me from you I am content to depart to my shame and confusion and if there be none then I pray you to let me have Justice at your Hands The King your Father was in his time of such an excellent Wit that he was accounted amongst all men for Wisdom to be a second Salomon and the King of Spain my Father Ferdinand was accounted one of the wisest Princes that had reign'd in Spain for many years It is not therefore to be doubted but that they had gathered as wise Counsellors unto them of every Realm as to their Wisdoms they thought meet and I conceive that there were in
Case that your Subjects should either examine by what right Ecclesiastical Government is Innovated or enquire how far they are bound thereby since beside that it might cause Division and hazzard the Overthrow both of the one and the other Authority it would give that Offence and Scandal abroad that Forein Princes would both reprove and disallow all our Proceedings in this kind and upon occasion be disposed easily to joyn against us Thus my Lord Herbert relates this excellent Speech But notwithstanding this Speech or whatsoever could be said against it the Popes Supremacy was excluded and the King Married Anne Boleign which is thus set down by Stow continued by How 's Pag. 554. KIng Henry upon occasion of these delays made by the Pope in his Controversie of Divorce and through Displeasure of such Reports as he heard had been made of him to the Court of Rome and Thirdly moved by some Counsellors to follow the example of the Germans caused a Proclamation to be made in the Two and twentieth year of his Reign forbidding all his Subjects to purchase any manner of thing from the Court of Rome And obtaining a Divorce from Queen Catherine his Wife by an Act of Parliament he privately Married Anne Boleign And upon that by another Act of Parliament the Pope with all his Authority was clean banished his Realm and Order taken that he should no more be called Pope but Bishop of Rome and the King to be taken and reputed as Supream Head of the Church of England having full Authority to Reform all Errors Heresies and Abuses in the same It was further Enacted by another Act of Parliament That no Person should Appeal for any Cause out of this Realm to the Court of Rome but from the Commissary to the Bishop from the Bishop to the Archbishop from the Archbishop to the King and all Causes of the King to be tryed in the Upper-House of Parliament Moreover the First-Fruits and Tenths of all Ecclesiastical Dignities and Promotions were granted to the King Thus far Stow. This Deserting of the Pope is thus related by Dr. Heylyn in the Preface of his History of Reformation KIng Henry the Eighth being violently hurried with the Transport of some private Affections And finding that the Pope appeared the greatest Obstacle to his desires he extinguished his Authority in the Realm of England This opened the first way to the Reformation and gave encouragement to those who inclined unto it To which the King afforded no small countenance out of Politick Ends. But for his own part he adhered to his Old Religion severely Persecuting those that Dissented from it And died though Excommunicated in that Faith and Doctrine which he had sucked in as it were with his Mothers milk And of which he shewed himself so stout a Champion against Luther Thus Dr. Heylyn concerning the beginning of this prodigious Change of Religion The first Opposition against this sudden Change was a Sermon of one Friar Peto in opposition to the King 's second Marriage Thus related by Howes upon Stow Pag. 562. THe First that openly resisted or reprehended the King touching his Marriage with Anne Boleign was one Friar Peto a simple Man yet very Devout of the Ordâ—… of the Observants This Man Preaching at Greenwich upon the Two and twentieth Chapter of the third Book of the Kings to wit the last part of the story of Achab saying Even where the Dogs licked the Blood of Nabaoth even there shall Dogs lick thy Blood also O King And therewithal spake of the Lying Prophets which abused the King c. I am saith he that Micheas whom you will hate because I must tell you truly that this Marriage is unlawful And I know that I shall eat the Bread of Affliction and drink the Water of Sorrow yet because our Lord hath put it into my mouth I must speak it And when he had strongly enveighed against the King's second Marriage to diswade him from it he also said There are many other Preachers yea too many which Preach and Perswade you otherwise feeding your folly and frail Affections upon hope of their own worldly Promotion and by that means betray your Soul your Honour and Posterity to obtain Fat Benefices to become Rich Abbots and get Episcopal Jurisdiction and other Ecclesiastical Dignities These I say are the Four hundred Prophets who in the spirit of Lying seek to deceive you But take good heed lest you being seduced find Achab ' s punishment which was to have his Blood licked up by Dogs saying that it was one of the greatest miseries in Princes to be daily abused by Flatterers The King being thus reproved endured it patiently and did no violence to Peto But the next Sunday Dr. Curwin Preached in the same place who most sharply reprehended Peto and his Preaching calling him Dog Slanderer base beggarly Friar Rebel Traytor saying that no Subject should speak so audaciously to Princes And having spoken much to that effect and in Commendation of the King's Marriage thereby to Establish his Seed in his Seat for ever c. He then supposing that he had utterly suppressed Peto and his partakers lifted up his voice and said I speak to thee Peto which makest thy self Micheas that thou mayst speak evil of Kings But now thou art not to be found being fled for fear and shame as being unable to answer my Arguments And whilst he thus spake there was one Elstow a fellow Friar to Peto standing in the Rood-loft who said to Dr. Curwin Good Sir you know that Father Peto as he was Commanded is now gone to a Provincial Council held at Canterbury and not fled for fear of you for to morrow he will return again In the mean time I am here as another Micheas and will lay down my Life to prove all those things true which he hath taught out of the holy Scripture and to this Combate 〈◊〉 challenge thee before God and all equal Judges even unto thee Curwin I say which art one of the Four hundred false Prophets into whom the spirit of Lying is entred and seekest by Adultery to establish a Succession betraying the King unto endless Perdition more for thine own vain Glory and hope of Promotion than for discharge of thy clogged Conscience and the King's Salvation This Elstow waxed hot and spake very earnestly so as they could not make him cease his Speech until the King himself bad him hold his peace And gave Order that He and Peto should be Convented before the Council which was done the next day And when the Lords had rebuked them then the Earl of Essex told them that they had deserved to be put into a Sack and cast into the Thames Whereunto Elstow smiling said Threaten these things to Rich and Dainty Persons who are clothed in Purple fare Deliciously and have their chiefest hope in this World For we esteem them not but are joyful that for the discharge of our Duty we are driven hence
And with thanks to God we know the way to Heaven to be as ready by Water as by Land and therefore we care not which way we go These Friars and all the rest of their Order were banish'd shortly after And after that none durst openly oppose themselves against the Kings affections Thus far Stow. Now more perfectly to Establish this Change It was Ordered That there should be Sermons Preached at Paul's-Cross against the Popes Supremacy Thus related by Howes upon Stow Pag. 571. Every Sunday at Paul's-Cross Preached a Bishop declaring the Pope not to be Supream Head of the Church Also in other Places of this Realm great Troubles were raised about Preaching namely at Bristow where Mr. Latimer preach'd and there preach'd against him one Mr. Hobberton and Dr. Powel So that there was great partakings on both sides insomuch that divers Priests and others set up Bills against the Mayor and against Mr. Latimer But the Mayor permitting Laymen to Preach caused divers Priests to be apprehended and put in Newgate with Bolts upon them and divers others ran away and lost their Livings rather than come into the Mayor's handling Thus Howes The King being thus Establish'd Head of the Church of England makes one Thomas Cromwel his Vicar General which is thus set down by Sir Rich. Baker Pag. 408. Thomas Cromwell Son to a Black smith in Putney being raised to High Dignities was lastly made Vicar General under the King in all Ecclefiastical Affairs who sate divers times in the Convocation-House amongst the Bishops as Head over them Thus Sir Richard Baker And thus far of the first beginning of this prodigious Change of Religion CHAP. II. Of the Dissolution of Abbeys being the first Effect of this Change of Religion Stow Pag. 572. THE King sent the said Cromwel and others to visit the Abbeys and Nunneries in England the said Cromwel being ordained Principal Visitor He put forth all Religious Persons that would go and all under the Age of Four and Twenty And after closed up the residue that would remain so that they should not come out of their places All Religious Men that departed the Abbot or Prior gave them for their Habit a Priests Gown and Forty Shillings in Money The Nuns had such Apparel given them as Secular Women wear and had liberty to go whither they would They took out of the Monasteries and Abbeys their Reliques and chiefest Jewels to the Kings use they said Thus Stow. Here follows a more particular Account of the Dissolution of these Abbeys The first Religious House that the King took into his hands was the Hospital of St. James near Charing-cross with all the Means to the same belonging compounding with the Sisters of the House who were to have Pensions during their lives And built in place of the said Hospital a Goodly Mansion retaining still the Name of St. James Stow p. 560. In a Parliament were granted to the King and his Heirs All Religious Houses in the Realm of England of the value of Two hundred pounds and under with all Lands and Goods to them belonging The Number of these Houses then suppressed were about Three Hundred Seventy Six and the value of their Lands then Thirty two thousand pounds and more by the Year The Moveable Goods as they were then sold at Robin-Hood's peny-worths amounted to more than Ten thousand pounds The Religious Persons that were in the said Houses were clearly put out whereof some went to other Greater Houses and some went abroad to the World It was saith my Author a pitiful thing to hear the lamentation that People in the Countrey made for them for there was great Hospitality kept amongst them and as it was thought more than Ten thousand Persons Masters and Servants lost their Living by the putting down of these Houses Thus Stoâ—…v Not long after by the means of the said Cromwel All the Orders of Friars and Nunns with their Cloysters and Houses were suppressed and put down First the Black-Friars in London the next day the White-Friars the Grey-Friars and the Monks of Charter-House and so all the others Thus Baker page 415. Here follows a particular Relation concerning the Shrine at Canterbury Thus deliver'd by Sir Rich Baker pag. 411. SAint Augustines Abbey at Canterbury was suppress'd and the Shrine and Goods taken to the Kings Treasury as also the Shrine of Thomas Becket in the Priory of Christs-Church was likewise taken to the Kings use This Shrine was built about a man's height all of Stone and then upwards of Timber plain within the which was a Chest of Iron containing the Bones of Thomas Becket Scull and all with the wound on his Head and the piece cut out of his Scull in the same wound These Bones by the Command of the Lord Cromwel were burnt The Timber-work of This Shrine on the out-side was covered with Plates of Gold Damasked with Gold-wyre which Ground of Gold was again cover'd with Jewels of Gold as Ten or Twelve Rings â—…ramped with Gold-wyre into the said Ground of Gold many of these Rings having Stones in them There were likewise Images of Angels Precious Stones and Great Pearls The Spoyl of which Shrine in Gold and Precious Stones fill'd two great Chests such as six or seven strong men could do no more than remove one of them at once out of the Church The Monks of that Church were commanded to change their Habits into the Apparel of Secular Priests Thus Baker The Knights of the Rhodes and Knights of St. John of Jerusalem in England and Ireland were utterly Dissolv'd and made void The King his Heirs and Successors to have and enjoy all the Mansion-House Church and all other Buildings and Gardens to the same belonging near to the City of London call'd the House of St. John of Jerusalem in England and also the Hospital-Church an House of Kilwarin in Ireland with all Castles Honours Mannors Measees Lands Tenements Rents Revenues Services Woods Downs Pastures Parks Warrens c. in England and Ireland with all the Goods Cattels c. Thus Stow pag. 579. Besides these Religious Houses there were likewise by Act of Parliament given the King All Colleges Chanteries Hospitals Free Chappels Fraternities Brother-hoods and Gilds The Number of Monasteries suppress'd were 645 besides 90 Colleges 110 Hospitals and of Chanteries and Free Chappels 2374. Thus Baker in the former page Now to give a more exact Account of the Grounds and Progress of the Dissolution of these Monasteries We will here insert a Discourse taken out of Mr. Dugdales Antiquities of Warwick-shire Pag. 801. where he treats of the Dissolution of a particular Monastery of Nunnes called Poles-worth and upon that occasion of the Dissolution of all other Monasteries in the Kingdom The Discourse is thus delivered I Find it left Recorded by the Commissioners that were imploy'd to take Surrender of the Monasteries in this Shire Anno 29. Hen. 8. viz. That after strict scrutiny not only by the fame of the Countrey but
Auricular Confession is expedient and necessary to be retained and continued used and frequented in the Church of God For the which most Godly study pain and travel of His Majesty and determination and resolution of the Premises His humble and obedient Subjects the Lords Spiritual and Temporal and the Commons in this present Parliament Assembled not only render and give unto His Highness their most high and hearty Thanks and think themselves most bound to Pray for the long continuance of his Graces most Royal Estate and Dignity And being also desirous that his most Godly enterprize may be well accomplished and brought to a full end and perfection and so Established that the same might be to the Honor of God and after to the common Quiet Unity and Concord to be had in the whole Body of this Realm for ever Do most humbly beseech His Royal Majesty that the Resolution and Determination above written of the said Articles may be established and perpetually perfected by the Authority of this present Parliament It is therefore Ordained and Enacted by the King our Sovereign Lord and by the Lords Spiritual and Temporal and by the Commons in this present Parliament Assembled and by the Authority of the same That if any Person or Persons within this Realm of England or in any other of the Kings Dominions do by Word Writing Printing Ciphering or any otherwise Publish Preach Teach Say Affirm Declare Dispute Argue or Hold any Opinion 1. That in the Blessed Sacrament of the Altar under the Form of Bread and Wine after the Consecration thereof there is not present really the natural Body and Blood of our Saviour Jesus Christ conceived of the Virgin Mary or that after the said Consecration there remains any Substance of Bread or Wine or any other Substance but the Substance of Christ God and Man or likewise to Publish Preach Teach Say Affirm Declare Dispute Argue or Hold Opinion that in the Flesh under the Form of Bread there is not the very Blood of Christ or that with the Blood under the Form of Wine there is not the very Flesh of Christ as well apart as though they were both together or by any the means abovesaid or otherwise do Preach Teach Declare or Affirm the said Sacrament to be of other Substance than is abovesaid or do by any means Contemn Deprave or Despise the said Blessed Sacrament that then such Person or Persons so offending shall be deemed and adjudged Hereticks and that every such offence shall be judged manifest Heresie and that every such Offender and Offenders shall therefore have and suffer Judgment Execution Pain and Pains of Death by way of Burning without any Abjuration Clergy or Sanctuary and their Estates to be Confiscated to the King as in Cases of High Treason 2. And moreover if any do obstinately Affirm Uphold Maintain or Defend that the Communion of the Blessed Sacrament in both kinds that is to say in Form of Bread and also of Wine is necessary for the health of Man's Soul or that it ought or should be Given and Administred to any Persons in both kinds or that it is necessary so to be taken or received by any Person other than Priests being at Mass and Consecrating the same 3. Or that any Man after having received the Order of Priesthood may marry 4. Or that any Man or Woman who hath advisedly vowed or professed Chastity or Widowhood may marry 5. Or that Private Masses be not lawful or not laudable or should not be celebrated had nor used in the Realm nor be not agreeable to the Laws of God 6. Or that Auricular Confession is not expedient and necessary to be retained and continued used and frequented in the Church of God Such Persons are to suffer pains of death as in cases of Felony without any benefit of Clergie or Priviledge of Church or Sanctuary and shall forfeit all their Lands and Goods as in cases of Felony Thus far out of the same Book CHAP. IV. Of another Effect of this Change which was a horrid Effusion of Blood QUeen Anne Boleign who had been the first occasion of this Change of Religion was beheaded Whereof there is this Relation Baker pag. 407. It was now the Twenty eighth year of King Henries Reign When there were solemn Justs at Greenwich from whence the King suddenly departed and came to Westminster Whose sudden departure struck amazement into many but to the Queen especially And not without cause For the next day the Lord Rochford her Brother and Henry Norris were brought to the Tower Prisoners Whither also the same day was brought Queen Anne her self Who at the Tower-gate fell on her knees beseeching God to help her as she was innocent of that whereof she was accused Soon after this she was arraigned in the Tower and found guilty and had Judgment pronounced Immediately the Lord Rochford her Brother was likewise Arraigned Who together with Henry Norris Mark Smeton William Brierton and Francis Weston all of the King's Privy-Chamber about matters touching the Queen were beheaded on Tower-hill Within Two days Queen Anne her self on a Scaffold upon the Green within the Tower was also beheaded At her death she spake these words God save my Master and Sovereign the King the most Goodliest Noblest and Gentlest Prince that is and grant him that he may long Reign over you which words she spake with a smiling countenance which done she kneeled down and the Hangman of Calais smote off her head at one stroke For her Religion she was an earnest Professor and one of the first Counternancers of the Gospel The Crimes for which she died were Adultery and Incest She had many Enemies as being a Protestant and perhaps in that respect the King himself not greatly her Friend For though he had excluded the Pope yet he continued a Papist still Her Death cast upon King Henry a dishonorable Imputation Insomuch that whereas the Protestant Princes of Germany had resolved to chuse him for Head of their League after they heard of this Queens Death they utterly refused him Thus far Sir Rich. Baker The next day after her Death the King Married the Lady Jane Seymour Stow Page 573. In the next place Thomas Cromwel who had been the grand Promoter of this business was likewise beheaded Whereof thus writes Howes upon Stow page 508. THomas Cromwel Earl of Essex being in the Council-Chamber was suddenly apprehended and committed to the Tower of London and soon after attainted of Heresie and High Treason When he was brought to the Scaffold on Tower-hill to be executed he spake these words I pray you that be here to bear me witness that I die in the Catholick Faith not doubting in any Article of my Faith or in any Sacrament of the Church Many have slandered me and reported that I have been an A better of such as have maintained evil Opinions which is untrue But I confess that like as God by his holy Spirit does instruct us
burnt The other three were drawn to a Gallows and there hanged headed and quartered The Three First as appears in their Attainders were executed for divers Heresies The last Three for Treason to wit for denying the King's Supremacy and affirming his Marriage with Queen Catherine to be good Stow page 581. Thomas Empson sometimes a Monk of Westminster who had been Prisoner in Newgate more than Three years was brought before the Justices in Newgate and for that he would not ask the King Pardon for denying his Supremacy nor be Sworn thereto his Monks-Cowl was plucked off his back and his Body reprieved till the King was informed of his Obstinacy Stow page 591. Three Men and one Woman were burned in Smithfield for the Sacrament Dr. Shaxton sometimes Bishop of Salisbury Preaching at the same fire and there recanting perswaded them to do the like But they would not Stow page 592. Some Anabaptists Three Men and one Woman all Dutch bore Faggots to Pauls Cross and a Man and a Woman Dutch Anabaptists were burnt in Smithfield Stow page 576. Dr. Forest a Friar Observant was apprehended for that in Secret he had declared to many that the King was not Supreme Head of the Church Whereupon he was condemned and afterwards upon a pair of new Gallows set up for that purpose in Smithfield he was hanged by the Middle and Arm-pits quick and under the Gallows was made a Fire wherewith he was burnt and consumed Stow page 577. Hugh Faringdon Abbot of Reading and Two Priests named Rugg and Owen were hang'd and quartered at Reading The same day was Richard Whiting Abbot of Glastenbury hang'd and quartered on Tore-Hill adjoyning to his Monastery John Thorn and Roger James Monks the one Treasurer the other under-Treasurer of Glastenbury-Church were at the same time executed Also shortly after John Beck Abbot of Colchester was executed at Colchester All for denying the King's Supremacy Stow pag. 577. Six Persons and one led between Two were drawn to Tyburn to wit Laurence Cook Prior of Doncaster William Horn a Lay-Brother of the Charter-House at London Giles Horn Gentleman Clement Philipp Gentleman of Calais Edmond Bolhelm Priest Darcy Jennings Robert Bird And all there hang'd and quartered as having been Attainted by Parliament for denying of the King's Supremacy Stow pag. 581. Sir David Jenison Knight of Rhodes was drawn through Southwark to St. Thomas of Watterings and there executed for the Supremacy Stow page 581. German Gardiner and Lark Parson of Chelsey were executed at Tyburn for denying the King's Supremacy As likewise one Ashby Stow page 585. Three Anabaptists were burnt in the High-way beyond Southwark towards Newington Stow page 579. Thus far of these Cruelties CHAP. V. Of a Third Effect of this Change to wit a General Confusion in Religion THese horred Cruelties made the state of Religion in England in a strange Confusion as appears by this Relation of Sir Rich. Baker page 408. And now was the state of Religion in England come to a strange pass because always in Passing and had no Consistence For at first the Authority of the Pope was excluded in some cases only a while after in all But yet his Doctrine was wholly receiv'd Afterwards his Doctrine came to be impugn'd but yet in some few points only a while after in many That the Fable of Proteus might be no longer a Fable when the Religion of England might be its true Moral The Confusion was so great in these times that in Parliament one called the other Heretick and Anabaptist and he again called him Papist and Hypocrite And this not only amongst the Temporality but even the Clergy-men themselves preach'd and enveigh'd one against another So that the Frame of Religion was extremely disjoynted the Clergie that should set it in Frame being out of frame themselves The Minds of the People extremely distracted and the Nobility that should cement them together scarce holding themselves together Thus Baker The Truth of this Relation appears more fully confirm'd from this Speech of King Henry made in Parliament Thus related by How 's upon Stow pag. 590. A part of King Henry the Eighth's Speech made in Parliament in the Thirty seventh Year of his Reign WHat Love or Charity is there amongst you when one calls another Heretick and Anabaptist and he calls him again Papist Hypocrite and Pharisee I must needs judge the fault and occasion of this Discord to be partly by negligence of you the Fathers and Preachers of the Spirituality For I hear daily that you of the Clergie Preach one against another Teach one contrary to another railing one against another Some are so stiff in their old Mumpsimus others are so busie and furious in their new Sumpsimus that all men almost be in Variety and Discord and few or none preach truly and sincerely the Word of God Now how can poor Souls live in concord when you Preachers sow amongst them in your Sermons Debate and Discord Of you they look for light and you lead them into darkness Now although I say that Spiritual-men be in some fault that Charity is not kept amongst you yet you of the Temporality be not clear and unspotted from malice and envy For you rail at Bishops speak slanderously of Priests and rebuke and taunt Preachers You must understand that although you be permitted to read Holy Scriptures and to have the Word of God in your Mother-tongue yet this Licence is given you only to inform your Conscience and to instruct your Children and not to dispute and make Scripture a railing and a taunting-stock against Priests and Preachers as many light persons do I am very sorry to hear how irreverently that most precious Jewel the Word of God is Disputed Rimed Sung and Jangled in every Ale-house and Tavern contrary to the true meaning and Doctrine of the same And I am as much sorry that the Readers of it follow it in doing so faintly and coldly For of this I am sure that Charity and Virtue was never less exercised nor God amongst Christians was never less reverenc'd honor'd or serv'd Thus Stow. These Confusions and others are thus related by Dr. Heylyn in his History of Reformation Page 17. THE People were generally divided into Factions and Schisms The Treasures of the Crown were exhausted by prodigal Gifts and the Money of the Realm so mix'd that it could not pass for currant amongst Forein Nations to the great dishonor of the Kingdom and loss of the Merchant For although an infinite Mass of Jewels Treasure of Plate and ready Money and an incredible improvement of Revenue had accrued to him by such an universal Spoil and Dissolution of Religious Houses yet was he little or nothing the richer for it insomuch that in the year 1543. being within less than Seven years after the general Suppression of Religious Houses he was forc'd to have recourse for Moneys to his Houses of Parliament by which he was supply'd after an extraordinary manner the Clergy at
the same time giving him a Subsidy of six shillings in the Pound to be paid out of their Spiritual Promotions poor Stipendiary Priests paying each of them six shillings eight pence to encrease the Sum which also was so soon consumed that the next year he press'd his Subjects to a Benevolence and in the following year he obtain'd the Grant of all Chantries Hospitals Colleges and Free-Chappels within the Realm though he lived not to enjoy the benefit of it Most true it is that it was somewhat of the latest before he cast his Eye on the Lands of Bishopricks though there were some that thought the time long till they fell upon them Concerning which there goes a story That after the Court-Harpies had devoured the greatest part of the Spoyl which came by the Suppression of Abbeys they began to seek some other way to satiate that greedy Appetite which the division of the former Booty had left unsatisfied And for the satisfying whereof they found not any thing so necessary as the Bishops Lands This to Effect Sir Thomas Seymour is employed as the fittest man being in Favor with the King and Brother to Queen Jane his most beloved and best Wife and having opportunity of access unto him as being one of his Privy Chamber And he not having any good affection to Archbishop Cranmer desired that the experiment should be try'd on him And therefore took his time to inform the King that my Lord of Canterbury did nothing but fell his Woods letting long Leases for great Fines and making havock of the Royalties of his Arch Bishoprick to raise thereby a Fortune to his Wife and Children Withal he acquainted the King That the Archbishop kept no Hospitality in respect of such a large Revenue and that in the Opinion of many wise men it was more convenient for the Bishops to have a sufficient yearly stipend out of the Exchequer than to be so encumbred with Temporal Royalties being so great a hinderance to their Studies and Pastoral Charge and that the Lands and Royalties being taken to his Majesties use would afford him besides the said Annual Stipends a great yearly Revenue The King considering of it could not think fit that such a plausible Proposition as taking to himself the Lands of Bishops should be made in vain only he was resolv'd to prey further off and not to fall upon the spoyl too near the Court for fear of having more partakers in the Booty than might stand with his profit And to this end he deals with Holgate preferred not long before from Landaff to the See of York from whom he takes at one time no fewer than Seventy Mannors and Townships of good old Rents giving him in exchange to the like yearly value certain Impropriations Pensions Tythes and Portions of Tythes but all of an extended Rent which had accrued to the Crown by the Fall of Abbeys Which Lands he laid by Act of Parliament to the Dutchy of Lancaster For which see 37 Hen. 8. Chap. 16. He dismembred also by these Acts certain Mannors from the See of London and others in like manner from the See of Canterbury but not without some reasonable Compensation for them And although by reason of his death which followed within a short time after there was no further Alienation made in his time of the Churches Patrimony yet having open'd such a gap and discovered this Secret that the Sacred Patrimony might be Alienated with so little trouble the Courtiers of King Edward's time would not be kept from breaking violently into it and making up their own Fortune in the spoyl of Bishopricks So impossible a thing it is for the ill Examples of Great Princes not to find followers in all Ages especially where Profit or Preferment may be furthered by it Thus Heylyn CHAP. VI. Of some other Passages concerning this King and likewise of his death HAving now prosecuted this Relation thus far and drawing to an end of it we will here insert a Passage out of Dr. Heylyn's History of Reformation Pag. 6. concerning King Henry the Eighth's Absolute Power of disposing of the Crown The words are these Anno Regni 28. In the Act of Succession which past in the Parliament of this year there is this Clause to wit That for lack of Lawful Heirs of the Kings Body it should and might be lawful for Him to confer the Crown on any such Person or Persons as should please his Highness and according to such Estate and after such Manner Form Fashion Order and Condition as should be Expressed Named Declared and Limited in his Letters Patents or by his Last Will The Crown to be enjoyed by such Person or Persons so to be nominated and appointed in as large and ample manner as if such Person or Persons had been his Highness's Lawful Heirs to the Imperial Crown of this Realm Thus Dr. Heylyn By this and what hath been said in these Collections it evidently appears that all Inheritances both Civil and Ecclesiastical as likewise the Lives of all men in the Reign of this King depended upon the Arbitrary Government of those times Now we must end this story concerning matters of Religion in this Kings Reign with a brief Relation of his Death with a Summary Account of his Wives and the years of his Reign The Relation of his Death is thus deliver'd by Dr. Heylyn in his History of Reformation Page 14. THe King having lived a voluptuous Life and too much indulged to his Palate was grown so corpulent or rather so over-grown with an unweildy burthen of Flesh that he was not able to go up Stairs from one Room to another but as he was hoised up by an Engine which filling his Body with foul and foggy Humors did both wast his Spirits and encrease his Passions In the midst of which Distempers it was not his least care to provide for the Succession of the Crown to his own Posterity At such time as he married Anne Bulleign He procur'd his Daughter Mary to be declar'd Illegitimate by Act of Parliament The like he also did by his Daughter Elizabeth when he had married Jane Seymour settling the Crown upon his Issue by the said Queen Jane But having no other Issue by her but Prince Edward and none at all by his following Wives he thought it a point of prudence to establish the Succession by more Stayes than one For which cause he procured an Act of Parliament in the 35 year of his Reign in which it is declared That in default of Issue of the said Prince Edward the Crown should be entail'd to the Kings Daughter the Lady Mary and the Heirs of her Body And so likewise to the Lady Elizabeth and the Heirs of her Body And for lack of such Issue to such as the King by his Letters Patents or his last Will in Writing should limit Of which Act of Parliament he being now sick and fearing his approaching end made such use in laying down the state of the
Succession to the Crown in this Last Will that contrary to all Justice he totally Excluded the whole Scottish-Line Descended from the Lady Margaret his eldest Sister from all hopes of having their turns in it His Infirmity and the weakness it brought upon him confining him to his Bed he had a great desire to receive the Sacrament and being perswaded to receive it in the easiest posture sitting or raised up in his Bed he would by no means yield unto it but caus'd himself to be taken up and plac'd in his Chair in which he heard the greatest part of the Mass till the Consecration and then receiv'd the Blessed Sacrament on his Knees as at other times saying withal as Saunders relates the Story That if he did not only cast himself upon the Ground but even under it also he could not give unto the Sacrament the Honor that was due unto it The instant of his Death approaching none of his Servants though thereunto desir'd by his Physicians durst acquaint him with it till at last Sir Anthony Denny undertook that ungrateful Office which the King entertaining with less impatience than was looked for from him gave order that Archbishop Cranmer should be presently sent for But he being then at Croyden it was so long before he came that he found him speechless However applying himself to the Kings present condition and discoursing to Him on this Point That Salvation was to be obtain'd only by Faith in Christ He desired the King if he understood the effect of his words and believ'd the same that he would signifie so much by some Sign or other which the King did by wringing him gently by the Hand and shortly after died There is a sharp but shrewd Character of this King to wit That he never sparea Woman in his Lust nor Man in his Anger Sir Walter Rawleigh says of him That if all the Patterns of a Merciless Prince had been lost in the World they might have been found in this King Thus Dr. Heylyn I will here set down some Passages out of his last Will related by Dr. Heylyn pag. 23. By which it will appear how constant he was till his death in professing and maintaining these following Points of Catholick Doctrine to wit The Real Presence in the Sacrament Invocation of Saints and Prayer for the Dead The words of the Will are these WE most humbly and heartily recommend our Soul to God who in the Person of his Son redeemed us with his most precious Body and Blood And for our better remembrance thereof hath left here with us in his Church Militant the Consecration and Administration of his most precious Body and Blood We also instantly desire that the Blessed Virgin Mary with all the Holy Company of Heaven may continually pray for us whilst we live in this World and at our passing out of it that we may the sooner attain everlasting life We likewise further Ordain That there be a convenient Altar at Windsor honorably prepared with all things requisite and necessary for a daily Mass there to be said perpetually while the World should endure Moreover He gave Order That all Divine Offices accustomed for the Dead should be daily Celebrated for him And that at the removal of his Body to Windsor a Thousand Marks should be distributed amongst the Poor to pray for the Remission of his Sins and the good of his Soul Thus Dr. Heylyn An Account of his Wives Of Six Wives this King had Anne Boleign his Second Wife was beheaded for Incest with her own Brother The Third Jane Seymour being in Child-birth and in danger of death had her Belly ripp'd up to preserve the Child The Fourth Anne of Cleve was cast off within two or three Months The Fifth Catherine Howard was beheaded for Adultery Concerning his Sixth Wife thus writes Sir Rich. Baker Page 418. The Sixth Catherine Parre being an earnest Protestant was accused to the King to have Heretical Books in her Closet and this was so aggravated against her that they prevail'd with the King to Sign a Warrant to Commit her to the Tower with a purpose to have burnt her for Heresie This Warrant was committed to Wriothsley Lord Chancellor and he by chance letting it fall from him it was taken up and carried to the Queen who having read it went soon after to visit the King Being come to the King he presently fell into Talk with her about some Points of Religion demanding her Resolution therein But she knowing that his nature was not to be cross'd specially considering the case she was in made him answer That She was a Woman accompanied with many Imperfections but his Majesty was Wise and Judicious of whom she must learn as of her Lord and Head Not so by St. Mary said the King for you are a Doctor Kate to instruct us and not to be instructed by us as often we have seen heretofore Indeed Sir said She if your Majesty have so conceiv'd I have been mistaken For if heretofore I have held talk with your Majesty it hath been to learn some Point of your Majesty whereof I stood in doubt and sometimes that with my Talk I might make you forget your present infirmity And is it so says King Then we are Friends But nevertheless soon after upon a day appointed by the Kings Warrant for apprehending her the King being dispos'd to walk into the Garden took the Queen with him when all on the sudden the Lord Chancellor with Forty of the Guard came into the Garden with a purpose to apprehend her whom as soon as the King saw he stept to the Chancellor and calling him Knave and Fool bid him get him out of his Presence The Queen seeing the King so angry with him began to intreat him to whom the King said You little know what it is he came about Of my Word Sweet-heart he hath been a very Knave to Thee Thus the Queen was preserv'd who else had tasted of as bitter a cup as any of his former Wives had done Thus Sir Rich. Baker Now we will give an Account of the Years when these changes were made Sir Rich. Baker Page 425. IN the Eighth year of this King's Reign Luther began to Preach against the Authority of the Pope and to bring in a Reformation of Religion for repressing of whom the Council of Trent was called by Pope Paul the Third At the same time with Luther there arose also in the same Country other Reformers of Religion as Zuinglius Oecolampadius Melancthon c. whâ—… differing from Luther in some Points made the difference which is at this day of Lutherans and Protestants so call'd at first at Ausburgh for making a Protestation in defence of their Doctrine In his Two and twentieth year a Proclamation was set forth That no Person should purchase any thing from the Court of Rome and this was the first beginning of his Deserting the Church of Rome In his Three and twentieth year the Clergy
submitting themselves to the King for being found guilty of a Premunire were the first that called him Supreme Head of the Church yet with this restriction So far as it was according unto Gods Word and not otherwise In his Four and twentieth year an Act of Parliament was made That no Person should Appeal for any Cause out of this Realm to the Court of Rome In his Twenty sixth year an Act was made which Authoriz'd the King to be Supreme Head of the Church of England and the Authority of the Pope to be abolish'd and then also was given to the King the First Fruits and Tenths of all Spiritual Livings and this Year were many put to death Papists for denying the Kings Supremacy Protestants for denying the Real Presence in the Sacrament nor is it credible what numbers suffered death for these two Causes in the last Ten Years of the Kings Reign of whom if we should make particular mention it would reach a great way in the Book of Martyrs In his Eight and twentieth Year the Lord Cromwel was made Vicar General under the King over the Spirituality and at least Four Hundred Monasteries were suppress'd and all their Lands and Goods conferred upon the King by an Act of Parliament In his One and thirtieth Year was set forth by the Bishops the Book of the Six Articles and all the rest of the Monasteries were conferred upon him Lastly In his Thirty fifth Year all Colleges Chantries and Hospitals were given to him Thus Sir Rich. Baker Here you have had a short view of the Beginning and sad Effects of this Prodigious Change of Religion begun by King Henry the Eighth A Further PROSECUTION Of these HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS Concerning a Second Change of Religion Made for POLITICK ENDS And of the Occurrences concerning it In the Reign of King EDWARD the Sixth A Preamble THIS is a Summary Account of this King's Reign as to these matters of Religion taken out of the Preface of Dr. Heylyn's History of Reformation Where after a brief Narration of King Henry the Eighth's Deserting the Pope he gives this following Account of his Son King Edward the Sixth The Relation whereof begins thus Next comes his Son Edward the Sixth upon the Stage whose Name was made use of to serve Turns withal and his Authority abused to his own undoing In his First year the Reformation was resolved on but on different ends endeavoured by some Bishops and others of the Lower Clergy and promoted with the like Zeal and Industry but not with like Integrity by some great Men about the â—…rt Who under Colour of removing corruptions out of the Church had cast their eyes upon the Spoil of Shrines and Images though still preserved in the greatest part of the Lutheran Churches and the improving their own Fortunes by the Chantry Lands All which they most Sacrilegiously divided amongst themselves without admitting the poor King to share with them though nothing but the filling his Coffers by the Spoil of the one and the Encrease of his Revenue by the fall of the other was openly pretended in the Conduct of it But to speak no more of this the work chiefly intended was vigorously carried on by the King and his Counsellors as appears by the Doctrinals in the Book of Homilies and by the Practical part of Christian Piety And here the business might have rested if Calvin's Pragmatical Spirit had not interposed He first began to quarrel at some passages in the Liturgy and afterwards never left Soliciting the Lord Protector and practising by his Agents on the Court the Country and the Universities till he had laid the first Foundation of the Zuinglian Faction who laboured nothing more than Innovation both in Doctrine and Discipline to which they were encouraged by nothing more than some improvident Indulgence granted unto John Alasco who bringing with him a mixed multitude of Poles and Germans obtained the Priviledge of a Church for himself and his distinct in Government and Form of Worship from the Church of England This much animated the Zuinglian Gospellers to practice first upon the Church who being Countenanced if not Headed by the Earl of Warwick who then began to undermine the Lord Protector first quarrelled the Episcopal Habit and afterwards enveighed against Caps and Surplices against Gowns and Tippets But fell at last upon the Altars which were left standing by the Rules of the Liturgy The touching upon this string made excellent Musick to most of the Grandees of the Court who had before cast many an envious eye on those costly Hangings that massy Plate and other Rich and Precious things which adorned those Altars And what need all this wast said Judas when one poor Chalice only and perhaps not that might have served the turn Beside there was no small spoil to be made of Copes in which the Priest Officiated at the Holy Sacrament Some of them being made of Cloth of Tissue Cloth of Gold and Silver or Embroydred Velvet the meanest being made of Silk or Sattin with some decent Trimming And might not these be handsomely converted unto private uses to serve as Carpets to their Tables Coverlets to their Beds or Cushions for their Chairs and Windows Hereupon some rude People are encouraged under-hand to beat down some Altars which makes way for an Order of the Council-Table to take down the rest and set up Tables in their places followed by a Commission to be executed in all parts of the Kingdom for seizing on the Premises for the King's use But as the Grandees of the Court intended to defraud the King of so great a booty and the Commissioners to put a cheat upon the Court-Lords who employed them in it So they were both prevented in some places by the Lords and Gentry of the Country who thought the Altar-cloths together with the Copes and Plate of their several Churches to be as necessary for themselves as for any others This Change drew on the Alteration of the former Liturgy but almost as unpleasing to the Zuinglian Faction as the former was In which conjuncture of Affairs King Edward the Sixth died From the begining of whose Reign the Reformation began All that was done in order to it under King Henry the Eighth seemed but accidental only and by the by rather designed on Private Ends than out of any settled purpose of a Reformation and therefore intermitted and resumed again as those Ends had variance But now the great Work was carried on with a constant hand the Clergy cooperating with the King and the Council for the effecting of it But scarce had they brought it to this pass when King Edward died whose Death I cannot reckon for an infelicity to the Church of England For being ill principled in himsels and easily enclined to embrace such Counsels as were offered to him it is not to be thought but that the rest of the Bishopricks before sufficiently impoverished must have followed Durham and the poor Church be left as destitute
of Lands and Ornaments as when she came into the World in her Natural Nakedness Nor was it like to happen otherwise in the following Reign of Queen Jane if it had lasted longer than a Nine-days wonder For Dudley of Northumberland who then ruled the rost and had before dissolved and in hope devoured the wealthy Bishoprick of Durham might easily have possessed himself of the greatest part of the Revenues of York and Carlisle By means whereof he would have made himself more absolute on the North-side of Trent than the poor Titular Queen had been on the South-side of it To carry on whose Interest and maintain her Title the poor remainder of the Churches Patrimony was in all probability to have been shared amongst those of the Party to make them sure unto that side Thus far out of Dr. Heylyn ' s Preface Summarily concerning this Rapine and Sacriliege which followed this Second Change of Religion Now in the History it self Page 33. Dr. Heylyn begins orderly to treat of the Reign of this King as to matters of Religion as will appear by what shall be here said CHAP. I. Of the many Policies used in the Introducing this Second Change of Religion Anno Regni Edwardi Sexti 1. THE Solemnities of the Coronation being passed the Grandees of the Court began to entertain some thoughts of a Reformation In which they found Archbishop Cranmer and some other Bishops to be as forward as themselves but on different ends endeavoured by the Bishops out of Zeal but by the Courtiers upon a hope of enriching themselves by the spoil of Bishopricks To the Advancement of which Work the Conjuncture seemed to be as proper as they could desire Fot first the King being of such tender Age and wholly governed by the Wâ—…ll of the Lord Protector who had declared himself a Friend to the Lutheran party in the time of King Henry was easie to be moulded into any form And as the Champions of the Papacy were removed out of all Office so it was thought expedient for the better carrying on of the Design not only to release all such as had been committed unto Prison but also to recal all such as had been forced to abandon the Kingdom for not submitting to King Henries Six Articles But the business was of greater moment than to expect the coming back of these Men. Wherefore neither to lose time nor to press too much at once upon the People it was thought fit to smooth the way to the intended Reformation by setting out some Preparatory Injunctions and this to be done by sending out Commissioners into all parts of the Kingdom armed with Instructions to enquire into all Ecclesiastical Concernments Which Commissioners were accompanied with Preachers appointed to instruct the People And that they might not cool or fall off again from what they had been taught they were to leave some Homilies with the Parish-Priest which the Archbishop had composed Now besides the Points contained in the said Injunctions the Preachers were to perswade them from Invocation of Saints Praying for the Dead Images Use of Beads Ashes Processions Mass Dirges c. All which was done to this intent That the People being prepared by little and little might with more ease and less opposition admit the total Alteration in the face of the Church which was intended in due time to be introduced Thus Dr. Heylyn concerning this Policy Another Policy But there was something more than the Authority of a Minor King which drew on such a general Conformity to these Injunctions and thereby smoothed the way to those Alterations both in Doctrine and Worship which the Grandees of the Court and Church had began to fashion The Lord Protector and his Party were more experienced in Affairs of State than to be told That all great Counsels tending to Innovation in the Publick Government especially where Religion is concerned are either to be back'd by Arms or otherwise prove destructive to the undertakers For this cause he resolves to put himself at the Head of an Army as well for the security of his Person and the preservation of his Party as for the carrying on of the Design against all Opponents And for the raising of an Army there could not be found a fairer colour nor a more popular pretence than a Wat with Scotland not to be made on any new Emergent Quarrel which might be apt to bread suspition in the heads of the People but in pursuit of the great Project of the King Deceased for uniting that Realm by a Marriage to the Crown of England On this Pretence Levies are made in all parts of the Kingdom He entertained also certain Regiments of Walloons and Germans because they were conceived more likely to enforce Obedience if his Design should meet with any opposition than the natural English Thus Dr. Heylyn concerning this War with Scotland A Third Policy But in the first place care was taken that none of the Neighboring Princes should either hinder his Proceedings or assist the Enemy That which seemed to give most satisfaction to the Court of France was the performance of a Solemn Obsequy for King Francis the First Whose Funerals were no sooner Solemnized in France but Order was given for a Dirge to be sung in all the Churches of London as also in the Cathedral Church of St. Paul in the Quire whereof hung with Black a sumptuous Hearse was set up for the present Ceremony And the next day Archbishop Cranmer assisted with Eight other of the Bishops all in their rich Miters and other their Pontificals did sing a Mass of Requiem the Funeral Sermon being Preached by Dr. Ridley This great Solemnity being thus honorably performed the Commissioners for the Visitation were dispatched to their several Circuits and the Army drawn to their Rendezvous Thus Dr. Heylyn concerning what was done before the calling of a Parliament CHAP. II. Of what was done in Parliament in order to the Establishing this Change of Religion Dr. Heylyn Page 47. A Parliament began upon the Fourth of November in which the Cards were so well pack'd by Sir Ralph Sadler that there was no need of any further Shuffling till the end of the Game This very Parliament without any sensible Alteration of the Members of it being continued until the Death of the King And though this Parliament consisted of such Members as disagreed amongst themselves in respect of Religion yet they agreed well enough together in one common Principle which was to serve the present time and preserve themselves which appears plainly by the strange mixture of the Acts and Results thereof some tending to the present Benefit and Enriching of particular Persons And some again being devised on purpose to prepare a way for exposing the Revenues of the Church unto spoil and rapine There was an Act made in King Henry the Eighths time Inhibiting the reading of the Old and New Testament in the English Tongue But this was here abrogated together with all
or Persons of what Estate Degree or Condition soever he or they be shall at any time after the First day of May willingly and wittingly eat any manner of Flesh after what manner or kind or sort it shall be ordered dressed or used upon any Friday or Saturday or upon any of the Ember-days or upon any day in the time commonly called Lent nor upon any such other day as is or shall be at any other time hereafter commonly excepted and reputed as a Fish-day within this Realm of England wherein it hath been commonly used to eat Fish and not Flesh Upon pain that every Person eating any manner of Flesh upon any of the said Days or Times prohibited by this Act shall forfeit for the said first offence Ten shillings and also suffer Imprisonment for the space of Ten days And during the time of his or her said Imprisonment shall abstain from eating of any manner of Flesh. Thus far the Act. Little or Nothing hath been hitherto done in this King's Reign as to Religion but pulling down and destroying Wherefore it is now time to Establish something Which is here done by that which immediately follows CHAP. IV. Of the Administring the Communion and of the Composing a Book of Common-Prayer Of which thus writes Dr. Heylyn page 57. SOme Bishops and others were Appointed by the King's Command to Consult together about one Uniform Order of Administring the Holy Communion in the English Tongue Who so ordered it That the whole Mass should proceed as formerly in the Latin Tongue even to the very end of the Canon and the receiving of the Sacrament by the Priest himself Which being ended they were to begin with an Exhortation in the English Tongue directed to all those that did intend to receive the Communion Which Exhortation began with these words Dearly Beloved in the Lord ye coming to this Holy Communion c. Thus Dr. Heylyn concerning this strange medly in the Divine Service But notwithstanding the setting forth of this Uniform Order of Administring the Holy Communion yer there did arise a marvellous Schism and variety of Factions in Celebrating the Communion Service and Administring of the Sacrament and other Rites and Ceremonies of the Church For some allowed of the King's proceedings others dissemblingly and patchingly used some part of them Many contemned them all Moreover it is observed in the Register-Book of the Parish of Petworth that many at this time affirmed that the most Blessed Sacrament of the Altar was of little worth So that in many places it was irreverently used and cast out of the Church and many other great Enormities committed Which they seconded by oppugning the Established Ceremonies as Holy-Water Holy-Bread and divers other Rites of the Seven Sacraments And yet these were not all the mischiefs which the time produced For in pursuance of this Schism many of those that had been licensed to Preach appeared as active in Preaching against the King's proceedings as many of the unlicensed Preachers had been found to be Thus Dr. Heylyn concerning these Confusions Upon this it was advised that a Publick Liturgy should be drawn and confirmed by Parliament which was accordingly done Now here it is to be observed that those who had the directing of this Business were before hand resolved that none but English Heads and Hands should be used therein lest otherwise it might be thought and perhaps objected That they rather followed the Example of some other Churches or were swayed by the Authority of those Forein Assistants than by the Word of God Certain it is that upon the very first reports of a Reformation here intended Calvin had offered his Assistance to Archbishop Cranmer as himself confessed But the Archbishop knew the man and refused the offer And it appears in one of Bishop Latimer's Sermons that there was a report about this time of Melancthon's coming But it proved only a report And though it was thought necessary for the better seasoning of the Universities in the Protestant Reformed Religion that Bucer and Peter Martyr should be invited to come over yet the Archbishop's Letter of Invitation sent to Bucer was not written till the 12th of October at which time the Liturgy then in hand being the chief Key of the Work of Reformation was in a very good forwardness and must be compleatly finished before he could so settle and dispose his affairs in Germany as to come for England And though Peter Martyr being either more at leisure or more willing to accept of the Invitation came many months before the other yet neither do we find him here till the end of November when the Liturgy had been approved of Nor was it likely that they would make use of such a man in Composing a Liturgy wherein they were resolved to retain a great part of the ancient Ceremonies who being made Canon of Christ's Church in Oxford and frequently present at Divine Service in that Church could never be prevailed with to put on the Surplice Thus Dr. Heylyn concerning the ground of setting out a Book of Common-Prayer CHAP. V. Of the Suppression of Chantries and other Foundations Whereof Dr. Heylyn gives this following Account page 60. WE must now attend the King's Commissioners dispatched into every Shire to take a Survey of all Colleges Free Chappels Chantries and Brotherhoods according to the return of Commissions it would be no difficult matter to put a just Estimate and Value on so great a Gift Or to know how to parcel out proportion and divide the Spoyl betwixt all such as had before in hope devoured it In the first place as lying nearest came in the Free Chappel of St. Stephen originally Founded in the Palace at Westminster reckoned for the Chappel-Royal of the Court of England The whole Foundation consisted of no fewer than Thirty eight Persons to wit One Dean Twelve Canons Thirteen Vicars Four Clerks Six Choristers besides a Verger and one that had charge of the Chappel There was likewise a certain number appointed for the officiating of the daily Service Gentlemen of the Chappel they were commonly called As for the Chappel it self together with a Cloyster of curious Workmanship built by John Chambers one of the Kings Physicians and the last Master of the same they are still standing as they were the Chappel having been since fitted and employ'd for a House of Commons in all times of Parliament Thus Dr. Heylyn concerning this Chappel At the same time also fell the College of St. Martins scituated in the City of London not far from Aldersgate first founded for a Dean and Secular Canons in the time of the Conqueror This College was surrendred into the Hands of King Edward the Sixth who after gave the same to the Church of Westminster and they to make the best of the Kings Donation ordered That the Body of the Church with the Quire and Isles should be Leased out for Fifty years excepting out of the said Grant the Bells Lead Stone Timber Glass
new Palace called Sommerset-House Thus Dr. Heylyn concerning this Example given of pulling down of Churches According to this beginning all the year proceeds in which there was nothing to be found but Troubles Commotions and Disquiets both in Church and State For about this time there started up a Sect of Men that were nam'd Gospellers who asserted the Blasphemous Doctrine of Calvin of Gods being the Author of Sin And at the same time the Anabaptists who had kept themselves unto themselves in the late King's time began to look abroad and disperse their Dotages For the prevention of which mischief before it grew to a Head some of the chief of them were Convented in the Church of St. Paul before Archbishop Cranmer who in Examining them took up his Seat upon an Altar of our Lady These Men being convicted of their Errors some of them were dismissed only with an Admonition others condemn'd to bear their Faggots at St. Pauls-Cross Thus Dr. Heylyn concerning these Sects Now the time draws on for the putting forth the new Liturgy which differed little in the main no not so much as in the Canon of the Mass from the Latin Service But notwithstanding the Publishing and Commanding the use of this Book yet many did Celebrate their Private Masses in such secret places that it was not easie to discover them More confidently carried in the Church of St. Paul in many Chappels whereof by the Bishops Sufferance the former Masses were kept up that is to say Our Ladies Mass the Apostles Mass c. performed in Latin but disguis'd with English names of the Apostles Communion and our Ladies Communion But these were afterwards suppressed Thus Dr. Heylyn concerning the new Liturgy An Opposition against the new Form of Religion Page 75. UPon the Imposition of this Book and a new Form of Religion obtruded many Counties took up Arms to oppose it But yet so that they were presently ready to lay down if the King would grant them some few Demands whereof one was this to wit That for as much as we constantly believe that after the Priest hath spoken the words of Consecration being at Mass there is very really the Body and Blood of our Saviour Jesus Christ God and Man And that no Substance of Bread and Wine remains after but the very self same Body that was born of the Virgin Mary and was given upon the Cross for our Redemption therefore we desire to have Mass celebrated as it was in times past Because we find that many presume unworthily to receive the same putting no difference between our Lords Body and other kind of Meat Some saying That it is Bread both before and after Consecration And some again say that it is profitable to no man unless he receives it with many other abused terms Secondly we desire that Curates may Administer Baptism at all times of necessity as well upon Week-days as Holy-days Thirdly That Children may be Confirm'd by the Bishop Fourthly That there may be Holy-Bread and Holy-Water in remembrance of Christ's precious Body and Blood Fifthly That our Lord's Body be reserv'd in Churches Sixthly That Priests may live unmarried Seventhly That the Six Articles set forth by King Henry the Eighth may be continued at least till the King comes to full Age. They further made this Remonstrance viz. That the Free-born Commonalty was oppress'd by a small number of Gentry who glutted themselves with Pleasures whilst poor Commons wasted with daily Labor did like Pack-horses live in extreme slavery Secondly That Holy Rites establish'd by Antiquity were abolished and new ones Authoriz'd with a new Form of Religion obtruded to the subjecting of their Souls to those horrid pains which no death could terminate And therefore Thirdly they declar'd That they thought it necessary and convenient to have new Counsellors plac'd about the King during his Minority with the removing of those who Ruling as they list confounded things Sacred and Profane regarding nothing but the enriching themselves with the Publick Treasure that they might riot it amongst those Publick Calamities Thus Dr. Heylyn concerning this Commotion But these Men were soon suppressed and the Changes went on As appears by this following Relation of Dr Heylyn pag. 79. But then there started up another Faction as dangerous to the Church as opposite to the Publick Liturgy and as destructive of the Rules of Reformation then by Law establish'd as were those of Rome The Archbishop and the rest of the Prelates having so far proceeded in abolishing the Religion and Doctrine of the Church of Rome resolv'd in the next place to go forwards with a further Reformation in a particular point of Doctrine concerning the Sacrament In order whereunto Melancthon's coming was expected in the year before But he came not then and therefore Letters were directed by the Archbishop to Martin Bucer and Peter Martyr who were more addicted to the Zuinglian than the Lutheran Doctrines in the Point of the Sacrament Martyr coming over was made the King's Professor of Divinity at Oxford and about two years after made Canon of Christ's-Church In his first Lectures he is said by Saunders if he may be credited to have declared himself so much a Zuinglian in the Point as to give great offence to Cranmer and the rest of the Bishops But afterwards upon notice of it to have been more moderate and to conform his judgment to the sense of the Prelates But however it were it is certain that his Readings were so much disliked by some of the University that a publick Disputation was shortly had betwixt him and some of those who disliked his doings in which he publickly maintained these Two Propositions 1. That the Substance of the Bread and Wine was not changed 2. That the Body and Blood of Christ was not carnally and bodily in the Bread and Wine but united unto them Sacramentally When the Disputation was ended it was declared in the open Schools That Martyr had the upper hand and had sufficiently answered all Arguments But Chadsey the chief of the Opponents and the rest of those that Disputed with him acknowledged no such Satisfaction to be given unto them their Party noising it abroad that they had the Victory But Bucer not coming over at the same time was earnestly invited by the Archbishop's Secretary upon which he came and presently writ to Peter Martyr Being now settled here he receives Letters from Calvin by which he was advised to take heed of his old fault and to run a moderate course in his Reformations The first thing that he did at his coming hither was to make himself acquainted with the English Liturgy Of this he gives account to Calvin and desires some Letters from him to the Lord Protector with whom Calvin had already began to tamper that he migh find the greater Favor from him He was sent to take a Chair at Cambridge where his first Readings gave no such distast as to put him to the necessity of Challenging
by Persons not responsible in which case the King as well as the Commissioners was to lose his Right But more was concealed by Persons not to be discovered who had so cunningly carried on the stealth that there was no tracing of their Foot-steps And some there were who being known to have such Goods in their Possession conceived themselves to be too great to be called in question and were connived at willingly by those that were but their equals and either were or meant to be Offenders in the same kind So that although some profit was hereby raised to the King's Exchequer yet the far greatest part of the Prey came to other hands Insomuch that many private Mens Parlors were hung with Altar-cloths their Tables and Beds covered with Copes instead of Carpets and Coverlets and many made Carowsing Cups of the Sacred Chalice as once Belshazzar Celebrated his drunken Feasts in the Sanctified Vessels of the Temple It was a sorry House not worth the naming which had not something of this Furniture in it though it were only a fair large Cushion made of a Cope or Altar-cloth to adorn their Windows or to make their Chairs appear to have somewhat in them of a Chair of State Yet how contemptible were these Trappings in comparrison of those vast Sums of Money which were made of Jewels Plate and Cloth of Tissue either conveighed beyond the Seas or sold at home and good Lands purchased with the Money nothing the more blessed to the Posterity of them that bought them for being purchased with the Consecrated Treasures of so many Churches Thus Dr. Heylyn CHAP. XII Of his last designed Sacriliege to wit The Suppression of Bishopricks and Collegiate Churches and particularly of his Suppressing the Bishoprick of Durham Dr. Heylyn pag. 132. BUt as the King was plunged in Debt without being put to any extraordinary Charges so was he decayed in his Revenue without selling any part of his Crown Lands toward the payment of it By the Suppressing of some and the Surrendring of other Religious Houses the Royal Intrado was so much encreased in the late King's time that for the better managing of it the King Erected first the Court of Augmentation and afterwards the Court of Surveyors But in short time by his own profuseness and the avariciousness of this King's Ministers it was so retrenched that it was scarce able to find work enough for the Court of Exchequer Whereupon followed the Dissolving of the said Two Courts in the last Parliament of this King Which as it made a loud noise in the ears of the People so did it put this jealousie into their minds That if the King's Lands should be thus daily wasted without any recruit he must at last prove burthensome to the common Subject Some course is therefore to be thought on which might pretend to an encrease of the King's Revenue And none more easie to be compassed than to begin with the Suppression of such Bishopricks and Collegiate Churches as either lay farthest off or might be best spared In reference whereunto it was concluded in a Chapter held at Westminster by the Knights of the Garter That from thenceforth the said most Noble Order of the Garter should be no longer entituled by the Name of St. George but that it should be called The Order of the Garter only and the Feast of the said Order should be Celebrated upon Whitsun-Eve Whitsun-Day and Whitsun-Munday and not on St. George's-day as before it was And to what end was this concluded and what else was to follow upon this Conclusion but the Dissolving of the Free-Chappel of St. George in the Castle of Windsor and the transferring of the Order to the Chappel of King Henry the Seventh in the Abbey of Westminster Which had undoubtedly been done and all the Lands thereof converted to some powerful Courtiers under pretence of laying them to the Crown if the King's death which happened within Four months after had not prevented the design and thereby respited that ruine which was then intended The like preservation hapned at the same time to the Church of Durham as liberally endowed as the most and more amply privilâ—…eged than the best in the King's Dominions The Bishops thereof by Charter and long Prescription enjoying and exercising all the Rights of a County Palatine in that large Tract of Ground which lies between the Tees and the Tyne the Diocess also containing all Northumberland of which the Bishops and the Priests had the greatest shares No sooner was Bishop Tonstal committed to the Tower but presently an eye was cast upon his Possessions Which questionless had followed the same fortune with the rest of the Bishopricks if one more powerful than the rest had not preserved it from being parcelled out as the others were on a strong confidence of getting it all unto himself After this the Earl of Northumberland to preserve himself gave unto the King the greatest part of his Inheritance and dying without Children not long after left his Titles also to the King 's disposing The Lands and Titles being thus fallen unto the Crown continued undisposed of till the Fall of the Duke of Sommerset when Dudley Earl of Warwick being created Duke of Northumberland doubted not but he should be able to possess himself in short time also of all the Lands of that Family To which Estate the Bishoprick of Durham and all the Lands belonging to it would make a fair Addition upon which grounds the Bishoprick of Durham being Dissolved by Act of Parliament under pretence of patching up the King's Revenue the greatest part of the Lands thereof were kept together that they might serve for a Revenue to the future Palatine But all these Projects failed in the Death of the King and the subsequent Death of this great Duke in the following Reign of Queen Mary Thus far out of Dr. Heylyn ' s History of Reformation concerning the strange Proceedings in this Change of Religion and the sad Effects of it An Appendix I will here end this King's Reign with a short Relation of this great Dukes Ambition and the King's Death Sir Rich. Baker pag. 445. THe Duke of Northumberland having procured the cutting off the Proctor's Head and being placed next the King had now gone a great way in his Design It only remaining to perswade King Edward to exclude his two Sisters from Succession in the Crown For that done his Daughter-in-law the Lady Jane would come to have Right for as to Pretenders out of Scotland or any other he made no great matter And now to work the King to this perswasion being in a languishing Condition not far from Death he inculcates to him how much it concerned him to have a care of Religion that it might be preserved in Purity not only in his own Life but also after his Death which would not be if his Sister the Lady Mary should Succeed and She could not be put by unless the other Sister the Lady Elizabeth
were put by also seeing their Rights depended one upon another But if he pleased to Appoint the Lady Jane the Duke of Suffolk's eldest Daughter and his own next Kinswoman to his Sisters to be his Successor he might then be sure that the True Religion should be maintained to God's great Glory and be a worthy Act of his Religious Prudence This was to strike upon the right string of the young King's Affections with whom nothing was so dear as Preservation of Religion And thereupon his Last Will was appointed to be drawn contrived chiefly by the Lord Chief Justice Mountague and Secretary Cecil By which Will as far as in him lay he excluded his Two Sisters from the Succession and all others but the Duke of Suffolk's Daughters And then causing it to be read before his Council he required them all to Assent unto it and to Subscribe their Hands which they All both Nobility Bishops and Judges did only the Archbishop Cranmer refused at first Sir James Hales a Judge of the Common-Pleas to the last and with them also Sir John Baker Chancellor of the Exchequer His Will being thus made he shortly after dies conceived to have been Poysoned It is noted by some saith Sir Richard Baker That he died the same Month and the day of the Month that his Father King Henry the Eighth had put Sir Thomas Moor to death Thus of this Duke and the Kings Death We will now give an Account of the Years when these changes were made IN the First year a Reformation was resolved on and to prepare the way for it Injunctions were set out and Commissioners sent into all parts of the Kingdom to enquire into all Ecclesiastical Concernments With them also were sent Preachers to disswade the People from their former practices in Religion And this to prepare the way for the total Alteration in Religion which was intended There was likewise a Parliament called to promote and confirm the same Designs In the Second year Images were taken down and many Ancient Customs abolished and a Book of Common-Prayer composed All Colleges Hospitals c. were given to the King In the Third year a part of Pauls and many Churches were pulled down to build Sommerset House in the Strand There were great Troubles and Commotions both in Church and State The Book of Common-Prayer composed in the former year was now set out Peter Martyr and Bucer came over In the Fourth year one John a Lasco a Polonian with his Sectaries settled themselves here The great business of this year was the taking down of Altars Until this following Fifth year nothing had been Positively and Dogmatically concluded in Points of Doctrine Wherefore to set a stop to the great Confusions that were at this time there was a Book of Articles composed And to satisfie the Calvinists ther was a New Book of Common-Prayer set forth In the Sixth year Hopkins Psalms began to be sung in Churches And the use of the New Common-Prayer-Book made strange Alterations but all in order to Calvin's designs who had a chief hand in composing it In the Seventh year the King is found to be extremely engaged in Debt and under Colour of satisfying such Debts great spoyl is made of the Treasures of the Church Thus you have had a short Relation of the strange Confusions and Alterations of Religion which happened in the few years Reign of this King A CONTINUATION Of these HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS Concerning the Restauration of Catholick Religion And the Occurrences concerning it In the Reign of Queen MARY A Preamble WE shall here follow Dr. Heylyns order in relating First some Passages concerning her before She came to the Crown With a brief Narration of her Mother's Death whereof Dr. Heylyn gives this following account in his History of Reformation page 9. The Execution of Bishop Fisher and Sir Thomas Moor with many others who wished well unto her added so much affliction to the desolate Queen that not being able longer to bear the burthen of so many miseries she fell into a languishing Sickness which more and more encreasing on Her And finding the near approach of Death the only Remedy now left for all Her miseries She dictated this ensuing Letter which She caused to be delivered to the King by one of Her Women Wherein She laid before him these Her Last Requests Viz. My most Dear Lord King and Husband for so She called Him THe Hour of my Death now approaching I cannot chuse out of the Love I bear you but advise you of your Soul's health which you ought to prefer before all Considerations of the World or Flesh whatsoever For which yet you have cast me into many Calamities and your Self into many Troubles But I forgive you all and pray God to do so likewise For the rest I commend unto you Mary our Daughter beseeching you to be a good Father unto her as I have heretofore desired I must entreat you also to consider my Maids and give them in Marriage which is not much they being but Three And to grant unto all my other Servants a years pay besides their due lest otherwise they should be unprovided for Lastly I make this Vow That my Eyes have desired you above All Things Farewel Within few days after the writing of which Letter She yielded her pious Soul unto God at the Kings Manner-House of Kimbolton and was Solemnly buried in the Abbey of Peterborough The rending of her Letter drew some tears from the King which could not but be much encreased by the news of her Death Moved by them both to such a measure of Commiseration of Her sad condition That he caused the greatest part of Her Goods amounting to Five Thousand Marks to be expended or her Funeral and in the recompensing of such of Her Servants as had best deserved it Never so kind to Her in the time of her Life as when he had rendred Her incapable of receiving any kindness Thus Dr. Heylyn concerning her Mothers death Now concerning her Self he writes thus Pag. 11. THe Princess Mary is now left wholly to her Self declared Illegitimate by her Father deprived of the comfort of her Mother and in a Manner forsaken by all her Friends whom the severe proceedings against Moor and Fisher had so deterred that few durst pay her any offices of Love or Duty In which condition the poor Princes had no greater comfort than what She could gather from Her Books In which She had been carefully instructed by Dr. John Harman appointed her Tutor by the King and for his good Performance in that place of Trust advanced by him to the See of Exon and afterwards made Lord President of Wales By satisfying the King her Father in a Message sent unto her She gained so far upon him that from that time forwards he held her in the same rank with the rest of his Children gave Her her Turn in the Succession of the Kingdom assigned Her a Portion of Ten thousand pounds to
be paid at her Marriage and in the interim Three Thousand pound per annum for Her personal maintenance Little or nothing more occurs of Her in the time of King Henry because there was little Alteration made in the face of Religion which might give Her any cause of Publick or personal dislike But when the great Alterations happened in the time of King Edward She then declared her Self more openly as She might more safely in opposition to the same Concerning which She thus declared Her self in a Letter to the Lord Protector and the rest of the Council Dated at Kenninghall June 22. Anno 1549. My Lord I Perceive by the Letters which I lately received from you and others of the Council That you be all sorry to find so little Conformity in me touching the observation of his Majesties Laws who am well assured that I have offended no Law unless it be a late Law of your own making which in my Conscience is not worthy the name of a Law both for the King's Honors sake and the wealth of the Realm and giving the occasion of an evil bruit throughout all Christendom besides the partiallity used in the same and as my Conscience is very well perswaded the offending God which passes all the rest But I am very well assured That the King his Father's Laws were allowed and consented to without Compulsion by the whole Realm both Spiritual and Temporal and all the Executors Sworn upon a Book to fulfil the same so that it was an Authorized Law And that I have obeyed and will do with the Grace of God till the King's Majesty my Brother shall have sufficient years to judge in this matter himself In this my Lord I was plain with you at my last being in the Court declaring to you at that time whereunto I would stand And now do assure you all the only occasion of my stay from altering my Opinion is for Two causes One principally for my Conscience The Other that the King my Brother shall not hereafter charge me to be one of those that were agreeable to such Alterations in his tender years And what fruits daily grow by such Changes since the death of the King my Father it well appears to every indifferent Person both to the Displeasure of God and Unquietness of the Realm Notwithstanding I assure you all I would be as loth to see his Highness take hurt or that any evil should come to this his Realm as the best of you all And none of you have the like cause considering how I am compelled by nature being his Majesties poor and humble Sister most tenderly to Love and pray for Him and to wish unto this Realm being born within the same all wealth and prosperity to God's Honor. And if any judge of me the contrary for my Opinions sake as I trust none does I doubt not in the end with God's help to prove my self as True a Natural and Humble Sister as they of the contrary Opinion with all their devices and altering the Laws shall prove themselves good Subjects I pray you my Lords and the rest of the Council no more to disquiet and trouble me with matters touching my Conscience wherein I am at a full point with God's help whatsoever shall happen to me intending with his Grace to trouble you little with any worldly suits But to bestow that short time I think to live in quietness praying for the King's Majesty and all you Heartily wishing that your Proceedings may be to God's Honor the Safeguard of the King's Person and quietness of the Realm And thus my Lords I wish unto you and all the rest as well to do as my self But notwithstanding this Letter no favor was to be hoped for from these Lords They signifying unto her how sensible they were of those Inconveniences which the Example of her Inconformity to the Laws Established was likely to produce amongst the rest of the Subjects And hereupon the Lord Chancellor and Secretary Peters were sent to her who after some Conferences brought her to the King at Westminster Here the Council declared unto her how long the King had permitted her the use of Mass and considering her Obstinacy was resolved now no longer to permit it unless She would put Him in hope of some Conformity in time To which She answered That her Soul was God's and touching her Faith as she could not change so she would not dissemble it Reply was made That the King intended not to constrain her Faith but to restrain the outward profession of it in regard of the danger the Example might draw After some like enterchanges of speeches the Lady was appointed to remain with the King When there arrived an Embassador from the Emperor with a threatning Message of War in case his Cosin the Lady Mary should be denied the Free Exercise of Mass. Hereupon the King presently advised with the Archbishop of Canterbury and with the Bishops of London and Rochester Who gave their Opinion that to give licence to sin was sin But to connive at sin might be allowed so it were not too long nor without hope of Reformation Then Answer was given to the Embassador That the King would send to the Emperor within a Month or Two and give him such Satisfaction as should be fit Upon this Earnest Soliciation of the Emperor it was declared unto her by the King with the consent of his Council That for his sake and her own also it should be suffered and winked at if she had the private Mass used in her own Closet for a season until she might be better informed But so that none but some few of her own Chamber should be present with her And that to all the rest of her House-hold the Service of the Church should be only used Whereupon Mallet and Barkeley Two of her Chaplains saying Mass promiscuously in her absence to her houshold-Servants were seized on and committed Prisoners Which first occasioned an exchange of Letters betwixt her and the King and afterwards more frequently between her and the Council One of which Letters to the Council touching this matter I will here insert taken out of Fox's Acts and Monuments Page 704. The Lady Mary to the Lords of the Council My Lords WHereas you writ that two of my Chaplains Dr. Mallet and Barkeley are Indicted for certain things committed by them contrary to the King's Majesties Laws and that a Process for them is also awarded or given forth and delivered to the Sheriff of Essex I cannot but marvel they should be so used considering it is done as I understand for sâ—…ying Mass within my House and although I have been of my self minded alwaies and yet am to have Mass within my House yet I have been advertised that the Emperor's Majesty also hath been promised that I should never be unquieted nor troubled for my so doing as some of you my Lords can witness Moreover the declaration of the said Promise was made to
me by the Emperor's Embassador that dead is by his Majesties order to put my Chaplains more out of fear When I was the last year with the King's Majesty my Brother that question was then moved and could not be denied but was affirmed by some of you before his Majesty to be true now I am not so much unquieted for the trouble of my said Chaplains as I am to think how this matter may be taken the Promise to such a Person being no better regarded and for mine own part I thought full little to have received such unkindness at your hands having always God is my Judge wished unto the whole number of you as to myself and have refused to trouble you or to crave any thing at your bands but your good will and friendship which very slenderly appeareth in this matter Notwithstanding to be plain with you howsoever ye shall use me or mine with God's help I will never vary from mine Opinion touching my Faith and if ye or any of you bear me the less good will for that matter or lessen your friendship towards me only for that cause I must and will be contented trusting that God will in the end shew his Mercy to me assuring you I would rather refuse the friendship of all the World than for sake any Point of my Faith I am not without some hope that ye will stay this matter not inforcing the rigor of the Law against my Chaplains The one of them was not in my House these Four Months and Dr. Mallet having my Licence is either at Windsor or at his Benefice who as I have heard was Indicted for saying of Mass out of my House which was not true but indeed the Day before my removing from Woodham-water my whole Houshold in effect being gone to Newhall he said Mass there by mine Appointment I see and hear of divers that do not obey your Statutes and Proclamations and nevertheless escape without punishment be ye Judges if I be well used to have mine punished by rigor of a Law not to take notice of all the false reports that ye have suffered to be spoken of me Moreover my Chaplain Dr. Mallet besides mine own Command was not ignorant of the Promise made to the Emperor which did put him out of fear I doubt not therefore but ye will consider it and likewise in such a manner as by the occasion â—…o part of our friendship be taken away nor I have any cause not to bear you my good will as I have done heretofore Thus with my hearty Commendations to ye all I pray Almighty God to send you as much of his Grace as I would wish to mine own Soul The Copy of the Lady Mary's Letter to the King's Majesty Fox's Acts p. 709. MY Duty most â—…umbly remembred to your Majesty it may please the same to be Advertised That I have received by my Servants Your most Honorable Letters the Contents whereof do not a little trouble me and so much the more for that any of my said Servants shoulâ—… move or attempt me in matters touching my Soul which I think the meanest Subject within your Highness Realm could evilly bear at their Servants hands having for my paâ—…t utterly refused heretofore to talk with them in such matters and of all other Persons least regarded them therein to whom I have declared what I think as she which trusted that your Majesty would have suffered me your poor Sister and Beads-woman to have used the accustomed Mass which the King your Father and mine with all his Predecessors did evermore use wherein also I have been brought up from my youth and thereunto my Conscience doth not only bind me which by no means will suffer me to think one thing and do another but also the Promise made to the Emperor by your Majesties Council was an Assurance to me that in so doing I should not offend the Laws although they seem now to qualifie and deny the thing And at my last waiting upon your Majesty I was so bold to declare my Mind and Conscience to the same and desired your Highness rather than you should constrain me to leave Mass to take away my life Whereunto your Majesty made me a very gentle Answer And now I most humbly beseech your Highness to give me leave to Write what I think touching your Majesties Letters indeed they be signed with your own Hand and nevertheless in mine opinion not your Majesties in effect because it is wâ—…ll known as heretofore I have declared in the Presence of your Highness that although our Lord be praised your Majesty hath far more Knowledge and greater Gifts than others 〈◊〉 your years yet it is not possible that your Hâ—…ghness can at these years be a Judge in matters of Religion and therefore I take it that the matter in your Letter proceedeth from such as do wish those things to take place which be most agrâ—…eable to themselves by whose doings your Majesty not offended I intend not to rule my Conscience and thus without molesting your Highnesâ—… 〈◊〉 farther I humbly beseech you even for God's â—…ake to bear with me as you have done and not to think that by my Doings or Example any inconvenience might grow to your Majesty or yâ—…ur Realm for I use it not after such sort putting no doubt but in time to come whether I Live or Die your Majesty shall perceive that my intent is grounded upon a true Love towards you whose Royal Estate I beseech Almighty God long to continue which is and shall be my daily prayers according to my duty And if neither at my humble suit nor for the regard of the Promise made to the Emperor your Highness will suffer and bear with me as you have done till your Majesty may be a Judge herein your self and rightly understand these Proceedings of which your Goodness yet I dispair not otherwise rather then to offend God and my Conscience I offer my Body at your Will and Death shall be more welcome to me than Life with a troubled Conscience And thus I pray Almighty God to keep your Majesty in all Vertue â—…nd Honor with good Health and long Life to his Pleasure Thus of these Letters Dr. Heylyn pag. 15. Much care was taken and many endeavors used by the King and Council to bring her to a good conceit of the Reformation But nothing in this could be effected As much unprofitable pains was taken by the Emperor's Agent in laboring to procure for her the free Exercise of her own Religion Whereupon She being weary of the Court retired to Hunsdon in the County of Hereford where Ridley Bishop of London had recourse unto her and at first was kindly entertained But having staid Dinner at her request he made an offer of his Service to preach before her on the Sunday following To which she answered That the Doors of the Parish-Church adjoyning should be open for him that he might Preach there if he pleased but that neither
Preached and Written partly by divers the natural born Subjects of this Realm and partly being brought in hither from sundry other Forein Countries hath been sowen and spread abroad within the same By reason whereof as well the Spirituality as the Temporality of this Kingdom have swerved from the Obedience of the See Apostolick and declined from the Unity of Christ's Church and have so continued until such time as your Majesty being settled in the Royal Throne the Pope's Holiness and the See Apostolick sent hither unto your Majesty as a Person undefiled and by God's Goodness preserved from the common infection aforesaid and to the whole Realm the most Reverend Father in God the Lord Cardinal Pool to call us home again into the right way from whence we have all this long while wandred and strayeâ—… abroad And we after sundry long and grievous Plagues and Calamities seeing by the Goodness of God our own Errors have acknowledged the same unto the same most Reverend Father in God and by him been and are received and embraced into the Unity and bosom of Christ's Church upon our humble submission and promise made for a Declaration of our Repentance to Repeal and Abrogate such Acts and Statutes as had been made in Parliament since the said Twentieth year of the said King against the Supremacy of the See Apostolick as in our Submission exhibited appears The tenor whereof here ensueth We the Lords Spiritual and Temporal and the Commons Assembled in this present Parliament in the Name of our selves and the whole Kingdom do declare our selves very sorry and repentant of the Schism and Disobedience committed in this Realm and the Dominions thereof against the See Apostolick either by making agreeing or executing any Laws Ordinances or Commands against the Supremacy of the said See or otherwise by doing or speaking any thing that might impugn the same Offering our selves and promising by this our Supplication that for a token and acknowledgment of our said repentance we be and shall be always ready to the utmost of our Power to do what lies in us for the abrogating and the repealing of the said Acts and Ordinances in this present Parliament c. Whereupon we most humbly desire your Majesty to set forth this our most humble Suit That we may obtain from the See Apostolick release and discharge from all danger of such Censures and Sentences as by the Laws of the Church we are fallen into and that we may as Children repentant be received into the bosom and unity of Christ's Church so as this Noble Realm withal the members thereof may in this unity and perfect obedience to the See Apostolick serve God and your Majesty to the furtherance and advancement of his Honor and Glory c. This Petition being granted They further add We being now at the Intercession of your Majesty assoiled discharged and delivered from Excommunication Interdiction and other Censures Ecclesiastical which have hanged over our heads for our said faults since the time of the said Schism mentioned in our Supplication May it therefore now please your Majesty That for the better accomplishment of our promise made in the said Supplication we may Repeal All Laws and Statutes made contrary to the said Supremacy and See Apostolick during the said Schism Thus as to the Repealing of all such Laws made in the Reign of King Henry the 8th Another Act for the Repealing of certain Statutes made in the time of King Edward the Sixth FOrasmuch as by divers and several Acts of Parliament made in the time of King Edward the Sixth as well the Divine Service and good Administration of the Sacraments as divers other matters of Religion which we and our Fore-fathers found in this Church of England to us left by the Authority of the Catholick Church be partly altered and in some part taken from us and in place thereof New Things imagined and set forth by the said Acts such as a few of singularity have of themselves devised Whereof hath ensued amongst us in a very short time numbers of diverse and strange Opinions and diversity of Sects and thereby grown great unquietness and much discord to the great disturbance of the Kingdom And in a very short time like to grow to extreme peril and utter confusion of the same unless some remedy be in that behalf provided Which Thing all True Loving and Obedient Subjects ought to fore-see and to provide against to the utmost of their power c. Be it therefore Enacted c. A third Act for the Repeal of Two several Acts made in the time of King Edward the Sixth touching the Dissolution of the Bishoprick of Durham WHereas there hath been time out of mind of any man to the contrary a See of a Bishop of Durham commonly called The Bishoprick of Durham which hath been one of the most Ancient and worthiest Bishopricks in Dignity and Spiritual Promotion within the Realm of England and the same place always supplied and furnished with a man of great Learning and Virtue which was both to the Honor of God and the encrease of his True Religion and a great Surety to that part of the Realm Nevertheless the said Bishoprick was without any just cause or consideration by Authority of Parliament Dissolved Extinguished and Exterminated And further by the Authority of the said Parliament it was Ordained and Enacted That the said Bishoprick together with all the ordinary Jurisdiction thereunto appertaining should be adjudged clearly dissolved and extinguished and that King Edward the Sixth should from thence-forth have possess and enjoy to him his heirs and successors for ever whatsoever did appertain or belong to the said Bishoprick in as large and ample manner and form as any Bishop thereof had held or possessed or of right ought to have had held or possessed c. Be it therefore Enacted c. Thus far as to these Acts of Parliament CHAP. IV. A Relation of some English Protestants that forsook the Kingdom and of the Factions and Schisms that were amongst them being in other Countries Anno Reg. Mar. 3. Dr. Heylyn pag. 59. MAny English Protestants forsook the Kingdom to the number of Eight Hundred who having put themselves into several Cities partly in Germany and partly amongst the Switzers and their Confederates kept up the Face and Form of an English Church in each of their several Congregations Their principal retiring places amongst the last were Arow Zurick and Geneva And in the first the Cities of Emden Strasburgh and Frankfort In Frankfort they enjoyed the greatest privileges and therefore resorted thither in greatest numbers which made them the more apt unto Schisms and Factions At their first coming to the place they were permitted to have the use of one of their Churches which had before been granted to such French exiles as had repaired thither on the like occasion yet so that the French were still to hold their Right the English to have the use of it one day
vacant There was one Scambler made Bishop of Peterborough But during the vacancy thereof Sir William Cecill possessed himself of the Mannors in Soak which belonged unto it And for Scambler's readiness to confirm the same Mannors to him he preferred him to the See of Norwich Dr Thomas Young Bishop of St. Davids was translated to the See of York which was done in an unlucky hour to that City For scarce was he setled in that See when he pulled down the Goodly Hall and the greatest part of the Episcopal Palace in the City of York which had been built with so much care and cost by one of his Predecessors in the year 1090 Whether it were for Covetousness to make Money of the Materials of it or out of sordidness to avoid the charge of Hospitality let them guess that will But neither the filling up of those vacant Sees nor the Queens Proclamation for the Banishing of Sectaries could free the Land from those dangerous Inmates or preserve the Church from the Contagion of their poysonous Doctrines A short Note concerning St. Paul's Church Dr. Heylyn in the same page The Zuinglian Gospellers or those of the Genevian party rejoyced much at a most lamentable accident which hapned to the Cathedral Church of St. Paul on the Fourth of June on which day a fearful Fire first shewed it self near the top of the Steeple and from thence burnt down the Spire to the Stone-work and Bells and raged so terribly that within the space of Four hours the Timber and Lead of the whole Church and whatsoever else was combustible in it were burnt and consumed Now when Men began to cast about to find out what might be the occasion of this misfortune The generality of the Zuinglian or Genevian party affirmed it to be a just Judgment of God upon an old Idolatrous Fabrick not throughly Reformed and purged from its Superstitions and would have been content that all other Cathedrals in the Kingdom had been so destroyed The Emperors Zeal Dr. Heylyn pag. 142. The Emperor Ferdinand being informed of these Confusions of Religion in England perswaded the Queen by his Letters to return to the old Religion and not relinquish the Communion of so many Catholick Kings and Princes and Her own Ancestors also nor to prefer Her singular judgment and the judgment of a few private Persons and those not of the most Learned neither before the Judgment and Determination of the Church of Christ. And that if She were resolved to persist in her own Opinion at least that She would deal favourably with so many Reverend and Religious Prelates as She kept in Prison and that meerly for adhering unto that Religion which himself professed And finally he entreas her most earnestly That she would set apart some Churches to the use of the Catholicks where they might freely exercise their Religion A Nuncio sent to the Queen Dr. Heylyn in the same page Pope Pius also sent his Nuncio to the Queen with whom he conceived himself to stand upon terms of Amity It had been much laboured by the Guises and Spanish-faction to divert him from it by telling him That it would be an undervaluing of his Power and Person to send a Nuncio into England or to any other Princes of the same Perswasions who openly professed a Separation from the Church of Rome To which he made this prudent and pious answer That he would humble himself even to Heresie it self in regard whatsoever was done to gain Souls to Christ did beseem that See Thus Dr. Heylyn CHAP. XI Of the Contest between the Church of England and the Presbyterians and how they sought to undermine the said Church Dr. Heylyn pag. 144. THe Genevians slept not all this while but were busily employed in practising against the Church of England nothing being able to satisfie them but the nakedness and simplicity of the Zuinglian Churches the new fashions taken up at Frankfort and the Presbyteries of Geneva And they drove on so fast upon it that in some places they had taken down the steps where the Altar stood and brought the Table into the midst of the Church In others they laid aside the Ancient use of God-fathers and God-mothers in the Administration of Baptism and left the answering for the Child to the charge of the Father the Weekly Fasts the time of Lent and all other Days of Abstinence were look'd upon as Superstitious observations No Fast by them allowed of but occasionally only and them too of their own appointing And the like course they took also with Festival Days neglecting those which had been instituted as Human Inventions not fit to be retained in a Reformed Church And finally that they might bring in their Outlandish Doctrines with such Foreign usages they had procured some of the inferior Ordinaries to impose upon their several Parishes certain new Books of Sermons and Expositions of the Holy Scripture To stop these proceedings the Arch-Bishop with Advice of some of the Bishops set forth a Book of Orders But notwithstanding these Orders the Calvinists drive on their designs as appears by this following Relation of Dr. Heylyn pag. 154. The Genevians had already begun to blow the Coals and brought Fuel to them But it was only for the Burning of Caps and Rochets The Common-Prayer-Book was so fortified by Act of Parliament that there was no assaulting of it And as to Episcopal Government it was so interwoven and incorporated with the Laws of the Land so twisted in with the Prerogative of the Crown and the Royal Interest that they must first be in a capacity of trampling on the Laws and the Crown together before they could attempt the destruction of it But Caps and Tippets Rochets and Lawn-sleeves and Canonical Coats seemed to be built upon no better Foundation than Superstitious custom some old Popish Canon or at the best some Temporary Injunction of the Queens devising which could not have the Power and effect of Law This Game they had in chase in King Edwards time which now they are resolved to follow to the very last The obstinacy of these Men in matter of Ceremony prompted the Bishops to make tryal of their Orthodoxy in Points of Doctrine Whereupon the Articles of Religion lately agreed upon were required to be subscribed to in all places with threatning no less than Deprivation to such as willfully refused Many there were that boggled at it as they all did but yet not so perversly nor in such great numbers as when their faction was grown strong and improved to multitudes Some stumbled at it in regard of the first clause added to the Twentieth Article about the Authority of the Church Others in reference to the Thirty Sixth touching the Consecration of Archbishops and Bishops Some thought they Attributed more Authority to the Supream Magistrate over all Persons and Causes both Ecclesiastical and Civil than could consist with that Independency which Calvin arrogated unto his Presbyters and other Churches of the
Platform And others looked upon the Homilies as beggerly Rudiments scarce Milk for Babes But by no means to be looked upon as Meat for a stronger stomack In general thought by the Genevians and Zuinglian Gospellers to have too much in them of the Pope or too little of Calvin and therefore no way to be subscribed unto Of which number none so much remarkable as Father John Fox the Martyrologist who had before appeared in the Schism at Frankfort and left that Church when Cox had got the better in it to retire to Geneva Who being now called upon to subscribe that the opinion which was had of his parts and Piety might advance the work he is said to have appeared before the Bishop carrying the New-Testament in Greek with him before whom he spake these words To this Book I will subscribe and if this will not serve take my Prebend'ry at Salisbury the only Preferment which I hold in the Church of England and much good may it do you But notwithstanding this refractory Answer so much kindness was shewed to him that he both kept his resolution and place together The Genevians for the greater countenanceing of their inconformity had stirred up the most eminent Divines of the French and Zuinglian or Helvetian Churches to declare in favour of their doings And it appears also by remembrances in some Authors that Calvin apprehending some neglect from Mr. Secretary Cecill in making either no return or a return which signified nothing to his first Addresses had laid aside his care of the Church of England But Peter Martyr whilst he lived conceived himself to have some Interest in this Church in which he had enjoyed such a good preferment but more in some particular Persons and Members of it who seemed to depend upon his judgment and to ask counsel of him as their surest Oracle in which how much he countenanced the Faction in King Edward's time both by his Practice and Pen and what encouragement he gave them in this present Reign hath been shewn before But how much he was out-gone by Beza who next usurped a Super-intendency over all the Churches of this Island may be seen hereafter All that shall now be said of either of them or of altogether shall be briefly this That this poor Church might better have wanted their best helps in Points of Doctrine than have been troubled with their intermedlings in matter of Discipline Thus Dr. Heylyn concerning the Calvinists Dr Heylyn having little or nothing in the Fourth and Fifth year of this Queens Reign that belongs to the matter of these Notes we will pass to the 6th year CHAP. XII Of one Cartwright a great Promoter of Presbytery and of the Earl of Leicester and the death of Calvin Anno Reg. Eliz. 6. Dr. Heylyn pag. 164. THis Summer in a Progress the Queen came to Cambridge where were sown the seeds of those Divisions and Combustions with which the Church of England hath been continually distracted to this very day For so it happened that one Preston and Cartwright were appointed to hold a Disputation In which the First was both liked and rewarded by Her the Other receiving neither reward nor commendation Which so incensed the proud man that he retired to Geneva Where having throughly informed himself in all particulars both of Doctrine and Discipline wherein the Churches of that Platform differed from the Church of England he returned home with an intent to repair his credit or rather to get himself a name by raising such a fire and such combustions in the Church of England as never were to be extinguished but by the immediate hand of Heaven The next considerable Action which followed on the Queens Reception at Cambridge was the preferring of Sir Robert Dudley the Second Son then living of the Duke of Northumberland to the Titles of Lord Denbigh and Earl of Leicester She had before Elected him into the Order of the Garter made him Master of her Horse and Chancellor of the University of Oxon suffered him to carry a great sway in all Affairs both of Court and Council and given unto him the fair Mannor of Denbigh being conceived to be one of the goodliest Territories in England And now She adds unto these Honors the goodly Castle and Mannor of Kenelworth part of the parrimony of the Duchy of Lancaster Advanced unto which height he engrossed unto himself the disposing of all Offices in the Court and State and of all Preferments in the Church proving in fine so unappeasable in his Malice and unsatiable in his Lusts so Sacrilegious in his Rapines so false in Promises and treacherous in point of Trust And finally so destructive of the Rights and Proprieties of particular Persons that his Little Finger lay heavier on the English Subjects than the Loins of all the Favourites of the Two last Kings And that his Monstrous Vices most insupportable in any other but himself might either be connived at or not complained of he cloaks them with a seeming zeal to the true Religion and made himself Head of the Puritan Faction Who spared no pains in seting forth his praises upon all occasions Nor was he wanting to caress them after such a manner as he found most agreeable to those Holy Hypocrites using no other language in his Speech and Letters than pure Scripture-phrase in which he was become so dextrous as if he had received the same Inspirations with the Sacred Pen-men But notwithstanding the viciousness of this man yet the Queen laboured further to advance him even to a Marriage with the Queen of Scots As appears by this Relation of Dr. Heylyn pag. 169. Queen Elizabeth kept a Stock still going in Scotland the returns whereof redounded more to her own security than to the profit and advantage of the Church of England The Queen of Scots being now a Widow possessed of that Kingdom and next Heir to this Queen Elizabeth proposes to her a Marriage with the Earl of Leicester whom she pretended to have raised to those Eminent Honors to make him in some sort capable of a Queens Affections Which Proposition proved agreeable to neither party the Queen of Scots disdaining the unequal offer and Leicester dealing under-hand with Randolph the English Resident to keep her still in that aversness having given himself a hope of Marrying Queen Elizabeth interpreting all her Favors to proceed in order to it I had not spoken so much of this Earl of Leicester but that he seemed to have been born for the destruction of the Church of England as will appear by what shall be here said concerning the Presbyterians in this Queens Reign But leaving this Court-Meteor to be gazed on by unknowing men we will now conclude this Sixth year with that which was very advantageous to the Church of England to wit the Death of Calvin By whose Authority if he had lived longer much more Disorders and Confusions must have necessarily succeeded For his Name was much Reverenced not only by
Mortality amongst the rest of the Clergy that a great part of the Parochial Churches were without Incumbents The rest of the Bishops Twelve Deans and as many Archdeacons Fifteen Masters of Colleges and Halls Fifty Prebendaries of Cathedral Churches and about Fourscore Beneficed Men were deprived at once for refusing to submit to the Queens Supremacy For the filling of which vacant places it cannot be imagined but many past amongst the rest who either had not hitherto discovered their dissatisfaction or were connived at in regard of their Parts and Learning Wherefore there is no question to be made but that some numbers of them were admitted unto Country-Cures by means whereof they had as great an opportunity as they could wish or desire not only to Dispute their Genevian Doctrines but likewise to prepare the People committed to them for receiving such Innovations both in Worship and Government as were resolved in time convenient to be put upon them For a Preparative whereunto they brought along with them the Genevian Bible with their Notes upon it together with David's Psalms in English Meeter that by the one they might effect an Innovation in points of Doctrine and by the other bring this Church more near to the Rules of Geneva in some chief Acts of Publick Worship The Notes upon the same Bible in many places savour of Sedition and in some of Faction destructive of the Persons and Power of Kings and of all Civil Intercourse and Human Society There is a Note on 2 Chron. 8. 15 16. where Asa is taxed by them for not putting his Mother to death but deposing her only from the Regency which before She executed Of which Note the Scottish Presbyterians made especial use not only in deposing Mary their lawful Queen but prosecuting her openly and underhand till they had taken away her life Now with this Bible and these Notes which proved so advantageous to them in their main projectments they also brought in David's Psalms in English Meeter of which they served themselves to some Tune in the time succeeding For they came to be esteemed the most Divine part of God's Publick Worship the Reading Psalms together with the First and Second Lessons being heard in many places with a covered head but all Men sitting Bareheaded when the Psalm is Sung And to that end the Parish-clark must be taught to call upon the people to Sing it To the Praise and Glory of God no such preparatory Exhortation being used at the naming of the Chapter or the Daily Psalms By these Preparatives they hoped in time to bring in the whole Body of Calvinism as well in reference to Government and Forms of Worship as in Points of Doctrine In all this time they could obtain no Countenance from this State though it was once endeavoured for them by the Earl of Leicester whom they had gained to their Party But it was only to make use of them for Politick Ends. Finding this opposition they not only repined and grudged at the Reformation which was made in this Church because not fitted to their Fancies and to Calvin's Platform but have laboured to sow those Seeds of Heterodoxy and Disobedience which afterwards brought forth those Troubles and Disorders which ensued upon it Thus Dr. Heylyn These Islands the only remainder of the Crown of England in the Dukedom of Normandy had admitted the Reformation in the Reign of King Edward by whose command the Publick Liturgy had been turned into French But the Reformed Religion being suppressed in the time of Queen Mary was revived again immediately after her decease by such French Ministers as had resorted thither for Protection in the days of their troubles These French Ministers desiring to have all things Modelled by the Rules of Calvin endeavored by all the friends they could make to advance his Discipline to which they were encouraged by their Brethren here and the Governors there The Governors in each Island advanced the Plot out of a covetous intent to enrich themselves with the spoils of the Deaneries the Brethren here having by this means a hope to gain ground by little and little for the Erecting of the same in most parts of England And in pursuance of this project both Islands joyn in a Confederacy to Petition the Queen for an Allowance of this Discipline Anno 1563. In the year next following some French were delegated to the Court to sollicite it where they received a Gracious Answer and returned full of hopes In the mean time the Queen being strongly perswaded that this design would much advance the Reformation in those Islands was contented to give way unto it in the Towns of St. Peter's Port and St. Hilaries only in Jersey and in the Port of St. Peters in Gernsey but no further Other parts of the Islands being to be Conform to the Church of England Now although there be no express mention in their Grant of Allowing their Discipline but only of their Form of Prayer and Administration of Sacraments yet they presumed so far on the general words as to put it presently in practice intending to advance it by degrees in all the rest of the Parishes as opportunity should serve and the condition of Affairs permit Thus Dr. Heylyn concerning these Islands CHAP. XVII A further Account of their labouring to Undermine the Church of England Dr. Heylyn pag. 252. IN England they found not such success as they did abroad not a few of them being deprived of their Benefices and other preferments in the Church for their Inconformity The news of which severity flies to France and Scotland occasioning Beza in the one and Knox and his Comrades in the other to interpose themselves in behalf of their Brethren With what Authority Beza acted in it we shall see anon In Knox his Letter sent from the General Assembly of the Kirk of Scotland the Church-Vestments are called Trifles and Rags of Rome With more Authority writes Beza as the greater Patriarch and he writes too concerning things of greater consequence than Caps and Surplices For in a Letter of his to Grindal he makes a sad complaint of suspending these Men from the Ministry for not subscribing to some new Rites and Ceremonies imposed upon them But he seems more offended That Women were suffered to Baptize in extream necessity That Power was granted to the Queen for Ordaining such other Rites and Ceremonies as should seem convenient and that the Bishops had so much Authority He excepts likewise against many other such things The Copies of these Letters were presently dispersed if not also Printed Some of the Brethren in their Zeal to the name of Calvin preferred him once before St. Paul and Beza without doubt would have taken it ill if he had been esteem'd of less Authority than any of the Successors of St. Peter So good a Foundation being laid the Building could not chuse but go on apace But first they must prepare the Matter and remove all doubts which otherwise might
the preservation of my Life than the profit of my Living Wherefore after I had weighed as many dangers as I could remember and was perswaded that to depart the Realm was the safest way I could take I resolved to take the benefit of a happy Wind to avoid the violence of a bitter Storm And knowing that the Actions of Those who go beyond Seas though their intent be never so good and dutiful were yet evil thought of I presume to write this Letter to your Majesty and in it to declare the true causes and reasons of this my departure I here take God and his Holy Angels to witness that I would not have taken this course if I might have staied still in England without danger of my Soul and peril of my Life And though the loss of Temporal Commodities be so grievous to Flesh and Blood that I could not desire to live if I were not comforted with the remembrance of his Mercy for whom I endure all this who endured ten thousand times more for me yet I assure your Majesty that your Displeasure would be more unpleasant to me than the bitterness of all my Losses and greater grief than the greatest of my Misfortunes The Earl having written the foregoing Letter and leaving it behind him to be delivered to the Queen after his departure attempted to have passed the Seas without License for the which he was committed to the Tower and condemned to pay Ten thousand Pound Fine for his contempt and to remain Prisoner at the Queens pleasure Thus Stow. This short Relation of these Severities may make it easily conceived what endeavours there were then used totally to extirpate Catholick Religion in England Thus you have had a short view of the state of Religion in this Queens Reign An Account of the Years in which these Changes in Religion were made IN her First year she being resolved upon an Alteration of Religion as knowing well that her Legitimation and the Pope's Supremacy could not stard together called a Parliament which totally complied with her Designs in order to such a Change But the Convocation of the Clergy which accompanied this Parliament totally opposed it and thereupon were deprived of their Ecclesiastical Benefices a company of Ignorant and Illiterate Men being Substituted in their places which gave occasion to the Calvinists or Presbyterians to obtain great Ecclesiastical Preserments here By which they have continually labored to supplant and undermine the Church of England It was the Second year of her Reign before any Protestant Bishops were elected The main cause for keeping the Episcopal Sees so long vacant was that in the mean time the best Flowers might be culled out of them Aid this year was sent to assist the Rebels in Scotland against their Lawful Queen The Presbyterians seeing Episcopal Government settled begin to play their Game The Bishops being thus settled begin the next year to make Laws and to compose Articles of Religion and to exact a Conformity to them upon which they find great oppositions from the Presbyterians In her Fourth year she was solicited by Pope Pius to send her Orators to the Council of Trent which she refused to do The Emperor also writ to her to desist from these Alterations of Religion and to return to the Ancient Catholick Faith of her Predecessors In her Fifth year the Articles of Religion were agreed on in the Convocation In her Sixth year she would have Married the Earl of Leicester to the Queen of Scots Calvin dies this year and Cartwright the great promoter of Presbytery retires out of England upon a discontent to Geneva In her Seventh year the Calvinists began first to be called Puritans Dr. Heylyn In her Eighth year the Government of the Church by Archbishops and Bishops was Confirmed And for this we are beholding to Boner the late Bishop of London who being called up to take the Oath of Supremacy by Horn of Winton refused to take the Oath upon this account because Horn's Consecration was not good and valid by the Laws of the Land Which he insisted upon because the Ordinal Established in the Reign of King Edward the Sixth by which both Horn and all the rest of Queen Elizabeths Bishops received Consecration had been Repealed by Queen Mary and not restored by any Act of Parliament in the present Reign which being first declared by Parliament in the Eighth of this Queen to be Casus Omissus or rather that the Ordinal was looked upon as a part of the Liturgy confirmed in the First year of this Queen They next Enacted and Ordained That all such Bishops as were consecrated by it in time to come should be reputed to be lawfully Consecrated Baker In her Eleventh year there arose a Sect openly condemning the received Discipline of the Church of England together with the Church-Liturgy and the very Calling of Bishops This Sect so mightily encreased that in the Sixteenth year of her Reign the Queen and Kingdom was extreamly troubled with them In the same Sixteenth year were taken at Mass in their several Houses the Lord Morley's Lady and her Children the Lady Gilford and the Lady Brown who being thereof Endicted and Convicted suffered the penalties of the Laws In her Twentieth year the severe Laws against Roman Catholicks were Enacted In her Twenty third year a Proclamation was set forth That whosoever had any Children beyond Sea should by a certain day call them home and that no Person should harbour any Seminary Priest or Jesuit At this time also there arose up in Holland a certain Sect naming themselves The Family of Love In a Parliament held the 26th year of her Reign the Puritan party laboured to have Laws made in order to the destroying of the Church of England and the setting up of their own Sect. In her Twenty eighth year the Queen gave a special Charge to Whitgift Archbishop of Canterbury to settle an Uniformity in the Ecclesiastical Discipline which lay now almost a gasping And at this time the Sect of Brownists derived from one Robert Brown did much oppose the Church of England In her One and Thirtieth year the Puritan-Flames broke forth again In her Thirty sixth year the Severity of the Laws were Executed upon Henry Barrow and his Sectaries for condemning the Church of England as no Christian Church Thus Sir Rich. Baker Here is an End of this Work Wherein I hope there is full Satisfaction given concerning the Alterations of Religion which have been made by Publick Authority in the Reigns of these Kings and Queens with a sufficient discovery of the Actings of the Presbyterians in this Nation and the ground of multiplying other Sects Here ends the Historical Collections AN APPENDIX CHAP. I. A Word concerning the Doctrins and Practices deserted by this Nation in these Changes of Religion NOw for a close to this Work I will add here in the first place one thing which I conceive deserves well to be taken notice of which is this to wit
and every Act or Acts of Parliament concerning Doctrine and matters of Religion and all and every Article Branch Sentence and Matter Pains and Forfeitures in the same contained By which repeal all Men seem to have been put into a liberty of reading Scripture and being in a manner their own Expositors and of entertaining what Opinions in Religion best pleased their fancies and promulgating such Opinions as they entertained So that the English enjoyed that liberty which the Romans are affirmed by Tacitus to have enjoyed without control in the times of Nerva that is to say A liberty of being of what Opinion they pleased and of speaking freely their Opinions wheresoever they listed There was also an Act passed Entituled An Act against such as speak against the Sacrament of the Altar And to say truth it was but time that some provision should be made to suppress that Irreverence and Profaneness with which the Blessed Sacrament was at that time handled by too many of those who seemed most ignorantly Zealous of Reformation For they reproached it with such names and so unbecoming the mouths of Christians that they were never taken up by the Turks and Infidels There was another Act passed for the Receiving the Communion in both kinds yet with these Provisoes notwithstanding If necessity did not otherwise require as in the Case of sudden Sickness and other such like Extremities in which it was not possible that Wine could be provided for the use of that Sacrament nor the sick Man depart in peace without it And Secondly That the permitting this Liberty to the People of England should not be looked upon as a condemning of any other Church or Churches or their Practices in which the contrary is observed Thus Dr. Heylyn concerning these acts of Parliament Another Act of Parliament The next great Business was the Retrieving of a Statute made in the Twenty seventh year of King Henry the Eighth By which all Chantries Colleges Free-Chappels and Hospitals were given to the King But he died before he had taken many of them into his Possession And the Grandees of the Court not being willing to lose so Rich a Booty it was set on foot again and carried in this present Parliament In which were Granted to the King all Chantries Colleges Free-Chappels Hospitals Fraternities Brotherhoods and Gilds not already seized on by his Father with all their Lands and Goods which being sold at a low rate enriched many and ennobled some And therefore made them firm in maintaining the change Thus Dr. Heylyn concerning the ground of maintaining this Change of Religion Of Chantries Now as concerning the Nature of these Chantries here given to the King something hath been said out of Mr. Dugdale in the Reign of Henry the Eighth But it will not be amiss in this place to set down what Dr. Heylyn says concerning them pag. 51. His words are these THese Chantries consisted of Salaries to one or more Priests to say Mass daily for the Souls of their deceased Founders and their Friends Which not subsisting of themselves were generally Incorporated and united to some Parochial Collegiate or Cathedral Church no fewer than Forty seven being Founded in St. Paul's Free Chappels which though ordained for the same intent with others yet were independent of stronger Constitution and richer Endowment though therein they fell short of the Colleges which exceed them both in the beauty of their Buildings the number of their Priests maintained by them and the proportion of Revenue allotted to them Thus Dr. Heylyn concerning these Foundations made for Praying for the Dead A Sermon Preached Now concerning the Suppressing of these Chantries it was Preached at Mercers-Chappel in London by one Dr. Cromer a Man that wished well to the Reformation That if Trentals and Chantry-Masses could avail the Souls in Purgatory then the Parliament did not well in giving away Colleges Chantries c. which served principally for that purpose But if the Parliament did well in dissolving and bestowing them on the King which he thought that no Man could deny then was it a plane case that such Chantries and private Masses did confer no Relief on the Souls in Purgatory Which Dilemma though it were unanswerable yet was the matter so handled by the Bishops seeing how much the Doctrine of the Church was concerned therein that they brought him to a Recantation at St. Paul's-Cross in the June next following this Sermon being Preached in Lent where he confessed himself to have been seduced by naughty Books contrary to the Doctrine then received in the Church But the current of these times have run another way and Cromer might now have Preached that safely for which before he had been brought into so much trouble Thus far Dr. Heylyn as to these Chantries An Act of Parliament for the Election of Bishops BUt that which made the greatest Alteration and threatned most danger to the State Ecclesiastical was The Act Entituled An Act for the Election of Bishops and what Seals and Stiles shall be used by Spiritual Persons c. In which it is Ordained That Bishops should be made by the Kings Letters Patents and not by the Election of the Dean and Chapters and that all their Processes and Writings should be made in the King's Name only with the Bishops Teste added to and Sealed with no other Seal but the Kings or such as should be Authorized and appointed by him In the composing of which Act there was more danger couched than at first appeared By the last branch thereof it was plain and evident That the intent of the Contrivers was by degrees to weaken the Authority of the Episcopal Order by forcing them from their strong hold of Divine Institution and making them no other than the King's Ministers only his Ecclesiastical Sheriffs as a Man might say to execute his Will and disperse his Mandates And of this Act such use was made That the Bishops of those times were not in a capacity of Conferring Orders but as they were thereunto impowered by special Licence The tenor whereof if Saunders be to be believed was in these words to wit The King to such a Bishop Greeting Whereas All and All manner of Jurisdiction as well Ecclesiastical as Civil flows from the King as from the Supreme of all the Body c. We therefore Give and Grant to you Full Power and Licence to continue during our good Pleasure of conferring Orders within your Diocess and promoting fit Persons unto Holy Orders even to that of Priesthood Which being looked upon by Queen Mary not only as a dangerous Diminution of the Episcopal Power but as likewise an odious Innovation in the Church She caused this Act to be Repealed in the First year of her Reign There was also in the first branch more contained than did appear For though it seem'd to aim at nothing but that the Bishops should depend wholly upon the King for their Preferment yet the true drift of that Design was