•11 f ^ U -li '^ ^ ?*=^
i: ■i'' ^^v -H -^ "'"
FROM THE LIBRARY OF REV. LOUIS FITZGERALD BENSON. D. D.
BEQUEATHED BY HIM TO
THE LIBRARY OF
PRINCETON THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY
Dirisdaa Section
v-^.
HISTORY
OF
THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND.
OPINIONS OF THE PRESS.
" He surveys events from a point of view entirely new, and with equal spirit and historical research."— ZZ/^rary Churchman^ Mar., 1878.
"Canon Dixon presents us with the age as it was, not as so many others have fancied it to be. We shall look forward with much interest to the publication of the next instalment of this interesting, instructive, and straightforward history." — National Church, April, 1878.
" The work, if completed as it is here begun, will rank among our standard histories." — Standard, May 16, 1878.
" But the volume that is most likely to make itself felt is Mr. Dixon's History of the Church of England. It is written with very great vigour and terseness : and the author has a very decided view of his own respecting the events which come in the course of his narrative." — Church Times, June 14, 1878 : in an article on Recent Historians.
" He has given us a valuable instalment of what bids fair to be a very able history, in the composition of which so far no pains have been spared, and which is evidently a labour of love. The work exhibits a great amount of careful and impartial reading."— Spectator, Sept. 7, 1878.
" Canon Dixon has a singularly powerful grasp of history, and singu- larly clear view of the period on which he writes. He possesses in no common degree the power of disentangling events and telling them plainly. ... If he continue as he has begun, the whole work will, when complete, be one of the most valuable Church Histories yet known." — Lichfield Diocesan Churchman, Sept., 1879.
" It is impossible to examine the result of his labours without being struck by the unflagging perseverance and patient research that he has brought to bear upon his task. Facts are produced and dealt with in a style that shows perfect familiarity with their bearings, and ability to handle them in a masterly vasLiintr.^'— Carlisle Journal, April i, 1881.
a
opinions of the Press.
" One of the distinguishing features of the second volume is the inter- esting and comprehensive account it contains of the visitation of th^ monasteries and the confiscation of their property. The author truly says : ' I may now claim to have laid before the student of history, for the first time, as I believe, a connected and particular account of the suppres- sion of the English monasteries.'"— A^f^Z/cwa/ C"//«7r/;, May, 1881.
" The book is written with great care and diligence, and is evidently the result of most laborious research. The author has mastered his subject, and is determined that every detail of it shall be brought to light, and regarded in its true bearings. In several parts of the subject, which have been sadly wrested by various writers, he has made the facts clear." — Guardian, June 18, 1881.
" No better or fuller account of the Divorce question has ever been given than by Canon Dixon, and his record, point by point, of the sup- pression of the monasteries is written with a good grasp of the principle at issue and an accurate knowledge of the leading facts. The systematic and atrocious wickedness of the Visitors, the already prepared charges against the religious, the arts of bribery, corruption and lying combinedly used to effect the object in view, the robbery of lands, jewels and goods, are all set forth with graphic power and marked ability. Here the Canon's researches have produced considerable results, and he deserves the highest and most unqualified commendation." — The Anchor, Sept. 29, 1881.
" There is no doubt that Canon Dixon is master of his subject, and a writer of great literary distinction." — The Times, Jan. 15, 1891.
HISTORY
OF THE
CHURCH OF ENGLAND
VOL. II.
^ FEB 23 1932 HISTORY %/«.,„., „,.,«^vt
CHURCH OF ENGLAND
FROM THE ABOLITION
OF
THE ROMAN JURISDICTION. RICHARD WATSON DIXON, MA.,
VICAR OF WARKWORTH ; HONORARY CANON OF CARLISLE.
Srttrfi CHtiitton, l^fijiseU.
VOL. II.
Henry VIII. — a.d. 1538-1547: Edward VI. — a.d. 1547, 1548.
LONDON:
GEORGE ROUTLEDGE AND SONS, Limited,
Broadway, Ludgate Hill,
Manchester and New York.
1895.
iAll rights reserved.]
HORACE HART, PRINTER TO THE UNIVERSITY
CONTENTS
OF
THE SECOND VOLUME.
CHAPTER Vni. Henry VIII., a.d. 1538.
PAGE
Meeting of the Protestants at Brunswick I
First German Mission to England for the sake of religion ... 2 Consultation of the German orators with a Commission of English
divines • • • 3
The point of disagreement 4
Failure of the Mission 5
Its indirect effect on English formularies ^b.
The General Council again prorogued 6
The Pacification of Nice 7
Bonner sent to Nice ^b.
His character and former history 8
He supersedes Gardiner in France 9
Strange scene between him and Gardiner lb.
He is raised to the see of Hereford 10
Progress of the Monastic Suppression ii
Career of Legh in this year 12
He destroys about thirty religious houses, small and great . . lb.
Career of Layton in this year 17
He only destroys about ten, but nearly all great ones . . .lb.
The Confession of St. Andrew's, Northampton 18
It bestows a new title on the King 19
It is of no value in determining the state of the monasteries in
morality 20
Layton suppresses, among other houses, St. Augustine's in Canter- bury 22
And several Gilbertine houses 24
Legh and Layton together attack the friars of London . . .25
vi Contents of the
PAGE
Career of Petre in this year ........ 26
He destroys about twenty houses, among them Abingdon, Evesham,
Kenilworth, Walsingham ........ 27
He nearly exterminates the Gilbertines 28
Legh, Layton, and Petre together at St. Albans . . . -30
Their difficulties and success there 31
Career of other visitors : Tregonwell, Capel and Wentworth,
Ashton 33
Transactions of Audley and Rich 33
Miscellaneous surrenders . 34
The Confession of Bittlesden, or the Profoundly considering Confes- sion, which was used by about six monasteries . . . -35 Hard service which this Confession, and that of St. Andrew's, have
seen in history 36
Career of Richard Ingworth, Bishop Suffragan of Dover . . -37
He aims to be the hammer of the friars lb.
He is very active, and does much 38
But is too scrupulous for Crumwel lb.
Who writes him a smart letter ........ 39
The state in which he found the friars 40
Career of Doctor London 41
His former history and character lb.
He suppresses about thirty houses in the short space of about four
months 42
He destroys a chantry lb.
His notorious visit to Godstow nunnery 43
His great ability for the sort of work 44
Consternation among the rehgious ....... 46
Especially among the friars of the North, who surrender them- selves in large numbers 47
Great destruction of relics and images 48
Sketch of the history of relics 49
Pilgrimages, and the abuse of them . . . . . . .51
Stories of feigned relics that were destroyed 52
The Angel of Caversham lb.
The Rood of Boxley 53
The Blood of Hales lb.
Latimer's doings this year ; his wavering ...... 54
His jocose but horror-stricken letters lb.
He urges Crumwel to save something out of the wreck of religion . 55
The Image of Darvel Gadern 56
The imprisoned religious Jb.
Friar Forest, the Observant lb.
His horrible execution.
57
Trial and probable execution of Anthony Brown, another Observant. 59
Other victims 60
Cranmer as the official of the new loyalty 6l
Second Volume. vii
PAGE
His difficult position 6i
His quarrel with a Kentish justice about the Bishops' Book, or Insti- tution of a Christian Man lb.
His bickerings with the Convent of Christchurch . . . -63 He suggests that the blood of St. Thomas of Canterbury be examined. lb.
Splendour of the shrine of Canterbury 64
Visit paid to it in Archbishop Warham's time by Erasmus and Colet
— a picture of the old religion 65
Contrasted with the last visit on record, which was paid to it in this
year by a Frenchwoman 68
Henry's war against St. Thomas 69
Destruction of the shrine ......... 70
St. Thomas proclaimed a traitor 71
All memorials of him ordered to be obliterated lb.
Destruction of all shrines throughout England 72
History of the English Bible in this year 74
Grafton and Coverdale sent to Paris to prepare a new edition of their
version ............ lb.
A rival springs up in Southwark ........ lb.
Somewhat impudent letter of Grafton to Crumwel thereupon . . 75 The new edition seized by the Inquisition in Paris . . . .76
But a new issue is got ready and published 'J^
This was the Great Bible, or Bible of the largest volume . . .lb.
Description of the frontispiece 78
The Great Bible ordered by Crumwel, in his Injunctions of this year,
to be provided in all churches 80
Crumwel's Injunctions of this year 81
Their severe tone lb.
They order the destruction of abused images 82
Their regulations about ceremonies : the three lights . . . .lb.
As to residence : licensed preachers 83
Registers ordered to be kept ib.
Their other regulations . 84
Something said about the old Liturgies Ib-
The Landgrave of Hesse urges the King to put down Anabaptists . 85
The King burns some Ib.
Martyrdom of Lambert, who appealed from the Archbishop to the
Supreme Head 86
He was a follower of Frith . . Ib-
His early troubles Ib-
Principle of inquiry in ecclesiastical processes Ib-
Lambert was given into Cranmer's hands by Barnes and Taylor, two
Gospellers of the earlier sort °7
Lambert appeals to the Supreme Head ... . • • .88 TheSupremeHead trieshimin Whitehall : scandalous scene of histrial. 89 His barbarous execution .....•••• 93 The Papal sentences and bulls against Henry Ib-
viii Coiite7tts of the
PAGE
The Bull of Excommunication and Deposition prepared three years
ere this, but not published 94
Terrific nature of the document 95
Was it published now ? 96
Examination of the question lb.
The King kills Pole's brother Henry and the Marquis of Exeter, and others of the Old Learning, and puts Pole's mother under supervision 97
CHAPTER IX.
Henry VIII., a.d. 1539.
Rumours of an invasion to be attempted 100
Henry fortifies the coast 1 01
Second legation of Cardinal Pole lb.
He is received in Spain by the Emperor lb.
His Apology to Cccsar " 102
Description therein of the fall of the monasteries . . . .lb.
And of Crumwel's career 103
He sends a Proem to the Scottish King . . . . . .lb.
Meeting of the Protestants at Frankfort 104
Proposed conference between them and the Pontificians . . .lb.
Dissatisfaction both of the Pope and of the English King at this . lb.
Letter of Melanchthon to the King 105
He describes a new school of thinking 106
Widespread desire for a compromise of differences . . . .lb. Second German Mission to England for the sake of religion . . 107 Astonishing liberality of the concessions offered by the Germans . lb. They were willing to admit the Roman Primacy, and to make con- cessions on all the disputed points lb.
Failure of the Mission. 109
Progress of the Monastic Suppression before the new Parliament . no
Continued panic of the religious in the North ill
Career of Doctor London in the Midlands 112
Career of Doctor Tregonwell in the South and West . • . -113
He suppresses more than twenty houses 114
Career of Doctor Petre in the same parts, who suppresses about
a dozen 115
Miscellaneous surrenders 117
General Election 118
Meeting of Parliament, end of April lb.
Audley's Speech 119
Committee of Bishops appointed for uniformity of religion . . lb. As they cannot agree, the Duke of Norfolk propounds the Six Articles
in open Parliament . lb.
Three days' debate thereupon 120
Second Volume. ix
PAGE
A penal statute made to enforce Uniformity 121
This was the celebrated Act of the Six Articles 122
Examination of it lb.
It was a mixture of ecclesiastical and English law . . . .lb. Terrible rigour with which the process of attainder was applied in
this session 125
Case of the Countess of Salisbury lb.
Act for restoring religious persons to civil rights 126
Act giving all monasteries to the King 127
No reform made thereby of the abuse of exemptions . • . .lb.
Act of Proclamations 128
The true intent of it not to enlarge, but to limit the Prerogative . 129
It stuck long lb.
It made an exception of the case of heresy, and resigned heretics to
the King 13°
Act to apply monasteries to public use 131
Last appearance of the Abbots in Parliament . . ... .132
Meetings of the two Convocations . 1 33
Effect of the new Acts on the country and on the King . . -134 Henry issues a new Proclamation for Unifonnity on the strength of
the Act of Proclamations ^b.
He complains of the abuse made of liberty to read the Scriptures . lb. Perhaps he amuses himself by setting the Act at nought . . . 135 First Persecution of heretics under the Six Articles . . . .lb.
It was mainly conducted by laymen lb-
Who showed great activity lb.
Their " branches of the statute " 136
They collect so many heretics, that the King has to pardon them all . lb. True nature of the persecutions under the Six Articles . . -137
The other inconveniences of that Act 138
Cranmer dismisses his wife lb.
Shaxton resigns his see lb.
Latimer is forced by Crumwel to resign also lb.
The troubles of Latimer 139
The troubles of Sampson : his weakness 140
Crumwel puts him in the Tower, and seizes his goods . . . 141 Progress of the Monastic Suppression after the session of Parliament 142
The career of Doctor London lb.
He dissolved more than twenty houses . . . ... lb.
His shrewd observations on the state of the religious . . . 143
After many exploits, he joins some other visitors in Hampshire and
Wiltshire 144
Interesting sack of Winchester lb'
Of Twynham Abbey 145
Of Amesbury, Malmesbury, Hales, &c 146
Career of Doctor Petre 147
Who dissolves Bury St. Edmund's, &c lb.
X Contents of the
PAGE
Career of Legh and Layton in the North 148
Legh dissolves twelve houses J^b.
Among them Durham ; interesting destruction of St. Cuthbert's shrine 149 Layton dissolves St. Mary's and St. Leonard's in York, and many
other houses . . . 151
They destroyed shrines everywhere, without any commission . .152
Career of Uvedale .lb.
Career of Williams 153
Other surrenders I54
The three Abbots, of Reading, Colchester, and Glastonbury, attainted
and executed I55
Case of the last of them, Whiting : he was accused of sacrilege . .156 Letter of Melanchthon to the King : he remonstrates against the Six
Articles 159
He blames the bishops for them, and imputes them to the new school
which he had described formerly 160
A nameless Apologist of the King 161
Who enables us to review the Reformation from the beginning . . lb.
Value of his Vindication . . 163
Proclamation concerning Ceremonies 164
Royal Injunctions against heretical books 165
They forbid any English version of the Scriptures unless allowed by
the King, Council, or by the bishops . . . ... lb.
They forbid disputations on the Sacrament ..... 166
Proclamation against diversity of translations of the Scriptures . . lb.
The Great Bible made the standard version lb.
But the Great Bible does not sell well lb.
Bonner translated to London 167
His curious commission, and the history of it lb.
Ireland 169
The rising of Kildare in 1534 lb.
Mistakenly represented as a religious movement . . . .lb.
Ireland was perfectly indifferent to the Reformation . . . .170
Ireland had no veneration for the Pope 171
Low condition of the country 175
The Reformation was imported into it from England ready made . lb.
George Browne made Archbishop of Dublin 176
His character lb.
Meeting of the Dublin Parliament, which carried the Reformation, in
1536 177
They passed all the English Reformatory Statutes in a mass . .178
They suspended Poynings's law lb.
Opposition offered by the clergy 179
Curious position of the Irish clergy proctors lb.
Further reformatory measures l?o
Anecdotes or observations : Supreme Head in Ireland : Monastic
Suppression in Ireland 181
Second Vohime. xi
PAGE
The Reformation unwelcome 183
Irish policy of Henry lb.
His extraordinary rapacity 184
He proposes to confiscate the whole island lb.
Archbishop Browne in Ireland 185
The Council lb.
The Lord-Deputy Leonard Grey 186
Browne's difficulties lb.
The King writes him a severe letter lb.
Browne disliked by the clergy and rehgious 187
His quarrel with Staples, Bishop of Meath 188
He conjoins the two Churches of England and Ireland in formularies 190 He actively traverses the country, preaching and exacting oaths . lb. General visitation of Ireland by royal Commissioners in 1537 . . lb.
Their reports seem to find little amiss 191
The Irish suppression of monasteries lb.
The Pope and the northern chieftains negotiate with one another . 192 Confederacy of the northern chieftains under O'Neal in 1539 . . 193 Defeated by Grey at Bellahoe I94
CHAPTER X.
Henry VIII., a.d. 1540, 1541.
Foreign affairs I95
Visit of the Emperor to Paris . . • lb.
Henry causes one of the Emperor's suite to be arrested . . . 196 Violent scene between the Emperor and Wyatt the Ambassador . lb.
The Emperor's opinion of the King I97
The prisoner is released lb.
Second interview between the Emperor and Wyatt . . . .lb. Futile attempt of Henry to browbeat the Emperor .... 198
The Ingratitude story ^b.
Norfolk sent to Paris to get satisfaction lb.
Failure of his mission I99
End of the Ingratitude story lb.
The Monastic Suppression 200
Career of London in this year . lb.
He suppresses Gloucester and Tewkesbury lb.
Career of Layton lb.
He dissolves some more houses in the North, among them Carlisle
and Shap ^b.
He is made Dean of York 20I
His subsequent history lb.
Career of Legh in this year Jb.
He dissolves Chester, Shrewsbury, and other places .... 202
xu
Contents of the
PAGE
His subsequent history 2°^
Dissolution of Westminster, Waltham, Canterbury, and other great
houses which still remained •''^•
End of the Suppression 203
Magnitude and rapidity of the revolution . . . • • 204
It caused great temporary distress 205
The old monastics were good landlords lb.
Frightful waste of the process I^-
It was carried out in a dissolute manner 206
But with some of the advantages of order . . . . • • 207
Pensions of the monks . ^b.
The distinction between Church property and monastic property was
maintained 208
The King held to the spoils as long as he could 209
His rate of fluxion .......••• 210
He created a new sort of pluralists 21 1
The various kinds of beneficiaries lb.
Eminent new monastics ... lb.
The new monastics nearly all laymen . . . . . . -213
The new-founded families seldom continued long in direct succession 214
The new monastics were not like the old ones 215
Difficulty, which had been found, of keeping up the numbers of
the convents ........... 216
The monastic institute was always foreign to England . . .217
General reflections . . .218
Effect of the suppression on the Church of England .... 220 Narrowing of the conception of what clergy are . . . . .lb. The impropriated benefices not restored to the Church . . .lb. The lay holders of them not subject to the bishops . . . .lb. Royal scheme for more than twenty new bishoprics . . . .lb.
Of which six were erected 222
Specimen of the scheme {7iote) . . lb.
Distinction between cathedral churches of the Old and New Founda- tion . lb.
In spite of the alleged depravity of the late religious, many of them .were promoted to be deans, prebendaries, and bishops . . 223
Effect of the suppression upon education 226
Loss of the monastic schools Jb.
The poor found it less easy to get education than before . . . 227 The upper classes began to go to the Universities more than before 228
Case of the Grammar School of Canterbury lb.
The Commissioners were for excluding the children of poor men from it lb. Cranmer spoke on the other side ....... 229
The education of the poor was flung entirely on the Church by the
suppression . Jb.
Foundation of the Jesuits in this year ...... 230
Their institute was the reduction of the regular religious life to reason Jb.
Second Volume. xHI
PAGE
And the dawn of the modern spirit of the Papacy .... 232
Meeting of Parliament, 12th April lb.
Speech of Audley lb.
Last speech of Crumwel in Parliament 233
He announces a Commission to devise a new formulary of religion . lb.
Constitution of that Commission 234
It was the Commission that produced the Necessary Doctrine, or
King's Book, three years afterwards lb.
Probably it also produced a rationale of ceremonies which was not
published ... lb.
Dissolution of the Knights Hospitallers 235
Acts on the decay of towns and parishes, which was caused by the
suppression 236
Act to enforce tithes, "made necessary by the same event . . . 237 Acts about clerical incontinency, sanctuaries, and collection of
tenths . . . . . lb.
Creation of the Court of Firstfruits and Tenths 238
New subsidy demanded by the King ....... 239
The Southern Convocation : no particular business .... 240
The nullity of the King's marriage with Anne of Cleves . . .lb.
The fall of Crumwel lb.
Strange scenes rumoured between him and the King . . . .lb. He is arrested and sent to the Tower on charge of treason and
heresy ............ 241
Strangeness, and yet probability, of the allegations . . . .lb.
They seem confirmed by the still stranger charge which the English
ambassadors at foreign courts added to them .... 242
Cranmer intercedes for Crumwel 244
A great number of persons had been attainted just before his arrest . 246
Crumwel is attainted 247
His curious letter to the King 248
The King's message to him 249
His second letter to the King 250
His execution . lb.
Execution of six of the attainted : Abel, Fetherstone, and Powell,
Barnes, Garret, and Jerome ; three for treason, three for heresy 251
Previous history of the former three lb.
And of Jerome lb.
Of Garret 252
Of Barnes lb.
The occasion of the execution of these three was Gardiner's Lenten
Sermon at Paul's Cross 254
To which Barnes offered a reply lb.
Intervention of the King in the matter 255
The three ordered to preach and recant in the Spital Church . . 256 Their demeanour .......... lb.
They are committed to the Tower lb.
xlv Contents of the
PAGE
Instead of a trial, a simple declaration is made that they had not
recanted properly 256
They declare at the fire that they know not why their life is taken . 257
Gardiner's conduct in the matter lb-
The Privy Council takes the place of Crumwel in a manner . . 258 Constitution of that body ; its extraordinary activity .... 259
Its modes of procedure lb-
Grafton brought before the Council for publishing Melanchthon's
Epistle about the Six Articles 261
His curious and complicated case 262
He is examined on his career as a Biblical publisher . . . .lb. He is succeeded by Ant. Marler as publisher of the Great Bible . 263
The Great Bible a great drug in the market lb.
Proclamation to enforce the sale of it lb.
The Second Persecution under the Six Articles at the beginning of
1 541 264
The same agents employed as in the first lb.
It raged chiefly in London ; behaviour of Bonner . . . . 265
Examination of his alleged brutality lb.
Case of Mekins lb.
Proof that the clergy had no share in the persecution . . . 266
Death of Porter in Newgate 267
The great mass of the heretics released, as in the former persecution 268
Indecency and profanity of these heretics lb.
Those of them who were clergy were dealt with somewhat more
sharply than the rest 269
Alleged cases of persecution in Lincoln and Salisbury . . .lb.
Neville's Insurrection in York 270
Execution of the Countess of Salisbury lb.
The King at length makes his Northern progress .^ . . . 271
And receives submissions and gifts lb.
Execution of the lovers of Katharine Howard 272
Ireland lb.
Lord-Deputy Grey disgraced and executed lb.
General submission of the Irish chiefs lb.
Their enthusiastic loyalty lb.
Of which the cause was that the King gave them the monastic lands 273 Parliament of Dublin, June, 1 541 ....... lb.
It alters the King's style from Lord to King of Ireland . . .lb.
It confirms the revolution lb.
Henry's so-called second Conquest of Ireland 274
Second Vohtine. xv
CHAPTER XL Henry VIII., a. d. 1542, 1543.
PAGE
Parliament, January 276
Outburst of loyalty lb.
Audley's speech 277
The King present in Parliament 278
Moyle's speech lb.
Acts against Frauds and Treasons 279
Parliament facilitates the operations of the Council . . . .lb.
Other loyal Acts 280
Especially one to prepare the way for the dissolution of colleges,
hospitals, and chantries .lb.
Act for repairing decayed Towns lb.
Act against Witchcraft 281
It was a consequence of the Monastic Suppression . . . .lb.
The ravage caused by treasure-seeking lb.
The Act made a new felony 282
Convocation 283
Character of the new prelates : Heath, Holgate, Knight, Bell,
Thirlby, Bird lb.
The Great Bible discussed in Convocation 285
A new translation undertaken lb.
The work arranged and apportioned 286
Gardiner's curious list of venerable words 287
The undertaking is suddenly quashed by the King .... 288
Great injustice done to it by historians 289
The clergy strive to reform abuses ....... 290
Audley submits to them a proposed Parliamentary Bill on Spiritual
Jurisdiction 291
Steps taken towards the Liturgic Reformation . . . . .lb. The public Service Books to be more carefully castigated . . .lb. The Use of Sarum ordered on the clergy of the whole province of
Canterbury in their canonical private devotions .... 292 That Use had been already adopted in most churches, and several
times printed ere this lb.
Ordinance about diet lb.
Scotland 293
History and condition of that kingdom compared with England . lb.
Misfortunes of the Stuarts lb.
James the Fifth, a strong Catholic, but inclined to be a reformer . 294
The Scottish clergy 295
James threatens them with his uncle of England . . . .lb.
Ill feeling between James and Henry 296
James takes a title that enrages Henry lb.
VOL. II. b
xvi Contents of the
PAGE
Henry's plot of kidnapping James 297
War with Scotland ^"'
Halydon Rigg . . lb.
Henry renews the old claims-on Scotland 298
Solway Moss lb.
Death of James the Fifth . . 299
The Continent Jb.
Alliance between the Empire and England against France. . . lb.
Weakness of the Pope 3°°
The Council of Trent proposed and deferred lb.
Negotiations between Charles and Henry lb.
tienry outwitted by Charles lb.
The Emperor's victorious campaign against the Protestants . . 301
The humbling of the Duke of Cleves lb.
The third English Confession, or Necessary Doctrine and Erudition
of a Christian Man 302
Method employed in composing it : by written questions and
answers ; description of the originals 303
Various opinions about the number of the Sacraments . . . 306 Curious questions on the origin and authority of Episcopacy . . 307 Cranmer's remarkable answers ........ lb.
Answers of other bishops and doctors ...... 308
The King's characteristic observations thereon . . . . .310
Rationale of rites and ceremonies, which was probably composed by
part of the same Commission, but not published . . . -.311 The old Service Books and their divisions . . . . . .312
The conservative tone of this Rationale may have been the reason
why it was suppressed . . .313
The new Confession, the Necessary Doctrine, brought into the
Convocation of 1543 . -314
Some Homilies also introduced .lb.
The clergy send some Petitions to the King ..... lb. One of which was to have the Statute for Revising the Ecclesiastical
Laws by thirty-two Commissioners confirmed . . . .lb. The old Service Books ordered to be called in and castigated . -315 Passage of the new Confession, the Necessary Doctrine, through
Convocation .316
Examination of the work ......... 317
Reasons why it was called the King's Book 318
The preface . . lb.
Comparison of the new Confession with the former Confession, the
Institution of a Christian Man . • 319
As to Faith and the Sacraments . lb.
As to the Ten Commandments 321
As to the Lord's Prayer 322
The Necessary Doctrine taught higher doctrine than the Institution ;
but it was far more liberal, and better composed .... 323
Second Vohune. xvil
PAGE
Parliament of 1543 3^4
Act to limit the English Bible to the higher classes . . . .325
Abject nature of this Act H^-
It provides that no more than nine of the Council might punish
offenders • -326
Enormous subsidy ; and inquisition into property . . . .lb.
Henry's sixth marriage 327
Narrow escape of Katharine Parr lb.
Third Persecution under the Six Articles 328
It raged chiefly at Windsor lb.
Testwood, the singing-man of Windsor, and his merry jests . . lb.
Doctor London as Prebendary of Windsor 330
He takes action against the Windsor heretics 33 ^
They are examined in London lb.
And four of them tried by jury in Windsor lb.
One of them, the celebrated musician Marbeck, saved by Capon and
Gardiner 332
The other three burned Jb.
Doctor London and his fellows aim at higher game .... 333 The King prospectively prevents them . . . . • .lb. Discomfiture and lamentable fate of Doctor London and his fellows . 334
Doctor London had aimed higher still lb.
Cranmer and the King • 335
The first of several attempts to shake Cranmer lb.
The Prebendaries of Canterbury conspire against him . . .lb. Among the reasons for their hostility, Cranmer had tried to get all
prebends abolished 33^
Cranmer examines the conspiring Prebendaries, with little success . lb.
Gardiner encourages them against him 2,y]
Doctor Legh discovers with ease the plot which had baffled Cranmer lb. Cranmer punishes the Prebendaries 33^
CHAPTER XII.
Henry VIII., a.d. 1544, 1545, 1546, i547-
Meeting of Parliament and Convocation 339
Renewal of the statute for revising the ecclesiastical laws by thirty- two lb.
Cranmer's anxiety in the matter 34°
He and others had got ready some sort of code for the King to
authorise .... lb.
The attempt comes to nothing .lb.
New Act of Succession : last perfection of the oath against the
Pope 342
Act to limit the Six Articles by requiring twelve witnesses . . . 343
b 2
xviii Contents of the
PAGE
The King's debts cancelled 344
Second attempt against Cranmer: made by Sir J. Gostwick in
Parliament lb.
The King's affection for Cranmer . 345
Third attempt against Cranmer : made by the Lords of the Council lb.
Their amazing blunder 346
The story of the King's ring 347
Origin of the English Litany 349
It was put together by Cranmer out of the Latin Litany, and the old
English versions of the same, contained in Primers and such-like
books 350
Diet of Speyer, in 1544 352
Separate peace between the Empire and France .... 353
Mutual disgust of Charles and Henry lb.
Henry invades France, and takes Boulogne . . . . .lb. The great antiquarian age begun in England on the destruction of
the monasteries . 354
John Leland, and his New Year's Gift to the King .... 355
Leland's prodigious designs 356
His unhappy story , ... lb.
The great antiquarians 357
The antiquarian age lasted about 1 50 years lb.
It was succeeded by the English historical age 358
Which began with the history of the English Church . . . 359
What Primers were 360
They were Hour Books, or private prayer-books in English : long
before the Reformation lb.
Two of the latest Primers briefly examined: Marshall's Primer . 361
Hilsey's Primer Jb.
All others superseded by the authorised Primer in 1546 . . . 362
Examination of this 363
The authorised Primer, or private prayer-book, preceded the reform
of the public service-books . . lb.
How far the Liturgic Reformation reached in this reign . . . 364
What further measures were contemplated lb.
The Council of Trent . 365
Gathering of the fathers, delays, and discontent lb.
Alarm of the Protestants 366
Henry renews his negotiations with them lb.
He proposes a separate league with some of them, which is refused . lb. Bambach and Sleidan deputed by them to treat with Henry . . 367
They go to Calais, and nothing comes of it lb.
The Cardinal Legates arrive at Trent 368
Rumours about Pole Jb.
He writes his book 'De Concilio ' lb.
Review of the same 350
It was a fit prelude to the Council of Trent 371
Second Volume. xix
PAGE
Opening of the Council, December, 1545 371
Thin attendance lb.
The great subjects the extirpation of heresy and the restoration of
discipline 372
Precision of their decrees from the first lb.
Character of the Legates lb.
Speedy departure of Pole 373
Violence of the debates on discipline lb.
Great depravation of the churches on the Continent . . .lb.
Fierce hostility between the bishops and the religious orders . . 374 The Pope attempts to recall the question of discipline to himself . 375
But is set at nought lb.
Real object of the Pope and Emperor to attack the Protestants . lb.
Whom the Emperor amuses meanwhile with conferences . . .lb. As soon as the Council was opened, Henry began once more to treat
with the Protestants 376
The Landgrave proposes once more that he be head of their League 377 Henry says he will consider it, and sends another agent . . .lb. He proposes a new league, to be called the League Christian . . 378 And requests them to send Commissioners into England . . .lb. The Emperor attacks the Protestants, and shatters the Smalcaldic
League lb.
Meeting of Parliament, November, 1545 lb.
Curious Act, in which the forms of ecclesiastical law were imitated . 379 This was the only legislative outcome of the scheme for revising the
ecclesiastical laws by a Commission of thirty-two . . .lb. Act for dissolving chantries, hospitals, and free chapels . . .lb.
Alleged reasons of this 3^0
What these foundations were . lb.
Intense and even arbitrary loyalty of the Act 381
Beginning of the Suppression of chantries lb.
New subsidies lb.
The Royal necessities and expedients 3^2
Other Acts 3^3
The King's last speech in Parliament 384
His opinion of his revolution 3^5
Scotland after Solway Moss 3^6
Intrigues of Henry lb.
Resistance of the national party, headed by Beton .... 387
The Pope sends a legate to Scotland lb.
Henry treats him with contempt lb.
Declaration of war 3^8
Fearful ravages committed by Hertford at the head of a hired army lb.
Ancram Moor 3^9
Second expedition of fire and sword lb.
Henry procures the assassination of Beton ..... lb. The Heretics 39°
XX Contents of the
PACE
Doctor Crome's unwise dilemma 390
His unsatisfactory recantation 39^
He is brought before the Council, and professes perfect innocence
and profound surprise lb.
But is signally routed by Doctor Cox lb.
He then inculpates many others 392
Among whom is Latimer ......... lb.
Latimer brought before the Council 393
He refuses to answer written questions lb.
He attacks Gardiner, and gets answered lb.
The Council get little out of him, and probably let him go . . . 394 Some other persons examined on Crome's matter . . . .lb. Among them one Lascelles, who was burned ultimately . . . 395
Fourth Persecution under the Six Articles .lb.
Anne Askew : her previous history lb.
She comes to London, and is soon committed to the Compter for
heresy 396
She is brought before Bonner : who does his best to save her . . lb. She is set at liberty, but is soon in again, and is brought before the
Council 397
They do what they can to save her, but at last send her to Newgate . 398
Much persuasion used with her in vain lb.
Shaxton sent to her ; his miserable history since his deprivation . lb.
Anne Askew sent to the Tower and racked 399
She is sent back to Newgate 400
She and three others burned in Smithfield : the sermon preached by
Shaxton .lb.
Alarm among the official spectators 401
Shaxton compelled to make another sermon at Paul's Cross . . lb.
The rest of the story of his fall {7iote) 402
Henry's last Proclamation about religion 403
It shows an increased contempt for the laws, and lessens the number
of councillors who might punish offenders from nine to four . lb. True nature of the religious persecutions of Henry's last years The King would not let them touch persons of rank . Proof of this in the case of Sir George Blage
Attainder of Norfolk and Surrey
Death and character of the King
404 lb. 405 406 407
CHAPTER XIII.
Edward VL, a.d. 1547.
Splendid funeral of the late King .... , . 410
Gardiner took the chief part therein 412
Cranmer takes the chief part about the young Prince . . . .lb. He causes the Bishops to renew their commissions .... 413
Second Volume. xxi
PAGE
He significantly alters the ceremonies of Coronation . . . .413 At the Coronation he speaks against images and ceremonies . . lb. Gardiner prepares to oppose the threatened alteration of religion . 414
The Will of Henry set aside lb.
Hertford made Lord Protector 415
Gardiner not included among Henry's executors . . . .lb.
Wriothesley dismissed ......... lb.
Creation of nobility 416
Violent measures projected : licence of the times . . . .417
Attack on images in London and Portsmouth lb.
Gardiner's character and position 418
He resolves to stand on Henry's Settlement or Pacification . .419
His letter to the Protector lb.
He interferes about the Portsmouth outrage 420
Somerset's reply to his letter . . . . . • • .421 The First Book of Homihes proposed to be distributed . . . 422 Character of that work: it superseded in effect the last of Henry's
Confessions, the Necessary Doctrine lb.
Erasmus's Paraphrase also to be distributed 423
Character of that work 424
Udal's translation of it : his fulsome Preface ... . . .lb.
Gardiner opposes both the books . 426
His controversy with Cranmer : Cranmer's strange explanation of his
change of action .......... lb.
Gardiner's criticism of the Homily of Salvation 427
His letter to Somerset against the books .lb.
General Visitation of the kingdom 428
The Visitors and their instructions 429
The Injunctions of Edward the Sixth 43°
They were in part those of Henry and Crumwel republished . . lb.
Their ordinations about the public service 43^
They order the English Litany, and abolish processions . . .lb. About ceremonies : the three lights reduced to two . . . .432 Various little superstitions admonished, but not forbidden . . .lb. The difference between abused and not-abused images still maintained 433 But the destruction extended to paintings and windows . . .lb.
The Visitation delayed . .■ . lb.
Foreign affairs • 434
Paget's able review of the position of things . . . • .lb.
The mercenary army of Henry the Eighth 43^
War with Scotland . • • • . Jb.
Character of Somerset 437
Battle of Pinkie 43^
Horrible nature of the war 439
Gardiner opposes the whole policy of the Usurpation .... lb.
He objects to the Injunctions as illegal 44°
His conduct in prospect of the Visitation 44^
XXII
Contejtts of the
the Paraphrase
whatever
He is brought before the Council, and sent to the Fleet
Bonner protests against the Visitation, which reaches St. Paul's
He makes a submission, but is sent to the Fleet .
Destruction of images and tombs in St. Paul's .
Interview between Cranmer and Gardiner .
Gardiner's letter to Somerset from the Fleet
He again criticises the Homily of Salvation
He compares together the Homilies, the Injunctions,
and the late King's Book .... True reason why he was kept in prison Meeting of Parliament, 4th November Repeal of the Acts passed under the late tyranny And of all the old heresy laws .... This liberality more specious than real Act to make vagrants slaves ....
Act against irreverent talkers of the Sacrament . Act ordering that the Eucharist be administered in both kinds Act for election of Bishops by letters patent Act for the union of churches in York . Act for giving chantries and colleges to the King Some of the bishops vainly oppose this The Act was meant to put an end to all corporations
But it was defeated in that
Convocation
Character of Ridley
Character of Holbeach
Terrible spoliation of his see . . , .
Remarkable attempt of Convocation to renew the constitutional
struggle at the point where it had been left after the Submission 466 They send four petitions to Cranmer and the Bishops : —
1. That the ecclesiastical laws might be settled by the thirty-
two Commissioners.
2. That the Clergy might sit in the House of Commons, or else
have Church laws brought before them.
3. That the work of the Commission appointed by the late King
for altering the public services be laid before them (the unpublished Rationale).
4. That the exaction of firstfruits be modified Sketch of the history of the parliamentary position of the clergy Their present demand to sit in the Commons was perhaps untenable
because of the changes of the late reign After waiting in vain for an answer, they renew their demands . And request, furthermore, to have the King's licence granted to de
liberate about ecclesiastical laws
By this demand they took up the constitutional question at the very
point where Henry and his Parliament had left it They got no answer
441 443 444 445 448 lb.
449
451
453
lb.
454 lb.
455 456
457 458 lb.
459 460 461
lb. 462 464 465
lb.
lb.
467 469
471
472
473
474 lb.
Second Volitme.
XXlll
Other measures of Convocation ..... They establish Communion in both kinds, as a principle We possess some remains of deliberations about this . Examination of these .... Some misconceptions removed {note) . The clergy mobbed in London .
The image war
The General Visitation proceeds at last Their Inquiries, Injunctions, and manner of proceeding Recollections of John Old, one of the Visitors . Some threatening incidents ......
Proclamation against irreverent talkers of the Sacrament
Gratification of the rich
Frugal donations to sees and chapters
475 Id. lb.
476 Jb.
A77 478 lb.
479 480
483 484
CHAPTER XIV.
Edward VI., a.d. 1548.
Latimer returns to public life as a licensed preacher
The shadow of the past lies on him
He rebukes superstitions that were gone or going
His Sermon of the Plough .....
He laments the evils of the Reformation
And calls London to repentance . . . ' .
Rapid succession of Orders, Letters, Proclamations about religi
The first a Proclamation for keeping Lent ....
The rigour much mitigated by the system of licences to eat
An Order to forbid ashes, palms, and Candlemas candles .
A Proclamation against Innovation .....
It takes away creeping to the cross, holy bread, and holy water
It begins the restraint of preaching .....
An Order to take away all images, whether abused or not .
The Liturgic Reformation
Appointment of the Windsor Commission .... Which drew up the first English Order of Communion Constitution and number of the Commission
Some misconceptions removed {note)
Examination of the new Sacramentary .... How far it fulfilled Henry's design to "turn the Mass into a
munion "
A foreign model, Hermann's Consultation, was used in it . Reception of the work
Com-
485 486
lb.
lb.
490
Jb.
Jb. 491
Jb.
Jb.
Jb. 492
Jb.
Jb.
493 Jb. Jb.
494
495 496
497
XX iv Contents of the
PAGE
It gives rise to great diversity 497
New Visitation in consequence of the Chantry Act . . . .lb. The Visitation made (perhaps) in a peculiar manner because of the
disquiet of the country 49^
This would account for so many Inventories of church goods of this
reign being in existence 499
The Suppression of Chantries 5°°
Distress of the chanters Jb.
Promises made to them .lb.
Case of St. Stephen's Chapel lb.
Of St. Martin's College 501
Of Lancaster College and Stoke College . . . . . .lb.
The chanters and chapellers were of assistance to the clergy . . 502 Appropriations and grants of such foundations in this year . . lb. Sir P. Hoby proposes the suppression of prebends .... 503
Progress of the original Visitation 504
Revolt in Cornwall : which was severely repressed . . . .lb.
Alarm of the Council lb.
The justices summoned to town, and harangued by Rich . . . 505
Somerset not the man to head the revolution lb.
His Court of Requests 506
He issues a Commission and Proclamation for the redress of inclosures lb.
The commissions for some counties only extant 507
Noble character of John Hales 508
His conduct as a Commissioner . . .lb.
His opening charge : describes the state of the kingdom, greediness
of the rich, &c 509
Resentment of the Earl of Warwick against Hales . . . .510
Boldness and perseverance of Hales • 511
Cranmer and the Heretics 512
Cranmer's Catechism . .lb.
It causes great searchings of heart ....... lb.
Cranmer rather superfluously visits his diocese 513
His Visitation Articles were mostly the King's Injunctions over again lb. Gardiner in trouble again . . . . . . . . • 514
He is examined by the Council on Justification lb.
He is brought up again, and examined generally . . . -515 He is confined to his house in London . . . . . .516
He is required to preach before the King, to write his sermon before- hand, and to read some papers 517
His various stipulations lb.
He is required to touch on the authority of the King, and of the
Council also, in his sermon '. .518
But forbidden to preach of the Sacrament 519
He refuses this lb.
Somerset sends him a sharp letter, which he resolves to disregard . lb. He preaches his sermon, and is sent to the Tower .... 520
Second Volume.
XXV
The Interim 520
It causes a flight of the Lutheran divines 521
Of whom many come to England : many were come already . . lb.
Character of Peter Martyr lb.
Of Martin Bucer 522
Cranmer desired their assistance in making the first Prayer Book . lb. Nay more : he desired that book (which was now designed) to have
effected the oft frustrate concord of England and Germany . . lb.
His letter to Alasco, the Pole lb.
The foreign Hortators of England 523
Bucer ; his epistle to the English Church lb.
Calvin ; his character 524
His epistle to the Lord Protector 525
It contains the germ of clerical subscription 526
Pole ; his epistle to the English Council 527
His epistle to Edward VI. 528
His epistles to Somerset and Warwick 529
Progress of the restraint of preaching lb.
Parish priests forbidden to preach 530
The power of licensing preachers taken from bishops . . . .lb. The licensed preachers vainly admonished not to be too zealous . lb.
All preaching whatever forbidden 531
The restraint, to a considerable degree, lasted throughout the reign . 532 The exploits of Hancock, one of the licensed preachers . . . 533 Sketch of the history of preaching hcences in ancient times . . 534
The system relieved the parish clergy lb.
The Windsor Commission engaged in composing the first Prayer
Book 535
Sketch of the history of Liturgies lb.
The reformation of rites continual from the first lb.
The Reformation of the eleventh century which produced the
Breviaries . . Jb.
The Breviary called Roman did not displace the National or Diocesan
Breviaries 53^
The Roman Breviary reformed by Quignon in the first part of the
sixteenth century .......... 537
But not regularly accepted by Rome ....... lb.
This reformed Roman Breviary was in the hands of the Windsor
Commission , . . .lb.
Boldness of Quignon's principles, many of which were adopted by
the English liturgists 53^
They had also a Lutheran model in Hermann's Consultation : which
539 lb.
541
542
544
they followed in abolishing the Hours
Sketch of the history of the Canonical Hours .... The Commission were to reform the Sarum Use : history of that The Catholic independence of England attested by liturgic history The Commission did their work well
xxvi Contents of the Second Volume.
Parliament in November
The new Prayer Book brought before Parhament
Great Debate on the Sacrament
Cranmer's attitude in the debate
He is thought to have deserted the Lutherans : but this seems
doubtful ..."
John Hales brings forward three Bills for the relief of the poor Com
mons, and the restraint of covetousness ....
They are all defeated
But an Act is passed to keep Lent for sumptuary reasons . Act for the right payment of the religious pensioners .
End of the year, but not of the session
Chronology of the Image War
Index
544 Jb.
lb. 546
lb.
548
549 lb.
550 551 551
553
HISTORY
OF
The Church of England.
CHAPTER VIII.
Henry VIII. — a.d. 1538.
The Protestants met af Brunswick in the early part of the year 1538; when the broken negotiations with England were resumed, and Henry despatched his agent Blunt to make particular enquiries into the strength and constitution of their League. Blunt demanded who their confederates might be, whether their League were for general defence, or limited to matters of religion, and whether they still de- signed to send to England the embassy, accom- panied by Melanchthon, which they had promised iDefore. It seems doubtful whether Henry had any serious intention in these renewed overtures ; nor would the Germans appear to have retained very lively hopes of the alliance of England. Their League, answered they, existed for the sole cause of religion : twenty-six cities and twenty-four princes had joined it : among whom was the newly admitted Chris- tiern the Third of Denmark, a kingdom (it may be
VOL. II. B
2 First German Mission into England [ch. vm.
added) which had been lately reformed with a zeal that left little standing but the people and the rocks. For the embassy, they said that they could ill spare their best learned men : but, to prepare the way for a further treaty, they deputed three persons, not un- learned, to pass into England without delay : Francis Burghart, the Vicechancellor of Hesse, George Boyne- burg, a doctor of laws, and Frederic Myconius, a minister. In this languid manner was undertaken once more a work so great as the projected conformity between Eno-land and the Protestants. The orators arrived in due course, wafted by the prayers, recom- mended by the letters of the great Melanchthon, who declared that in them might be beheld the image of himself* Their visit, though they failed of the main purpose, was not without some lasting consequences. A commission of three bishops and four doctors, in lieu of the whole assembly of the English Church, was appointed to confer with them.f The two parties together went through the Augustan Confession, or at least the first part of it ; on the basis of which they endeavoured to form a comprehensive code of articles
* In Burghart especially. "Ejus de me prcesertim, quern penitus novit, oratio plurimum debeat habere ponderis." Melanchthon's hopes of a concord were great. "Regia tua Majestas respiciat veram Ecclesiam velut advolutam ad genua tua veteri supplicum more, ut auctor esse velis constituendi in hac parte firmi consensus, et duraturi ad posteritatem." — Sirype, ii. 383.
+ " Contulit Myconius cum tribus episcopis et quatuor theologiae doctoribus de singulis capitibus doctrinas Christianee in Confessione Augustana et ejus Apologia comprehensis."— yl/^/<r//z^/' Adam. Vita Mycon. The names of all the English bishops and doctors seem not known : but of the bishops, Strype says " that Tunstall was one : Wriothesley (p. 83) says that Sampson of Chichester was another: and from one of Sampson's letters we may gather that Stokesley was the third (ap. Strype, ii. 381). Wriothesley says that Wilson, the King's Chaplain, was one of the doctors : and that Barnes was deputed by the King to be of the German party. He would make the doctors up to four. Cranmer of course was president.
1538.] for the Sake of Religion. 3
for the use of the Church of England. Their labours, which occupied the summer months, were shared by the Supreme Head, who is said to have proposed the questions to be resolved by them : on which their answers were returned, and then disputed further. In the fundamental doctrines of the Christian relimon there appears to have been little difficulty in coming to a concord : but when the first part of the Con- fession was exhausted, there was less agreement. The English bishops desired to go on to treat of the four remaining Sacraments of matrimony, orders, con- firmation, and extreme unction ; which were acknow- ledged at this time (as we have seen) in the doctrine of England as set forth in the Institution of a Christian Man, but not in the Auo^sburor Confession. The Germans, on the other hand, insisted upon proceeding without interruption to the consideration of Abuses : for under that designation the latter part of the Augustan formulary arranged many of the usages and ceremonies which were then deemed Catholic* They were aided by Cranmer, who scrupled not to inform the Vicegerent of the Supreme Head that the bishops proposed the four Sacraments only because they knew that the Germans would not agree with them, and that they plainly meant to break the
* The Augsburg Confession consists of two parts : the first concern- ing religion in general, twenty-one Articles : I. Of God. 2. Of Original Sin. i- Of the Incar7iation. 4. Of fustif cation. ^. Of the Preaching of Repe7ita)ice. 6. Of the Righteousness of Good Works. 7. Of the Church. 8. Of Sacra7nents ministered by evil tnen. 9. Of Baptistn. 10. Of the Lord^s Supper. li. Of Repentance. 12. Of Confessiofi. 13. Of the Use of Sacraments. 14. Of Ecclesiastical Order. 15. Of Ecclesiastical Rites. 16. Of Civil Ordinances. 17. Of the Last Judgment. 18, Of Free Will. 19. Of the Cause of Sin. 20. Of Good Works. 21. Of Invocation. The second part consisted of seven Articles concerning Abuses: i. Of the Mass. 2. Of either Kind. 3. Of Confession. 4. Of difference of Meats. 5. Of the Marriage of Priests. 6. Of Monastic Vows. 7. Of Ecclesiastical Power.
B 2
4 Difficulties and Dissensions, [ch. vm.
concord. The bishops argued that the Supreme Head himself had undertaken to answer the German orators on the Abuses; and that they could not meddle therein, lest they should write contrary to what the Supreme Head wrote.* In this affair the desires of Crumwel seem to have been opposite to the intention of the King: and the concert and alliance of the Germans would have been a great support to the anxious minister. His coadjutor Cranmer, whose German sympathies were strong, appears to have succeeded in compelling the conference to abandon the discussion of the four Sacraments, and to proceed to the Abuses : but the success was only momentary. The Abuses themselves furnished the ground of new dis- sensions : and finally it was found impossible to come to a common understanding on the receiving of the Lord's Supper in both kinds, on the use of private masses, in which the priest or other person so disposed received for others, and on the celibacy of priests. Alike to the Supreme Head and to his bishops the liberty of the Lutherans in these important particulars appeared inadmissible : these in vain drew out their arguments and explanations at vast length for the conviction of Henry : their memorial was referred to Tunstall by the King : and the learned Bishop of Durham composed in briefer style an answer which
* " The orators of Germany required that we should go forth in their book, and entreat of the Abuses, so that the same might be set forth in writing, as the other articles are. I have since effectuously moved the bishops thereto : but they have made me this answer : that they know that the king's grace hath taken upon himself to answer the said orators in this behalf, and thereof a book is already devised by the king's ma- jesty : and therefore they will not meddle with the Abuses, lest they should write therein contrary to that the King shall write. Wherefore they have required me to entreat now of the sacraments of matrimony, orders, confirmation, and extreme unction ; wherein they know certainly that the Germans will not agree with us," &c. — Cranfiier to Cruinw. Lett. p. 379. See also Partridge to Bullinger, Orig. Lett. p. 612.
1 538-] Failure of the Mission. 5
expressed the mind of his master and his Church.* The King again consulted Gardiner, who was still his ambassador in Paris : and the last act of the skilful prelate, in his diplomatic capacity, was to decide for the second time the defeat of the attempted concord by advising his sovereign to conclude a civil league with the Protestants before entering upon questions of religion, t To the sorrow of Cranmer, the orators were compelled to depart, after a long sojourn, during which they so far overestimated their influence as to attempt to obtain for a heretic a mitigation of his penance,^ Their expenses appeared great to the German princes who supplied them : the sumptuous table which they kept was ill supported by the miserable lodging, swarming with rats and smelling of the kitchen, which was all that England afforded them : and die health of Myconius was impaired by anxiety and inconvenience. \ Such was the end of the first German embassy con- cerning religion. But though they failed in their im- mediate object, yet to their visit may be traced the Lutheran, the Augustan complexion of a considerable part of the present Articles of the Church of England. ||
* The long Letter of the German ambassadors to the King, 5 August, may be seen in Burnet, Addend. No. 7. Strype has given an indifferent summary of it in PZnglish (ii. 386) ; and CoUier has performed the same office far better (vol. ii. p. 143). The Answer of Tunstall is in Burnet, Addend. No. 8. t Burnet.
X " Yesterday Franciscus, the duke of Saxe's chancellor, was in hand with me and the bishop of Chichester very instantly to have Atkinson's penance altered from Paul's unto the parish church of the said Atkinson," &c. — CraJtiiier to Crutnw. Lett. p. 371.
§ " Sumptus illius legationis magnus tunc visus est Protestantium pro- ceribus — splendide tamen vixerunt legati et liberalem mensam exhibuer- ant." — St'ckeftdorf, iii. 16, Ixvi. Cf. Cranmer's Lett. pp. 377, 379; and Myconius to Crumw. Strype, ii. 384.
II A " Book containing divers Articles," which were drawn up for the agreement of the English and German divines on this occasion, has been printed among Cranmer's Remains, p. 472, Par. Soc. Jenkyns, iv. 273 : from the Record Office. Another Original has been printed by Strype, ii. 442, from Cleopatra E. 5. It is much shorter than the other,
6 The General Council again Prorogued, [ch.viii.
The General Council, so often indicted to be held in Mantua, and so often prorogued, had been defini- tively ordered by the Pope to be opened on the first of May in this year, the place being changed
from which it also varies considerably in places. Strype tells us that he digested it into six Articles, and prefixed to them the title which they bear in his work, " Quidam Doctrinte Christianas Articuli pro Ecclesia Anglicana." He rather gratuitously supposes them to have been the work of the Commission which drew up The King's Book two years later (Strype, i. 551). They may possibly have been extracted from another original for the use of that Commission : but it is safer to refer them at once to the earlier date of the German Conference. These manuscript drafts have this importance, that there is not a passage in the present Articles of the Church of England taken from the Augsburg Confession that is not to be found in them also. They must have been known therefore when the present Articles began to be compiled. I say, began to be compiled, for, as is well known, the present Thirty-nine Articles have passed through several revisions. This was a curious indirect consequence of the abortive Conference of 1538. As these manuscript drafts have this importance, the following short account of them may be pardoned by the reader. They are thirteen in number : how closely they follow the Augsburg Confession will appear from the following comparison. Art. I. De Unitate Dei et Trinitate Personarum : taken verbatim from Art. I. of the Augsburg Confession. II. De Peccato Originali : taken verbatim frotn Art. I J. of the Augsburg. III. De Duabus Christi Naturis : taketi verbatim frojn Art. III. of the Augsburg.
IV. De Justificatione (answering to II. of Strype, but with an additional paragraph) : condensed f-om Art. IV., V., VI. and XX. of the Augsburg.
V. De Ecclesia (answering to I. of Strype, but with differences, and longer) : a7tswering to VII. and VIII. of the Augsburg, and contaitiing several sentefices from it. VI. De Baptismo (IV. of Strype): nearly verbatim from IX. of the Augsburg. VII. De Eucharistia (III. of Strype): nearly verbatim fro7n X. of the Augsburg. VIII. De Peni- tentia (V. of Strype, who ];ias two versions, of which the former is mostly taken from the Augsburg ; the latter answers generally to the one that we are explaining, but with great differences) : answering to XI. and
XII. of the Augsburg, and also to the third of the additional articles on Abuses in the same. IX. De Sacramentorum Usu (Vi. of Strype) : much from XIII. of the Augsburg. X. De Ministerio Ecclesias : partly
from XIV. of the Augsburg. XI. De Rebus Ecclesiasticis: answering to XV. of the Augsburg, also to the seventh article of Abuses in the same. XII. De Rebus Civilibus : answering to XVI. of the Augsburg.
XIII. De Corporum Resurrectione et Judicio extremo : answerifig to XVII. of the Augsburg.
It may be added that the first, second, and twenty-third of our pre- sent Articles are copied almost entirely from these drafts, and through
1538] The Pacification of Nice. 7
to Vicenza. Several of the Cardinals had been solemnly commissioned to be the legates of the Holy See. The day and the papal legates arrived : but they alone appeared : they could do nothing but report a great solitude in Vicenza of the represenia- tives of all the nations : and the device of Rome for the pacification of the world was again deferred.* In the same month however the Sovereisfn Pontiff succeeded in putting an end to the long hostilities between the Emperor and the King of France : the rival princes he invited to a convenient city, where by his personal interest he brought them to an accom- modation : and a truce, known as the Pacification of Nice, was followed by a more enduring peace. The office of mediator, which was thus discharged by Paul, had been declined by Henry : and the presence of Pole, who appeared in the papal train at the place of con- gress, might indicate the low estimation into which the King of England was fallen. Henry attempted to recover his lost ground by sending to Nice two emis- saries, the rising Doctor Bonner and Doctor Haynes, with renewed protestations concerning the council : t but Charles declined to admit them ; and Bonner was reduced somewhat ignominlously to wait upon events in the society of Sir Thomas Wyatt, the English ambassador in Spain, who accompanied the Emperor. The singular person who thus enters on the scene of history is one on whom the vials of vituperation
them from the Augsburg Confession : and parts also of our twenty-fifth, twenty-sixth, and thirty-fourth.
* The King of England would appear, according to Father Paul, to have taken the occasion of the change of place to Vicenza to repeat his furious protestation of the former year, when the Council was proposed to be at Mantua. Hist, of Council of Trent.
t Bonner's mission was, as he said himself, " touching the general council and the authority of the Bishop of Rome." — Bontter to Crtimwel in Fox. See his Instructions at length in State Pap. viii. 23.
8 Rise of Bonner. [ch.
VIII.
have been emptied to the dregs : but whether Bonner altogether deserved to be painted in the horrible colours which for three centuries have frighted the babes of England may be enquired hereafter. At this time he was merely one of the most buoyant of those who were uplifted to the surface of things by the Reformation : one of the dolphins that swam highest towards the rising light. His great patron was Crumwel : to whom, as he repeatedly and pro- fusely declared, he owed all that he had and was. A pleasure-seeker, though a student : dainty, but coarse : wearing his clerical vows with the lightness of a man of the world, Bonner bore beneath his easy exterior no little acuteness and no small share of dogged courage. In ordinary times such a character would have had but an ordinary lot ; in the time of a revolution conducted by authority the talent of the future bishop secured him a rapid advancement : and the Reformation, which upraised him, must share with the Papistry, to which he reverted, the burden of his name. His former em- ployment in the Divorce had carried him to France, to Denmark, to Rome, and to the Imperial court. This year, which was the favourable tide of his fortunes, saw him appointed to the post of ambassador in France, and raised, on the death of the able and vigilant Foxe, to the episcopal order and the see of Hereford : upon which he had not entered when the death of Stokesley translated him to London. The first of these promotions brought him into violent collision with the immeasurably greater prelate whom he superseded, and with whom he had been long at variance. Bonner was still at Nice when he was appomted to succeed Gardiner as ambassador in Paris: and the latter was commanded to deliver to him all the plate which he had belonging to the King, and to
1538.] Quarrel between him and Gardiner. 9
furnish him with all other stuff that .was needful for his office. Bonner hastened to Lyons, where he found Gardiner: and a curious and furious altercation ensued between them. The Bishop at first welcomed his successor politely ; but the show of civility soon ceased. " I have to tell you," said he, " that you can have nothing of me." — " Nothing, my lord," answered Bonner, " is a heavy word to him that lacketh all things." Gardiner repeated that he could have of him nothing ; neither mules, nor mule clothes, nor napery, nor raiment. " Of me, ' said he, " ye shall have nothing: but of Master Thirleby ye shall have his carriage, his mules, his bed, and divers other thincrs." Bonner desired him to speak of the King's matters, but the Bishop began again " descending by his negatives " to show that the doctor could have nothing of him. " My lord," quoth Bonner, " here is still one tale, which ye need not repeat so often, since I understand it: and the conclusion is that I shall have nothing of you." — " Ye lie," said Gardiner, " I said not so." Bonner appealed to Thirleby, who was present in Gardiner's train. " I say you lie," Gardiner repeated, " I do not say that you shall have nothing of me : but I say, you can have nothing of me : and though the one comprehendeth the other, 3 et there is a great diversity between these two manners of speaking. I can spare nothing unto you, and therefore ye shall have nothing : and though I can spare you, yet you shall have nothing." Bonner answered that if he were to have nothing, he thanked Gardiner for nothing ; and would provide otherwise. The Bishop then explained that though for his own sake Bonner should get nothing, yet for the King's sake he might look to have. " Then," said the latter, " I will thank the King, and not you:" and at this, adds Bonner, " the flesh of his cheek began to swell and
JO Bonner and Gardiner. [ch. vm.
tremble, and he looked as if he would have run through me: and I came, and stood even by him, and said, Trow you, my lord, that I fear your great looks ? Nay, faith, I do not : ye had need to get another stomach to whet upon than mine, and a better whetstone than ye have. But this I will tell you, I shall show how I am handled of you." — " Lo, how lordly he speaketh," re- joined the fiery prelate, "as who saith, I were all in the blame. Will ye not hear this wise man?" In this way the strange scene was continued through a great part of the day : though it ended at last in a sort of reconciliation. When they were both returned to Paris, Gardiner had the further mortification of re- ceiving the news of the advancement of Bonner to Hereford.* He himself returned to Er.gland with a deliberation and a dignity of demeanour which seem to have caused no small amusement : and retired to his bishopric without seeking the presence of the King.f
* I have given and condensed a small part only of this disgraceful quarrel, which may be seen in full in Bonner's letter to Crumwel, ap. Fox : which is the only record of it. I regret to say that in the course of it Gardiner thrice made use of a disgusting expression of contempt, which may not have been included in the spirit of the age, since it shocked' Bonner. In another letter Bonner describes for Crumwel's amusement how the Bishop received the news of his appointment to Hereford, making " a plaice mouth " of it, in the involuntary expression of surprise, chagrin, grief, indignation, and disdain.
t Wriothesley met him marching home from London, between Sitting- bourn and Rochester, with " a very gallant train ; " five mulettes, two carts, covered with his colours, a dozen lacqueys in velvet capes, and other yeomen and officers. He was very "strange" or ceremonious; and had his hat off as often and as quickly as Wriothesley could get his off. Wriothesley told him that the King was at Greenwich, and the Bishop answered that " he heard so." Thirleby, who was in the train, rode back with Wriothesley a little way, to put himself right about the delay in returning from France, and said that do what he might he could not get Gardiner to start. He added that " the tragedy " between Gardiner and Bonner was " very ill handled " on Gardiner's side : and that Gardiner had called Bonner a fool ! This dreadful thing does not appear in Bonner's letter. — Wriothesley to Crttmwel, State Pap. viii. 51.
1538.] Progress of the Monastic Suppression. 1 1
Of the chanoe of ambassadors the reason was the disfavour of Crumwel towards Gardiner, and the suspicion that the Bishop leaned to the Imperial side. Now that Charles and Francis were reconciled, it was deemed expedient to have another agent at the court of France.
The fall of several great houses of religion, which had been concerned in the Pilgrimage of Grace, had replenished the royal purse for some few months : but further measures against the monasteries were pursued almost without a pause : and this was the great year of suppression. Of the reader the patience not less than the curiosity must be invoked, while I proceed to relate consecutively, for the first time, as 1 believe, the monotonous particulars of the fall of the monasteries of England : how managed, how procured : to give what I can of their state, their numbers, their revenues : the minutes of that prodigious revolution of society and wealth which occupied the last part of the reign of Henry. I resume the narrative of ruin at the point where it was left : and shall pursue it year by year to the completion. The monastic experts of Crumwel, who had been suspended by the rash ex- periment of mixed commissions, now resumed their place, and pursued their calling with a vigour born of zest nurtured by rest. Of the more eminent among them, Layton was first in field,* but he was quickly overtaken and distanced by the activity of Legh, although it might be rash to conclude that, because Legh exceeded Layton in the number of his captures, Layton was less great than Legh. It is sufficient to say that, while in this very prosperous year about ten
* He had been concerned in the suppression of Warden Abbey at the end of the former year : see Vol. I. 498, huj. op. For the state of Warden, where there was great turbulence among the monks, see Wright, p. 53.
1 2 Career of Legh in this Year. [ch. vm.
religious houses fell before Layton, nearly thirty yielded to the force of Legh. With Legh begin the strain. He, in the month of January and the county of Somerset, first uprooted that cumberer of the ground, the ancient Benedictine Abbey of Michelney, founded by King y^thelstan, of the yearly value of about five hundred pounds. A mixed commission, however, had been there two days before him, consisting of Sir Thomas Speke, half a dozen gentlemen, Doctor South- wood, Robert Warmington, a public notary, and others: they had taken the surrender of the convent in the usual form, so that Legh only appeared in accordance with the general rule that houses should be visited twice. The convent, assembled in their chapterhouse, ac- knowledored before him their deed of surrender ; the site and lands were immediately granted to the Earl of Hertford. In March the active visitor appeared at the great Cistercian Abbey of Holm Cultram, of the church of which the mighty nave still towers above the fertile valleys of the Solway and the Eden, a fragment preserved to posterity by the petition of the people :'" and a single day witnessed the visitation, the sur- render, the dispersion of a remote community of twenty-six monks, whose annual income rose to about five hundred pounds. Next he smote the Black or Austin canons of Thurgarton in Nottinghamshire, a convent of nine, whose endowment, however, scarcely raised them above the rank of a lesser monastery; and the Prasmonstratensian Abbey of Halesowen in Shrop- shire, of about the annual value of three hundred pounds : which was given to Sir John Dudley. Nor
* See the Petition of the Inhabitants of Holm Cultram to Crumwel, Ellis, ii. I, 90. They prayed that the Abbey Church might be spared because it was their parish church, and little enough to receive them all, being 1,800 people : and also because it was a fortress to them against the Scots.
1538.] state of the Carthusians of Axholnie. 13
could the long- troubled Carthusians of Axholme evade his hand. That community, the Priory of the Wood, or House of the Visitation of the Blessed Virgin near Epworth in Lincolnshire, had fallen upon evil days after the execution of Augustine Webster, the Prior. The Vicar of the house, Michael Makeness, who suc- ceeded to be Prior, turned out to be a great waster of the goods. He had private carriers, who conveyed things away by night, such as wax, pewter vessels, linen or woollen cloth, and spice in great quantity. He kept the convent seal under his own key, denying that others should have access to it. He bribed Crum- wel with twenty marks to excuse him from the duty of preaching : a strange thing to be noted in so great a favourer of the pure and sincere word of God preached as Crumwel* He and his carnal friends spoke detrac- tion of the house, calling it a den of thieves, not caring what they said, so that their words made for their own purpose. Indeed, this prior seems to have cheated both his brethren and the former visitors, among whom had been the great Layton himself. There were some thoughts of putting him out of office : but Cranmer interposed, and assured Crumwel that he would find means of brinoina- him to surrender his
o o
house to the King.f When Legh appeared, the resig- nation was made without demur : and the somewhat poor and reduced priory, containing nine monks, was turned into a goodly manor-house by one Candish, to whom the site was granted soon afterwards. The next month found Legh busy among the fourteen Gilber- tines of St. Catherine's in Lincoln ; and the Cistercians of Bordsley in Worcestershire, twenty in number,
* So strange indeed that the poor convent thought that the prior's messenger must have kept the money to himself, and falsely reported that Crumwel had accepted it. — Wright, 173.
t lb. 175.
14 Career of Legh in this Year. [ch. vm.
worth about four hundred pounds a year : of whom the site went to Lord Windsor. He then traversed the archdeaconry of Coventry, Stafford, Derby, and part of Cheshire: where he found great incontinency of Hving- among the knights and gentlemen, many of whom had left their wives and kept concubines, to the scandal of the country, Legh commanded them to reform themselves, or show cause before Crumwel why they should not be compelled.* He visited the stately Cistercian Abbey of Vale Royal, the abbot of which, John Harwood, refused in the following month to sur- render on the summons of the formidable Thomas Holcroft, a commissioner who was among the most insatiable of those who thirsted for the spoils of monas- teries.t Resistance was overruled in the end: and the abbey was returned as being self-surrendered, though the abbot protested that neither he nor his brethren, of whom there were fourteen, had ever surrendered, or put their hands to the deed of surrender.^ This house was about the annual value of five hundred pounds, of the number of fifteen : the site came in about five years into the hands of Holcroft. Fordham in Cambridge- shire, an humble Gilbertine abode, to which Legh was no stranger ; \ and the poor Benedictine nunnery of Charteris, near Ely, of eleven nuns, received him next. These were both far below the value assigned in the
* Wright, 234. lb. 344.
t lb. Crumwel was steward of this monastery.
X lb. Cf. Rymer, xiv. p. 615. This seems to have been a case of simple violence. In general, when the abbot would not surrender, he was deprived on some pretext, and another put in who was more pliable. Holcroft, the ravager of the North in after years, was superior to this professional mode of dealing.
§ Wright, p. 32. It may perhaps be worth while observing that this decayed little place had added to its numbers since Legh first visited it. Then there was only the prior and one monk : now there were three monks. — Burnet, Coll. iii., iii.
1538] His Great Activity. 15
Act for destroying little houses : the latter of them was among those which the King had refounded the year before. Croxton in Leicestershire, an abbey of twenty-three Prsemonstratensians, of about five hundred a year, was a more important conquest : it went in exchange to the Earl of Rutland. But anon the great Visitor was back in Staffordshire amone the little houses : and though, in almost as many days, the four establishments of Tutbury, Roceter, Crockerden, and Hilton, all beneath the Parliamentary number of twelve, all below the Parliamentary brand of vice and poverty, fell before the easy effort of his might ; yet it may be regretted that such a man was so much em- ployed in the petty, and perhaps less lucrative, destruc- tion of so many of the base domiciles which had in some mysterious manner survived the edict by which they stood virtually suppressed. A sally across a neighbouring county and a more leisurely return sufficed for the fate of Soulby in Northamptonshire, of the Praemonstratensian order, of twelve canons, of the annual value of three hundred pounds ; and, in Stafford, of the Priory of St. Thomas, where nine religious men renounced the cowl of the Black or Austin canons, a life of supposed iniquity, and an in- come of about one hundred and fifty pounds. In Warwickshire, the woods of the forest of Arden hid not from him the fair abode of Miravale, another Cistercian seat, in value three hundred pounds a year, tenanted by ten religious : of which the site, with many of the lands, was granted to the fortunate Lord Ferrers. The Black ladies of Brewood, a small com- pany of five Benedictine nuns, in Staffordshire, who lived upon eleven pounds one shilling and sixpence a year, were next dismissed into the world ; and the same day the indefatigable agent, posting into another
1 6 Career of Legh in this Year, [ch, vm.
county, delivered to destruction the mitred Abbey of Lilleshull, of the Augustinian order, in revenue about three hundred pounds, and of the number of eleven religious. Four days later he was in Staffordshire again, where the Cistercian Abbey of Dieulacres fell before him, yielding the annual return of about two hundred and fifty pounds. Thence, with a wider range, he appeared in Derbyshire, and the three houses of Darley, of Dale, and of Repton ; Augustinian, Prae- monstratensian, and Augustinian ; inhabited by four- teen, by seventeen, and by nine, confessed his power almost upon successive days. Of them, the first was worth nearly three hundred a year ; the two latter were of the smaller value, and figured in the mysterious Comperta : notwithstanding which, one of them, Dale, had been refounded by the King. Proceeding through Leicestershire, he crushed the nunnery of Grace Dieu at Belton, a poor place of sixteen nuns, wicked ac- cording to the Comperta, and yet another of those which the King had refounded in perpetuity.* In Lincolnshire he destroyed the noble Abbey of Bardney, a Benedictine foundation of fourteen monks and four hundred pounds ; in Northamptonshire the Cistercian monastery of Pipewell, of the same number and near the same value ; and in Cambridge the old Priory of Barnwell, situate within the precincts of the town, where eight Augustinian canons enjoyed a revenue of three hundred and fifty pounds. f The great visitor
* Wright, 251. Beaumont, the surveyor, soon afterwards sent Crumwel a present of twenty pounds, to allow him to retain this house.
+ It may be observed that the Prior of Barnwell, Nicholas Smith, refused to come into Henry's measures in 1534, and was deprived "per liberam resignationem," as the instrument has it. One Badcock was his successor, who surrendered the house. See Willis, ii. 46 ; who wrongly puts the surrender in 1539. For Barnwell, see Fuller's Cambridge, PP- 3, 5-
1 538-] Career of Legh in this Year. 17
then, before the end of the year, transferred himself to another region, as it will be seen.*
* LegKs Career in 1538 —
3rd Jan. Michelney, Somers. Rymer, v. xiv. p. 591.
6th Mar. Holm Cultram, Cumb. lb. 594.
4th June, Thurgarton, Notts. lb. 606.
9th — Halesowen, Salop. lb. 606.
13th — Axholme, Line. lb. 606.
14th July, St. Catherine, Line. lb. 608.
17th — Bordsley, Worcest. lb. 608.
22nd Aug. Vale Royal, Chesh. Wright^ 243.
1st Sept. Fordham, Cambs. Rym. 608.
3rd — Charteris, Ely. lb. 607.
8th — Croxton, Leicest. /i^. 617.
14th — Tudbury, Staff. lb. 617.
1 6th — Roceter, Staff. lb. 618.
17th ^ Crockerden, Staff. lb. 617.
18th — Hilton, Staff. lb. 617.
20th — Soulby, Notts. Ryut. 618.
7th Oct. St. Thomas, Stafford. lb. 645.
13th — Miravale, Warw. //;. 628.
1 6th — Brewood. Staff. lb. 626.
l6th — Lilleshull, Salop. lb. 626.
20th — Dieulacres, Staff. Burnet, Coll. iii. iii.
22nd — Derlegh, Derbys. /(^.
24th — Dale, Derbys. Rym. 626.
25th — Ripton, Derbys. lb. 627.
27th — Grace Dieu, Leicest. Burnet, Coll. iii. iii.
1st Nov. Bardney, Line. Rym. 625.
5th — Pipewell, Northampts. Jb. 626.
8th — Barnwell, Cambr. lb. 627. He finished the year by visiting the friars of London in November, and the great abbey of St. Albans in December. See below.
In making these lists, I have used also the Catalogue of Deeds of Surrenders of Abbeys, &c., published in the Eighth Report of the Deputy Keeper of Public Records, Append. IL, from the Augmentation Office. As this Catalogue is alphabetically arranged, it has not been necessary to refer to it page by page. The great value of it is that it gives the names of the religious who signed the deeds ; and, in the names, the numbers. [Mr. Walcott (Archaeol. vol. 43) has published from the Augmentation Office the Inventories of Legh's visitation, from St. Thomas, Stafford, to Barnwell. They show : i. The furniture of the various houses. 2. That the monks and nuns bought things in. 3. That the visitors were often attended by a jury of twelve men to see fair. 4. And by a set of "strangers" from London, probably skilled workmen. 5. That they took good care of themselves in eating and drinking.] VOL. II. C
1 8 Career of Lay ton in this Year. [ch. vm.
But if those of Legh were the more numerous, the trophies reared within the same space of time by Layton may claim to have been the more splendid. Legh, as it has been shown, often stooped to small and wicked game : while Layton kept himself in general to those higher abodes where there was wealth, and where the reputation of virtue remained to be removed by dexterity. The scene of his activity lay in the east and the south : and at Northampton, in the month of March, he is first discerned conducting the surrendry of the Cluniac Priory of St. Andrew, of the revenue of about three hundred pounds ; a house in which, on a former visitation, he had noted no other evils than debt and involvement.* There he may have received that confession of guilt, subscribed by the prior and a convent of twelve monks, which has done service in history as if it were a specimen of the numerous confessions, believed to have been made by monks and nuns, which have been alleged in vindication of the proceedings of the King and Parliament in the sup- pression. I have already expressed the opinion that this is not a specimen, but a solitary instance, of a confession, signed by the hands of a convent, in which some kind of admission of moral guilt is to be found : and that to assume that there were many, or any, others like it is by no means warrantable. The docu- ment, upon examination, turns out to be a curious affair in itself; and proves at least, if it were composed by the convent who set their hands to it, that the literary art, as it was practised at the time, was not neglected in that fraternity. It occupies, in the author who first printed it, nearly four large folio pages : the essential clause which gives that acknowledgment of moral turpitude which has seen such heavy service may
* Vol. I. p. 336 Inij. op.
I538-] The Confession of St. Andrew s. 19
be read in several of the more accessible historians.* Bloated, fulsome, and rotund as an Act of Parliament, volleying forth endless convolutions of phraseology, it seems to consist of nothing but words. Never was penitence so well ordered, the smitten breast so studious of good sackcloth, contrition so wide-mouthed, resignation so careful of the advantage of those to whom it resigned itself, as when the monks of North- ampton set forth "the manifold negligences, enormities, and abuses of long time by them and other their pre- decessors, under the pretence and shadow of perfect religion, used and committed to the grievous dis- pleasure of Almighty God, the crafty deception and subtle seduction of the pure and simple minds of the good Christian people of the realm." Their vain cere- monies grieved them : their idolatry they owned and lamented : they confessed their neglect of hospitality : and, in a somewhat vague and overflourished phrase, they acknowledged carnal depravity. They surren- dered themselves, as they said, without coercion: and so loyal were they that they made for the Supreme Head a claim which he had not yet put forth on his own behalf, and gave him a title which he had never challenged. The Supreme Head, said they, "being consequently general and only Reformator of all religious persons,
* Weaver's Funeral Monuments, pp. 106-110. He appears to have believed, without knowing, that there were many others like it. " The rest of the abbots, priors, abbesses, and prioresses, at other times, with unanimous consent of their convents, in great compunction of spirit, contrition of heart, and confession of their manifold enormities, did severally give and grant to the King's Majesty, and to his heirs, all their right and interest which they had in these monasteries, lands, goods, or hereditaments, by certain instruments in writing under their hands and seals, of which I will set down one or two for example, which I had from my loving friend, Mr. John Martin, Master of the Augmentation Office."' Then follows this, and that of the Stanford friars, of which hereafter. The passage which contains the moral guilt may be seen in Fuller, or in Froude, iii. 284. I give it in the next note.
C 2
20 TJie Confession of St. Andrew s. [ch. vm.
hath full authority to correct or dissolve at his pleasure all convents and religious companies abusing the rules of their profession." Henry was acting, certainly, as if it were his undoubted right to confiscate any religious house that he desired : but he had never advanced a claim to have the right of dissolving any that lay beyond the Act for destroying those which had less than two hundred pounds a year.* Such is the confession of St. Andrew's, which has been paraded
* The passacje which historians give, in part or wholly, is as follows. I have put in italics the words about carnal depravity. " As well we as others our predecessors, called religious persons, within your said monastery, taking on us the habit of outward vesture of the said rule, only to the intent to lead our lives in the idle quietness, and not in virtuous exercise, in a stately estimation, and not in obedient humility, have under the shadow, or colour, of the said rule and habit, vainly, detestably, and also ungodly employed, yea, rather devoured, the yearly revenues issuing and coming of the said possessions i7i continual ingiir- gitations and f arcings of imr carnyjie {carnal) bodies, a?id of others, the supporters of our voluptuous and carnal appetite, with other vain and ungodly expenses ; to the manifest subversion of devotion and cleanness of living : and to the most notable slander of Christ's holy Evangel, which in the form of our profession we did ostentate and openly devaunt to keep most exactly : withdrawing thereby from the simple and pure minds of your Grace's subjects the only truth and comfort which they ought to have by the true faith of Christ : and also the divine honour and glory, only due to the glorious Majesty of God Almighty, stirring them with all persuasions, ingines and policy to dead images and counterfeit relics, to our damnable lucre. Which our most horrible abominations and execrable persuasions of your Grace's people, to detestable errors, and our long covered hypocrisy clothed with feigned sanctity, we revolving daily and continually pondering in our sorrowful hearts, and thereby per- ceiving the bottomless pit of everlasting fire, ready to devour us, if persisting in this state of living, we should depart from this uncertain and transitory life, constrained by the intolerable anguish of our con- science, called, as we trust, by the grace of God, who would have no man perish in sin ; with hearts most contrite and repentant, prostrate at the noble feet of your most royal Majesty, most lamentably do crave of your highness, of your abundant mercy, to grant unto us, most grievous against God and your highness, your most gracious pardon, for our said sundry offences, omissions, and negligences, committed, as before by us is confessed, against your Highness, and your most noble Progenitors."
Lest the reader should still think, even after reading this, that I have exaggerated on the verbosity of this document, I will add the closing
1538] Probable Nature of that Docinnent. 2 1
again and again, always with some kind of insinuation that it is but a specimen of similar acknowledgments of guilt, which might be produced in overwhelming testimony, of the degraded condition of the religious houses. It seems hardly worth while to pursue the questions which might be raised concerning the authentic nature, the voluntary character, or the value of a document which was signed in the presence of Lay ton, and not of Lay ton only, but of Doctor Robert Southwell, attorney of the Court of Augmentations, and of several other visitors. There can be no doubt, I suppose, that it was a form, perhaps of surrender, ready made by some official skilled in the language of the new loyalty, which was presented to the con- vent to be signed : and since no duplicate copy, signed by some other convent, seems to be preserved, it may perhaps be concluded that this form was found, after a single trial, too long and cumbersome for general use ; and that it was abandoned for the simple surrender without confession, which was indeed the only thing needful.* For the rest, the monks of this house received pensions, the substantial rewards of penitence, all but one, who was promoted to a living : and Layton wrote to ask what he should do with the lead that covered the house.t
paragraph from Weaver. They pray for the success " of all your Grace's honourable and devout proceedings, which hitherto through your Grace's most excellent wisdom and wonderful industry, assiduously solicited about the confirming and establishing men's conscience con- tinually vexed with sundry doubtful opinions and vain ceremonies, have taken such good and laudable effect, to the undoubted contentation of Almighty God, the great renown and immortal memory of your Grace's high wisdom and excellent knowledge, and to the spiritual weal of all your Grace's subjects."
* Cf. Vol. I. p. 348 of this work. The surrenders in the Record Office are brief forms without confessions : that of St. Andrew's among them. There was a shorter form of confession sent round more especially to the friars, of which anon. t Wright, 168, 170.
22 Further Progress of Lay ton. [ch. vm.
The great Cistercian abbey of Stratford Lang- thorn in Essex, of fifteen persons and six hundred pounds, was the next to receive the attack of this eminent practitioner.* The greater Merton, where the same number of Austin canons enjoyed a revenue of a thousand pounds, sunk before him. Battle Abbey, of the same high vahie, where a fraternity of seventeen Benedictines commemorated the victory of the Conqueror, yielded now to a more invincible invader.f The new royal foundation of Bisham, of sixteen persons, the transitory monument of the piety of Henry the Eighth, expired beneath his hand, after a short exercise of the monastic virtues or vices, within a year from the first establishment. t Comber- mere, in Cheshire, an Augustinian house defamed in the Comperta, and in annual value not much smaller (three hundred pounds), was easily despatched : and fell forthwith into the hands of the Cotton family. From thence Layton took his way to the earliest theatre of his exploits : and the venerable, the oft- visited monastery of St. Augustine in Canterbury beheld him again. Already had that establishment been brought to surrender before another commis-
* Cf. Vol. I. p. 501 of this work.
t No place stood in worse repute than Battle Abbey, according to Bale's fragment of Comperta : see Speed or Fuller, and compare Vol. I. p. 350 of this work. Willis gives some reasons for questioning the accu- racy of Bale's enumeration of the monks in this case : but I cannot see that he succeeds very well. He says that the list in Bale differs extremely from that in the deed of surrender in the Augmentation Office, and that the difference cannot be explained by the monks having had two names apiece. But out of the fifteen monks whom Bale records as the most infamous of men, eight have their names in the Augmentation list. It is more important to observe, if this can be taken as a disproof of their alleged enormities, that they all received pensions. The crimes which were alleged perhaps as a reason for dissolving the house disabled not the guihy from receiving pensions, provided that they were willing to surrender.
X See Vol. I. p. 499 of this work.
I538-] Sf. Augustine s, Canterbury. 23
sioner, Hales, in the previous year : * but whether for the sake of solemnity, through the hesitation of a scruple, or with design of doing honour to a veteran official, instantaneous demolition had not followed. The second of the pious foundations of the first Christian king in England, of the lay father of the English Church, was spared until the besom of de- struction could be put into the hands of Layton. The abbot, John Sturvey, alias Essex, and his monks, to the number of thirty, were summoned to meet the mighty official in their chapterhouse ; where they executed a surrendry in the same form as before : and their dissolution watered the avidity of the King with the not inconsiderable affluent of fifteen hundred pounds. It was observed with peculiar horror that the sacrilegious monarch turned the precincts of St. Augustine into a vivary of wild beasts : though by building, or at least designing, for himself also a palace among the ruins, he yielded to his enemies the consolation of an epigram, f But the subversion of this great establishment seems not to have been completed even then : nor were the jewels and orna- ments of the church returned into the Court of Augmentations until much later in the reign of Henry. J Layton then returned to the city of Northampton, where the virtuous abbey of St. James, of ten Austin canons, though scarcely above the parlia- mentary mark in revenue, attracted and received his
* On the 4th of December. — Rymer, xiv. 592.
t " Sibi et feris voluit esse domicilium : sic enim jusserit, vivarium illic fieri, et sibi ex ruinis monasterii palatium." — Pole, Ap. ad Ccbs. Ep. vol. i. p. 109. The Pope in his Bull of the end of the year made the same reflection : " Transmutavit se in belluam ; belluas, quasi socias suas, voluit honorare : scelus etiam Turcis inauditum et abominandum."
X In 1544: a Hst of them is given in Rymer, xv. 35. They were estimated altogether above forty pounds.
24 The rest of Lay ton' s Career this Year. [ch. vm.
stroke.* The poor order of the Gilbertines escaped him not : he dissolved their httle house of Marmond in Cambridgeshire, where a prior and a convent of one monk, or monastic canon, resigned an income of ten pounds : and their priory of Shouldham, of nine canons, seven nuns, and about one hundred and fifty pounds. These, like many other little houses of the order, had hitherto avoided the operation of the Act. Transferring himself thence to Bedfordshire, he made an end of Chicksand, another Gilbertine establishment, of which he had formerly made a merry report, f This place was worth two hundred and fifty pounds a year : the site of it was granted immediately to one Snow. Layton returned to Kent anon, where he destroyed the nunnery of Mailing, a Black sisterhood of eleven, of somewhat greater revenue, but still not very rich. Here he acted in conjunction with another doctor, the omnivorous Petre.J
* The former visitors had begged that it might be spared. Vol. I. p. 370 of this work.
t Vol. I. p. 136 hnj. op. The canons and nuns of this composite foundation received pensions in spite of their misdeeds. Out of the sub- prior, the six canons, and the eighteen nuns, of which it consisted, all the canons and eight of the nuns were still receiving pensions in 1553. — Willis, ii. 4. X Layton' s Career in 1538 — ■
2nd Mar. St. Andrew's, Northampt. Rym. xiv. 592.
8th — Stratford Langthorn, Essex. lb. 594.
i6th April, Merton, Surrey. lb. 591.
7th May, Battle Abbey, Sussex. lb. 603.
9th June, Bisham, Berks. lb. 607.
27th July, Combermere, Chesh. lb. 616.
31st — St. Aug., Canterb. lb. 607.
29th Aug. St. James', Northampt. lb. 607.
5th Oct. Marmond, Cambr. lb. 620 ; Burnet, Coll. iii. iii.
iSth — Shouldham, Norf. lb. 620.
22nd — Chicksand, Bedfords. lb. 607.
29th — Mailing, Kent. lb. 604. To these must be added, as in the career of Legh, some London friaries, and St. Albans.
I538-] The Friars: beginnhig at London. 25
The friars, in their various orders, had escaped hitherto, because of their poverty, beneath the meshes of the Act which was destroying the lesser houses of the monks and regular canons : and since they were neither named in the Act nor possessed any fixed source of revenue to which the Act could apply, it seemed not unreasonable to suppose that the pro- visions of the Act had never been designed to be extended to them. But a piece of legislation which was stretched upwards might be dragged downwards : and a liberal construction (if indeed it were still deemed expedient to pretend to have any regard at all for the law) was required by the necessities of the King. If the friars had few farms or manors, they possessed houses : and those houses stood on the ground, and therefore they had sites. A general attack was made on them this year : and we shall presently be called upon to admire the fervour and rapidity with which it was carried out. Meanwhile we behold for a moment the two masters of dissolution, whose footsteps we have been following, brought together at the end of the year against the friars of London. On the loth of November Legh dissolved the White Friars, who were thirteen in number. On the 1 2th he dissolved the Austin Friars, and the Minorites, thirteen and twenty-six. On the same day Layton dissolved the Black Friars, seventeen in all, of whom Hilsey, the Bishop of Rochester, was the commendatory prior : and it is probable that it was he who dissolved the Crossed Friars also on the same day, who numbered six.*
Doctor Petre, whose name has been already before the reader, must be named the next in prowess (if better he exceeded not them both) to the experienced
* Rym. xiv. 609, 610; Eighth Record Rep. p. 28. A lax lot, Lett, and Pap. 6, 617. .
26 The Career of Petre in this Year. [ch. vm.
Legh and Layton. To him there fell in this year not less than twenty monasteries ; and of these, if some were very small, others were of surpassing magnitude and wealth. The ancient Benedictine Abbey of Abing- don, with which he began, is said to have been re- nowned as a seat of religrion even in the British times : it had continued from the earliest English antiquity : and had risen again in renewed splendour after the devastations of the Danes. But this great fra- ternity seems to have been now in a state of relaxed discipline : the abbot at least, Thomas Pentecost, or Rowland, is named by Bale as a very immoral man ; and, on better evidence than that of Bale, it seems impossible to acquit the monastery of slothfulness, and perhaps of other vices.* Petre found no difficulty here. The abbot was forward in surrendering : and so easily was the indignation of virtue appeased by the compliance of loyalty that the abbot not only received a very large pension, but was allowed to retain the manor of Cumnor in reward for his readiness. f The convent of twenty-five Black monks were dispersed into the world ; and their larg-e revenue, near two thousand pounds, was confiscated to the Crown. From Abingdon Doctor Petre proceeded to the Augustinian house of Butley in Suffolk, of which the commenda- tory was Thomas Manning, Suffi-agan Bishop of Ips- wich. The eight Black canons of this place resigned
* " The same year the monastery of Abingdon, by the consent of the abbot, was given to the King's Majesty, the monks thereof being ex- pulsed because of their slothfulness." — Chron. of St. Aug. in Nicholas Narr. p. 286. For what Bale says of Abingdon, see Speed or Fuller.
t The form in which the pension of this abbot was conveyed may be given as a specimen of others. It was for life, " vel quousque idem (Thomas) ad unum vel plura beneficia ecclesiastica, sive aliam promo- tionem condignam clari annul valoris ducentarum librarum (i.e. the amount of the pension) aut ultra per nos permotus fuerit." — Willis' Abb. ii. II.
1538] He Dissolves many Houses. 27
a revenue of about four hundred pounds, and the site of their house was given to the Duke of Norfolk. Petre then passed into Worcestershire, and received the ready but secret surrender of the great Benedictine Abbey of Evesham, of the revenue of twelve hundred pounds : which was tendered by Hawford, alias Bul- lard, the last abbot.* Posting into Gloucestershire, he then visited the old and characteristic Priory of Lan- thony, or Lantonia Secunda, the second and more extensive retreat of the Black canons of the orioinal Lantony of Monmouthshire, who had fled thither in bygone ages from the hostilities of the Welsh. The annual income of this abode of religion was seven hundred and fifty pounds : the site was given soon afterwards to Sir Arthur Porter. Petre took the sur- render of the twenty-five religious, as he wrote to inform Crumwel, "with as much quietness as might be desired " : and shortly afterwards he proceeded to London, to report progress to the Vicegerent in person.! Continuing his journey southward, he dis- solved in the New Forest the Cistercian house De Bello Loco, or Beaulieu, in number twenty, four hundred pounds in revenue ; and the Austin house of Southwick in the same reofion, of thirteen canons and three hundred pounds : of which the sites were given to Wriothesley, and to one John White. Re- turning thence, he put an end to the troubled existence of Kenilworth, where seventeen monks resigned an income of six hundred pounds : Sir Andrew Flamok was gifted with the site of their superb abode. He dissolved Welbeck in Nottinghamshire, which held the superiority in England of the whole Praemonstratensian Order, or Order of White Canons ; a house of nineteen religious, but of less than the annual value of three
* Wright, 177. Gairdner, Lett, and Pap. 13, Introd. t Wright, 177.
28 The Gilbertines. [ch. vm.
hundred pounds : of which the site was bestowed upon one Richard Whalley. He added to the ruin of the Cistercians in Yorkshire the destruction of the Abbey of Roch or De Rupe, near Doncaster, of eighteen cowls and near three hundred pounds a year. He smote Walsingham in Norfolls;, one of the most famous places of pilgrimage in the kingdom, with the curious chapel built in imitation of that of Nazareth. The annual value of this place, which belonged to the Black canons, was somewhat under five hundred pounds : the offerings to Our Lady varied from two hundred and sixty to less than thirty pounds a year. The value of the capture may have been diminished by the previous diligence of Richard Southwell, one of the best of Crumwel's tools, who had been there two years before, and had sequestered all the money, plate, jewels, and stuff that he could find.* The site was granted to Thomas Sidney.
After these miscellaneous victories over many orders, began that service with which the name of Petre deserves to be associated for ever : the almost total extirpation of the Gilbertines, the only religious order that was of English origfin. In the middle of the twelfth century. Sir Gilbert, a clergyman of the English Church, the son of Sir Joceline of Sempring- ham, instituted a new model of the religious life ; in which by a refinement of celibacy, similar to that which was practised among the Brigitites, both monks and nuns inhabited separate parts of the same build- ings. From the Earl of Lincoln he obtained a grant of land at Sempringham, on which he built a priory : the order grew and prospered, until nearly thirty houses had arisen to perpetuate the name and the discipline of the founder. In one at least of these
* Wright, 138.
1538] Petite nea7dy Exterminates them. 29
composite establishments the monastic Hfe was as ill supported as might be expected under such peculiar conditions : but the primitive model appears to have been abandoned in most of them : and, with the ex- ception of two or three, the Gilbertine houses at the time of the dissolution consisted only of monks. Several of them were fallen already (as it has been seen) when Petre proceeded to destroy the capital of the order at Sempringham, where their general chapters were held. Holgate, the Bishop of Llandaff, was commendatory prior of this house, and master of the whole order : seventeen monks, but no nuns are specified, concurred in the surrender : the value was reported about three hundred pounds a year : the site was given to Lord Clinton. The dissolution of half the order followed instantly. Petre pursued them throughout the ancestral county of Lincolnshire in their settlements of Haverholm, Catley, Bullington, Sixhill, Ormsby, and Newstead in Lindsey : in Not- tinghamshire he destroyed their seat of Matersey. To these may be added, furthermore, the priories of Alvingham in Lincolnshire, of St. Andrew in the city of York, of Ellerton in Yorkshire, which either surren- dered themselves without waiting the approach of the Visitor or were dissolved by the commissioners of the county.* All these establishments, except the last, had Holgate for their commendator : most of them were small, being under the value of one hundred pounds a year, and under the number of twelve
* There is some difficulty in determining whether a house were self- surrendered or visited, when the surrender in Rymer does not give the name of any visitor. St. Andrew's in York, and Ellerton, e.g , have no visitor in their surrender : but it appears from a letter in Wright (p. i68) that they, along with Byland, Rivaulx and Kirkham, were visited and dissolved by the Yorkshire commissioners, Lawson, Belassis, Blithman, and Rokeby.
30 Legh, Petre, and Laytoii [ch. vm.
religious persons. If the surrendries be taken for an index, there were no nuns in any of these houses. Their sites were divided between Lord CHnton, the Duke of Suffolk, and Heneage, an official with whom we have met before. The active Petre, like Legh, like Layton, finished a glorious year in London : where he dissolved the hospital of St. Thomas of Aeon in the Chepe, and the nunnery of St. Helen in Bishopsgate Street : the one the pious foundation of the sister of Thomas Becket in memory of her brother, and one of the great schools of London ; the other a Benedictine sisterhood. Their chapels still remain : their sites were granted respectively to William Gonson and to Sir Richard Crumwel, alias Williams, the nephew of the Vicegerent*
One crowning transaction yet remains, which will endow us with the privilege of beholding the three worthies whose footsteps we have been following,
* Petre' s Career in 1538 —
9th Feb. Abingdon, Berks. Rym. xiv. 594.
I St Mar. Butley, Suff. lb.
loth — Lanthony, Gloucest. lb. 592.
17th — Evesham, Wore. Wright, 177.
2nd April, De Belle Loco, Hamps. Ry>n. xiv. 592.
7th — Southwick, Hamps. lb. 592.
15th — Kenilworth, Warw. lb. 593; cf. Cayleys Dugdale.
20th June, Welbeck, Notts. lb. 619.
28th — Rupa, Yorks. lb. 603.
4th Aug. Walsingham, Norw. lb. 619.
18th Sept. Sempringham, Line. lb. 618.
24th — Haverholm, Line. lb. 624.
25th — Catley, Line. lb. 624.
26th ■ — Bolington, Line. lb. 619.
27th — Sixhill, Line. lb. 619.
30th — Ormsby, Line. lb. 605.
2nd Oet. Newstead, Line. lb. 604.
7th — Matersey, Line. lb. 618.
20th — St. Thomas of Aeon, Lond lb. 619 ; Stoiu's Survey, i. 128.
25th Nov. St. Helen's, Lond. //;. 625 ; Stow, i. 240. Together with St. Albans, in whieh he was assoeiated with Legh and Layton.
1538.] together at St. Albans. 31
associated in a common undertaking, and overcoming a difficulty by united skill. The great mitred abbey of St. Albans, of which the church, spared to parochial use, has lately undergone a skilful restoration, and been raised to the dignity of an episcopal see, was visited in the month of December by Legh and Petre, in conjunction, it would appear, with some other commissioners. On the day of their coming, the abbot, Stevenage by name, happened to be away in London. In his absence they took the oppor- tunity of examining the convent at full length, " because they should know more the state of all things": and the next day, when their interrogations were concluded, they sent for the abbot. He arrived on the day after ; and was subjected in his turn to a severe investio^ation. It was found that the In- junctions had not been obeyed : that there were " manifest dilapidations, making of shifts, negligent administration, and sundry other causes," which were not more distinctly specified,* for depriving the abbot. The Visitors, however, were willing to have proceeded by the gentler method of inducing him to give up his house peaceably : but, " by what means they knew not," they found that all suggestions, all in- timations, all communications touching a surrender
* If there were many dilapidations and other evils, the abbot cannot have been answerable for them all, as he had only been in office from the April of this year (see Rymer, xiv. p. 587), when he succeeded Cotton, who had been deprived. Mr. Froude, in his second volume, and also in his Short Studies, makes a great point of the bad moral state into which St. Albans had fallen fifty years before, and which was investi- gated by one of the popes ; and argues that because St. Albans was in a bad state fifty years before, therefore all the monasteries in England were in a bad state at the time of the suppression. It may be hoped that, as the Visitors, after so severe an examination, now found nothing worse than dilapidations and bad management, the state of St. Albans had been improved by the papal monitions.
32 Destruction of St. Albans. [ch. vm.
and a pension were stiffly resisted : and the abbot told them roundly that " he would rather choose to beg his bread all the days of his life than consent to any surrender." They communed with him severally, and all together : they used such motives as they thought might most further their purpose : but he always continued " one man," nay he waxed ever more obstinate and less conformable. In these try- ing circumstances they cried aloud for Layton : that Crumwel should send Layton to let them know the King's pleasure in the business : and thus Legh and Petre owned in Layton one greater than themselves. Layton appears to have prevailed : the abbot was induced to affix his name to a surrender which had been previously signed by the convent : the house was dissolved, and the thirty-seven monks who com- posed it took their departure from their ancient home.* The venerable foundation of King Offa, valued at more than two thousand a year, was confiscated and dis- mantled, all but the church; and the church was purified from the memory of the proto-martyr of the island. The vast and magnificent shrine of St. Alban was shat- tered into a thousand pieces : the jewels and ornaments with which it glittered were carried to the King.f The annals of the caterpillar and the palmer-
* The letter of Legh and Petre to Crumwel, from which these parti- culars are gathered, was dated loth Dec. Wright, 250. The surrender, to which the abbot's name is attached, and those of thirty-seven monks, was dated 5th Dec. Bufiiet, Coll. iii. iii. But the actual dissolution must have been delayed later than the Parliament of next year (1539), since the Abbot of St. Albans was present at that, as appears from the Lords' Journals. There was something exceptional in the case.
t These fragments of the shrine have been recently discovered in some closed arches, and carefully put together again. In the opinion of the mason who did this good work, " the whole was violently overturned by some battering force ; and, rushing down in a mass, the greater part of the breakages were made at once. ^'—Builder, May 4, 1872. This confirms what Pole says, that gunpowder was used in such cases. See below.
1538] Careers of other Visitors. 33
worm cannot but be monotonous : but neither the progress nor the magnitude of a revoUition can be understood without the minutes : and the afflicted reader must be content to follow still the course of the creatures who were eating their way in different directions through the lencrth" and breadth of the standing harvest of religion. The full splendour of Doctor Tregonwell was reserved for another year : but in this year he suppressed Kingswood in Glou- cestershire and Pont Robert in Sussex, of the number of thirteen and nine respectively, both of the greater value, both of the Cistercian Order. The Cistercian house of Coggeshall in Essex, of about two hundred and fifty pounds, fell to Capel and Wentworth, who seem to have been mere ordinary commissioners : the site of It was granted to Sir Thomas Seymour.* Gne Ashton, an agent of the experter sort, was the destroyer of the large Benedictine house of Walden in Essex, valued about four hundred pounds a year : which was granted in full to the Lord Chancellor Audley.f The prior, who surrendered the place, was commendatory. More by name, the suffragan of Colchester: and some not unskilful dealings may be discerned between him and Audley. Gn the one hand, advantageous exchanges of land were made by Audley with Colchester Abbey: J on the other hand, More was put Into the archdeaconry of Leicester, for which Audley offered to give the Bishop of Hereford eighty pounds, to resign some claim
* There are no signatures attached to this surrender {Eighth Record Rep. p. 16) : nor to some others. It is curious to observe that as a rule the surrenders of nun?ieries have no signatures.
t Wright, 241. The Lord Chancellor begged hard for it, saying that it would restore him to honour and commodity, which in the busy world he had lost. He took his title of baron therefrom.
+ Rymer, xiv. 639. VOL. II. D
34 Careers of other Visitors, and [ch. vm.
which he had in the election.* Audley obtained afterwards the house of the Crossed Friars in Col- chester. To this year, it is probable, may be assigned the suppression of Binham and Beeston in Norfolk, in which the remarkable Sir Richard Rich was con- cerned. The former (3f them, of about one hundred and fifty pounds, had escaped hitherto by alleging that it was a cell of St. Albans ;t a true statement, which Rich denied : the latter, some three or four Austin canons with fifty pounds among them, pre- tended that they were not Austin canons but Austin friars; a falsehood which Rich exposed. J Thomas Wetheral, a Chancery clerk, brought to a surrender Rudolph Hartley, the prior of Wetheral in Cumber- land, a cell of eight Black monks, which appears in the Comperta, of the smaller value : which was granted two years later to the Dean and Chapter of Carlisle. Robert Southwell, an eminent name, brought to more perfect terms the priory of Westacre in Norfolk, of nine Black canons, and the abbey of Boxley in Kent, of White or Cistercian monks : both of which had surrendered themselves before his visit. They were about the same value, upwards of two hundred pounds a year : their sites were given to the Duchess of Richmond and to Sir Thomas Wyatt. § Several
* Wright, 245.
t There was a saving of the cells or dependencies of the greater monasteries in the Act, section 7.
X Wright, 182. " Canons," said Erasmus, "canons regular are an am- phibious brood. J)i odiosis they call themselves canons : in favorabilibus they are monks. If a thunderbolt came from Rome against monks, they would all be canons : but if the Pontiff allowed the monks to marry, then they would say they were monks." It was still more ingenious in these canons to say they were friars, for there was nothing about friars in the parliamentary thunderbolt that was crushing so many both of the monks and canons. But Rich was up to them.
§ Wright, 172. Southwell gives some curious particulars of these places, particularly Boxley, where there was a mechanical rood, of which hereafter.
I538-] Miscellaneous Sitrrenders of the Year. 35
other monasteries were surrendered of themselves, or to some unrecorded visitor: they were Haughmond in Shropshire, a house of nine persons ; Worksop in Nottinghamshire, of sixteen : in Herefordshire, Wig- more ; and Faversham in Kent : the one of ten, the other of nine.* In Yorkshire the Cluniac Monk. bretton, of fourteen ; the Augustinian Kirkham and Bohon, of eighteen and fifteen ; Byland and Rivaulx of twenty-five and twenty-three, both Cistercian, the latter the original seat of that great Order in England, were dissolved by the commissioner Belassis and his fellows.f These were all about the same value, under or over three hundred pounds a year. And to them may be added Bittlesden, in Buckinghamshire, a small house of eleven, which had been refounded by the King. J Here we find
* The old abbot of Faversham had already resisted the suasion of Layton. See Vol. I. p. 351 of this work.
t Wright, 167. He has put that letter in the year 1537 : wrongly, I think. X Miscellaneous Surrenders of Monaste7-ies in 1538.
14th Jan. Westacre, Norf. Burn. Coll.; cf. Wright, 171. 29th — Boxley, Kent. Ryin. xiv. 592; cf. Wright, 171. 1st Feb. Kingswood, Gloucest. Rym. 593. 5th — Coggeshall, Essex. lb. 22nd Mar. Walden, Essex. lb. 594. Cir. 29th — Binham, Norf. Wright, 182. Cir. 29th — Beeston, Norf. lb.
1 6th April, Port Robert, Sussex. Rym. 633. 8th July, Faversham, Kent. lb. 616. 9th Sept. Haughmond, Shrops. Burn. Coll. iii. 25th — Bittlesden, Bucks. Rym. xiv. 610. 2 1 St Oct. Wetheral, Cumb. lb. 609. 15th Nov. Worksop, Notts. lb. 622. 1 8th — Wigmore, Heref. lb. 614. 2 1 St — Monkbretton, Yorks. lb. 622. Cir. 2ist — Bolton, Yorks. Wright, 167. 30th — Byland, Yorks. Rym. 631. 3rd Dec. Rivaulx, Yorks. lb. 622. 8th — Kirkham, Yorks. Jb. I reserve the friaries for another place.
D 2
36 '' Pi^ofoundly considering ' Confession, [ch.viii.
perhaps the earHest use of that formulated con- fession which became the standard among the few rehgious houses in which surrender was accompanied by confession. Whether this standard were suppHed to them or invented by their own ingenuity, the reader may determine. It was much shorter than the Confession of St. Andrew's : and it contained no admission of moral depravity. The religious houses that adopted it affirmed that they were moved to return to the world by profoundly considering the vanity of their religion, the folly of their ceremonies or the inconsistency of their dependence on a foreign potentate. But of obscenity they said nothing : and this model, which, it may be observed, was used only by houses which voluntarily surrendered themselves, is the only confession (unless it were that of St. Andrew's) in the original form, subscribed by the hands of those who made it, which has ever been produced from first to last in proof of the alleged depravity of the English monasteries. It is known to have been made by six houses in all.*
* I will give it here. It is in Burnet (Coll. iii.), and is the same in sub- stance with that which the historians. Fuller, Froude, &c., give under the name of the Franciscans of Stanford. Bittlesden was a little Cistercian house. " Forasmuch as we, Richard Green, Abbot of the Monastery of our Blessed Lady St. Mary of Bittlesden, and the Convent of the same Monastery, do profoundly consider that the Manner and Trade of Living, which we and other of our pretended religion have practised and used many days, doth most principally consist in certain Dumb Ceremo- nies, and in certain Constitutions of Rome, and other Forynsical Poten- tates, as the Abbot of Cistercians and other, and therein only noseted and not taught in the true knowledge of God's Laws, procuring always principally to Forynsical Potentates and Powers, which never came here to reform such Discord of living and Abuses as now have been found to have reigned among us. And therefore now assuredly knowing that the most perfect Way of Living is most principally and sufficiently declared unto us by our Master Christ, His Evangelists and Apostles ; and that it is most expedient for us to be governed and ordered by our Supreme Head under God, the King's most Noble Grace ; with our mutual Assent and Consent, do most humbly submit ourself and every one of us unto
1538.] Career of Richard Ingworth, 37
The impetuosity of the recruit is not always equal to services which try the seasoned valour of the veteran. Richard Ingworth, formerly Prior of Langley Regis, the richest establishment of the Black Friars in the kingdom, was promoted to be Bishop Suffragan of Dover at the end of the year 1537.* Receiving the commission of a visitor soon afterwards,! Ingworth appears to have conceived the ambition of becoming the hammer of the friars. He exclaimed that, if he were given scope and verge enough, there should be few houses of friars left standing^ in Enijland. Nor seemed it unlikely that he would fulfil his word. Before the first Sunday in the following Lent he had conveyed to the King the four houses of friars at Boston in Lincolnshire, the Austin Friars, and four more houses in the city of Lincoln itself. Before the end of May he had been at Northampton, at
the most benign mercy of the King's Majesty : and by these Presents do surrender and yield up into his most gracious hands all our said Monas- tery, with all the Lands Spiritual and Temporal, Tithes, Rents, Reversions, Rights and Revenues we have in all and every part of the same : most humbly beseeching his Grace so to dispose of us and of the same as shall seem best unto his most gracious Pleasure." They then go on to ask for annuities or pensions under Letters Patent : and to be allowed to change their habits " into secular fashion : " and "to receive such manner of living as other secular priests be wont to have." — Rym. xiv. 6io.
* Strype's Cranm. p. 62. Wilkins, iii. 828. Mr. Wright seems to have been puzzled to know who " Richard of Dover" might be (p. 191).
t He had two commissions. — IVilk. iii. 829, 835. The former em- powered him to depose or suspend criminous priors or other heads : and to substitute others. The latter empowered him to take away the keys of the convents, to sequestrate their goods, to make inventories and inden- tures : but not to suppress. It was probably a facsimile of the commis- sion of the other visitors : and if so, it would appear that all sup- pressions were not only illegal, but without any authority whatever. This was well contrived. If the Visitors suppressed a house quietly, they were not complained of, though they exceeded their commission : the King pocketed the money. But if (which never happened) there had been a disturbance, the King and Crumwel were safe : they would have said that the Visitors had exceeded their commission, and would have punished them exemplarily, if public feeling had required a victim.
38 Ingworth active against the Friars : [ch- vm.
Coventry, at Atherton in Warwickshire, at Warwick, at Thelford, at Droitwich, and at Worcester. Everywhere he made indentures, and sequestered the common seal : so that the convents were put to great straits to Hve, and he boasted that there were few of them that would not be glad to give themselves up to the King before the end of the year. Soon afterwards he was at Bristol, Gloucester, Marlborough, and Winchester. He then appears to have returned to the Midlands, where he took the surrenders of several convents which he had left in a promising state of destitution, besides those of Bridge- north, Lichfield, Stafford, Newcastle-under-Lyne, and Shrewsbury. He then went back to the west, to see how the friars of Bristol might be disposed : and he found the Black Friars ready to give up, but the Grey and Austin still stiff. These were considerable achievements for the space of four months, even if it be allowed that the game lay in a circle when once the place was reached. But the observant eye of Crumwel had discovered, long before his toils were ended, that Richard of Dover was not the man for the work. He thought him far too mild and favourable to the fraternities which he visited. He little liked those double journeys, first to put a convent in a state of siege, and then to see whether it were ready to surrender. Why not have finished all at once ? Indeed, Ingworth seems to have been too cere- monious. He would, on his first visitation of any convent, call them together, read the Injunctions in their presence, and give them the choice of obeying the royal code, or yielding their house into the royal hands. If they preferred the latter alternative, he then told them " not to think nor report that they had been suppressed, for that he had no power to suppress, but
1538.] But he is too mild for Crimiwet. 39
only to reform : and that if they would be reformed according to good order, they might continue for all him." Now, what was the use of so much refining ? All that was wanted was the money, and why could not the business be despatched in a quicker and less troublesome manner ? Moreover, he sometimes re- ported well of convents, and said that he could see no great cause why they should not continue. He was continually begging the Vicegerent to be good lord to one or other of them : he was continually asking for fresh instructions, and incessantly writing about the limits of his commission, which he was most anxious by no means to exceed. He allowed the friars to give him more trouble, and in turn he troubled the Vice- gerent about them more than all the monks put together : for when he was importuned to write to beg for favours, he seemed unable to refuse. He was often delayed in the same place longer than he should have been, waiting for some beggarly house to sur- render, which another visitor would have despatched on the spot. He was often offered bribes by persons who wanted to get a good bargain of the houses or goods of the fraternities : and he was so imprudent as to make it a matter of honest boastincj to Crumwel that he had never taken a penny. Why should he be more virtuous than his master ? Crumwel wrote him a smart letter, telling him that he had changed his friar's coat, but not his friars heart : in spite of his humble and repeated protestations of zeal, the epis- copal coadjutor of Cranmer is not known to have been continued in the work of visitation after his first essays : and we shall find that much of his imperfect work had to be done over again by a more vigorous practitioner. For the rest, several interesting par- ticulars may be gathered from his letters. He found
40 IngwortJis accoiLut of the Friars, [ch.vih.
the friars everywhere as poor as they were bound to be: "very poor houses and very poor persons." In one place they could not pay him his costs, nor give him one penny of the customary contribution of the convent to the visitor.* In another house there was a new prior, who had anticipated the visitation by selling all the goods, so that the house could not keep more than one friar if it were to continue. The Bishop set a poor friar to keep mass there, and made provision for his hving : a most imprudent act, since Sir John Russell and two other laymen were suing to have the house. In three or four houses he found much disorder, and he has recorded the misadventures that befell some friars in the eagerness of nocturnal egression. f
* It would seem from this that Cramwel's visitors got their expenses paid, and also a contribution from the houses that they visited. Of how much zeal may not this contribution have been the cause} — IVrig^/ii, 194. t Friaries visited by Richard Ingworth in 1538.
White, Black, Grey, Austin, Boston, Lincolns.
Austin, Huntingdon.
Grey, Lincoln— 4 in number.
(White, Black, Grey, Austin) Northampton —9, 9, 11, 9 in number.
(White, Grey) Coventry — 14, 11 in number.
Austin, Atherton.
Maturine, Thelford.
(Black, White) W^arwick— the Black 7 in number.
Austin, Droitwich ; cf. Latimer's Remains, p. 397.
Black, Grey, Worcester ; cf. Latimer's Remains, p. 406.
Austin, Wych or Wicton.
White, Bristol.
White, Grey, Black, Gloucester.
White, Marlborough.
Black, Grey, Austin, Winchester.
Grey, Bridgenorth.
Grey, Lichfield.
Grey, Austin, Stafford.
Black, Newcastle-under-Lyne.
Black, Grey, Austin, Shrewsbury.
Black, Bangor.
Grey, Hafordeast. The houses in brackets are those which he may have visited, when he
I538-] Character of Doctor London. 41
But the disciplined valour of the veteran may be outstripped at times by the impetuosity of the recruit. In this warfare the more experienced champions were perhaps outdone by one who entered upon it in this year for the first time : and it may be ques- tioned whether any of them brought to the service qualifications that could be compared with those of Doctor London. This remarkable person, being warden of the New College in Oxford, had been a signal persecutor of the early heretics. He had thrust Frith and his fellows into the stinking fish cellar of the Cardinal's College : he had put Delaber in the stocks : he had hunted Garret like a partridge on the picturesque undulations that sur- round the city of the Isis. He was notable for the fierceness of his manner : " puffing, blustering, and blowing, like an hungry and greedy lion seeking his prey," said the heretics, a race who have never failed for want of strength of language. Higdon, the dean of the Cardinal's College, was bad : to Cottisford, the Oxford commissary, his office, if not his nature, lent a certain terror : but the true master of big looks and threatening words, " the rankest papistical Pharisee of them all," was Doctor London.* Having become dean of the free chapel of Wallingford near Windsor, a scanty preferment, the enemy of heretics found it easy to follow the line of orthodoxy which was traced by Henry and Crumwel, and to become the enemy of the religious orders. It was somewhat late in his life, the great year of illegal suppressions was already
merely says that he was at the place ; he must have visited one of them, and may have visited more. His letters are in Wright, 191-213. In the last letter he talks of going into Cornwall and Wales : [and it seems he was there, Gainhier, Lett. 13, pt. 2]. I have added the numbers when I could, from the Eighth Record Report. It is curious that the founder of the Franciscans in England should have been another Richard Ingworth. * Delabers narrative in Fox.
42 Career of London in this Year. [ch. vm.
more than half passed, when he entereid on the career of a monastic visitor : but his abiHty made itself known at once to the Viceo-erent, whom indeed he had approached in the most proper manner : * and in the short space of four months more than twenty- five houses, both of monks and friars, were sunk beneath his swift and dexterous hand. His old nurse, Oxford, first beheld the Doctor invested with his new character : where he had no sooner appeared than he caused all the four orders of friars to change their coats. Pushing on to Reading, he there dis- solved the Grey Friars, and inwardly defaced their church : but the spoil which he collected for the King was reduced somewhat by the disloyal conduct of the poor of the town, who came in a multitude and set to stealing all that they could get, even to the bell clappers. This accident delayed him about a week : but in that time he destroyed a chantry at Caversham, near to Reading; which was perhaps the first separate chantry destroyed during the suppression. He ap- pears to have been employed next to finish the im- perfect work of the less expeditious Richard of Dover among the friars of Coventry, Warwick, Thelford, Stanford, and Northampton : whom he despatched very summarily, sometimes without pensions ; scattering, in Warwickshire, the White, the Crossed, the Trinitarian friars : in Stanford and in Northampton the Austins, the Carmelites or White Friars, the Dominicans or Black, and the Franciscans or Grey Friars. He observed with indiofnation the effect of what his predecessor had done in taking away the convent seals. The starvingf friars had been driven to sell
o
* He presented Crumwel with "the half-year fee of his poor house" (Wtight, 233) : and kept him continually refreshed with presents after- wards. Wallingford was certainly poor enough : one hundred and fifty pounds among seventeen persons. — Taftner.
1538.] London at Godstow Nunnery. 43
their plate in order to live, to the damage of the King. In one place, the Austins of Northampton, the prior had divided thirty pounds of money, made by selling plate, among his brethren just before London's arrival. But he clapped that prior into prison, and got forty shillings of the money back again.
Returnine to Oxford, the Doctor assailed the beautiful and famous Benedictine nunnery of God- stow, which was under the irreproachable government of the abbess, Katharine Bulkeley. To the proposi- tion of suppression this lady offered a determined opposition : denying the scope of the Visitor's com- mission, and refusing to surrender, save to the command of the King himself, or of his Vicegerent. Her resistance appears to have been grounded upon the royal origin of the house, which had been founded by the first English monarch who bore the name of Henry with great and unusual solemnity : and her remonstrances convey a notion of the means that were used to subdue a reluctant convent. Doctor London, as she declared, appeared " with a great rout with him," affirming that he had the King's commission to suppress her house. She replied that he might do all that his commission warranted, but denied that it gave him authority to suppress ; which was true enough : but he told her, nevertheless, that he would suppress the house in spite of her teeth. He remained with his company, living at the expense of the convent ; and began to tamper with the nuns, in- veigling them one by one, " otherwise than she ever heard tell that any of the King's subjects had been handled." So things remained, until both parties could be assured of the will of the Vicegerent, by whom the surrender seems to have been delayed for some months, and fell at last into other hands than
44 Londoiis Activity and Prudence, [ch. vm.
those of London.* The Doctor then, with equal pace, dissolved the small house of the Trinitarian friars of Donnington in Berkshire, two in number, worth no more than ten pounds a year : and the large Benedictine Abbey of Ensham, near Oxford, a house of ten, of the revenue of near five hundred pounds, of which the last abbot was Kitchin, who afterwards became Bishop of Llandaff. He then passed into Buckinghamshire, and smote Notley, a magnificent abbey of eighteen Austin canons, worth five hundred pounds a year : and within a week he was at the nunnery of Delapray in Northampton, a small Cluniac house of ten, lately refounded by the King. The aged abbess of this place willingly resigned her new charter of contin- uance, and received kindness in return for her ready compliance. With the six Carthusians of Coventry there was more difficulty. He had meditated a visit to them some time before : and the monks of that stubborn order wrote to him, and probably to Crumwel also, " unwise letters " of remonstrance, in anticipation of his visit. Their resistance was unavailing : but the conquest was delayed to the beginning of the following year.f
In surveying the work of this eminent man, we cannot but admire a certain generosity with which he occasionally treated the religious persons whom he expedited from their homes. Without troubling Crumwel by pleading for them, he sometimes made them good allowances out of their own goods, or
* London had the good nature to intercede for the abbess with Crum- wel, though she seems to have thought him her worst enemy. — Wright, 230.
X Mr. Wright wrongly places in this year, 1538, the two letters (pp. 231, 236), signed not only by London but by other commissioners which represent London as busy in Hampshire and Gloucestershire at the end of the year. They belong to 1539 : see below.
1538.] He boldly exceeded his Commission. 45
otherwise showed them kindness. We may also observe the confidence with which he repeatedly exceeded his commission in suppressing houses : thus penetrating and fulfilling the real purpose of his employers, and disdaining the scrupulous timidity of the less convenient Bishop of Dover. But prudence was mingled with this boldness, and he caused the surrenders, which he enforced, to be made in the form of a feoffment to himself: so that they are different from those that were made to other visitors, though other visitors needed, if they could have found, a legal sanctuary not less than he.* Nor less may we be struck with the sagacity with which at frequent inter- vals he poured upon the King, and not only upon the King but upon Crumwel, and not only upon Crumwel but upon the powerful Sir Richard Rich, Chancellor of the Court of Augmentations, the refreshing stream of the rich relics, the jewels, plate, and furniture which he seized everywhere. " Ye shall see me make you a pretty bank by that time I come next up," was the promise, plighted to the last-named personage, with which he concluded the labours of the year.f
* " I have taken," said he, " where the King's grace is not founder, a feofifment also (beside the surrender) made to me to the King's use. I did it by my lord Baldwin's counsel at Aylesbury." — IVrighi, 228. Accordingly the form in his surrenders was, e.g. : " Nos, Johannes Good- win, Prior Domus Fratrum Augustinensium, Northamptonia; et ejusdem loci Conventus unanimi consensu pariteret assensu Feoffavimus, Dedimus, et Concessimus Johanni London, Clerico," &c. — Ry/;i. xiv. 612. The surrenders taken by other visitors were made directly to the King, t London's Career in 1538 : —
31st Aug. Oxford, the Four Orders of Friars. Wright., 217.
17th Sept. Caversham by Reading. Wright, 221.
18th — Reading, Grey Friars. lb. 11^.
1 8th — Aylesbury, Bucks. lb. 224; cf 228.
1st Oct. Warwick, White Friars. Ryin. xiv. 612.
1st ■ — Warwick, Crossed Friars. Wright, 224.
2nd - — Coventry, White Friars. Rym. 612.
6th — Stanford, Line, Austin Friars. lb. 613.
46 Panic Among the Friars: [ch. vm.
The success of a general depends on the terror which he inspires not less than on the number of those whom he kills. In several of the places where we have traced the movements of Doctor London among the friars, we may observe other houses of them, which he is not known to have visited, yielding themselves up to the King as if in a panic. The Grey Friars of Aylesbury, who were seven ; of Bedford, who mustered thirteen ; and of Coventry, eleven ; the Grey and the White Friars of Stan- ford, who were eight and seven ; the Grey Friars of Grimsby, in the same county, to the number of six ; and the seven Black Friars of Warwick, by spon- taneously surrendering, added themselves to the triumph which he may justly claim : and it is re- markable that those friaries, and those alone, near which his conquering course had been, made use in common of that formulated confession which we have seen invented or applied for the first time at Bittlesden, and which has undergone such severe exercise, along with that of St. Andrew's, in the yoke of the chariot of history.* The annals of the suppression may be
London's Career i ft 1538 {continued) —
7th Oct. Stanford, Line, Black Friars. Rym. 613.
20th — Northampton, White Friars. lb. 613.
20th — Northampton, Black Friars. lb. 614.
26th — Thelford, Warws., Trinit. Friars. lb. 613.
28th — Northampton, Austin Friars. lb. 614.
28th — Northampton, Grey Friars. lb. 614.
5th Nov. Godstow, Oxford. Wright, 227-9.
30th — Donnington, Berks, Trinit. Friars. Rym. 613; Wright, 232.
4th Dec. Ensham, Oxford. Burnet ; cf. Wright, i^i.
9th — Notley, Bucks. Rym. 613 ; Wright, 232.
i6th — Delapray, Northampton. Rym. 614 ; Wright, 232.
* This, which may be distinguished as the Profoundly Considering
Confession, I have already given under the monastery of Bittlesden. See
above, p. 36. The other houses that used it were all friaries — the Grey
Friars or Cordeliers of Aylesbury, Bedford, Coventry, and Stanford, and
1538.] Especially in the North. 47
closed for the time in the widespread terror which seems to have infected the friars of the strongly guarded region of Yorkshire at the end of the year. In the city of York the four chief orders, Austin, White, Black, Grey, fourteen, eleven, twenty-one, and thirteen ; in Doncaster and in Northallerton, eight and eleven White or Carmelite Friars ; the Austins of Tickhill to the number of eight ; in Pomfret and in Yarom the Preachers or Black Friars, of whom in the latter place there were twelve, all surrendered themselves in November and December.*
The destruction of the relics and images treasured in the monastic churches drew the public attention not less than the demolition of the buildings them- selves. To enrich the King's treasury, the Visitors
the White of Stanford. The former profoundly considered that the perfec- tion of Christian hving consisted not " in wearing a grey coat, disguising themselves after strange fashions, ducking, nodding, and becking, girding themselves with a girdle full of knots," &:c. The latter profoundly con- sidered that it consisted not " in wearing a wJiite coat, and scapulars, and hoods," ducking, nodding, &c., as in the other. The body of the con- fession, as it is called, is the same in all, and amounts to nothing. — Rym. xiv. 610, &c.
* Friaries self-surrendered in 1538 : —
1st Oct. Aylesbury, Grey Friars. Ry7n. 611.^
3rd — Bedford, Grey Friars. Jb. 610.
5th — Coventry, Grey Friars. lb. 6i\.
8th — Stanford, Grey Friars. lb. 611. ^^^^ q^, Gaiidner, 'Lett
9th — Grimsby, Grey Friars. lb. 635. and Pap. vol. 13, 2, 275.]
20th — Warwick, Black Friars. lb. 610. ;
13th Nov. Doncaster, White Friars. Bur?tet, Coll. iii. iii.
19th — Tickhill, Austin Friars. Rym. 631.
26th — Pontefract, Black Friars. Jb. 623.
27th — York, Les Toftes, Black Friars. lb. 622.
27th — York, White Friars. lb. 622.
27th — York, Grey Friars. lb. 623.
28th — York, Austin Friars. lb. 623.
20th Dec. Northampton, White Friars. lb. 622. — • — Yarom, Black Friars. lb. 631. Some of the Doncaster friars were in Newgate in May this year. — Latimer's Remains^ p. 392 Cooke, their prior, was afterwards hanged at Tyburn.
[But London, after all, took these surrenders. See his letter in Ellis, 3, iii.
48 Destruction of Relics and Images, [ch. vm.
sent up to London from every part of the country carts, waggons, barges, and even men on horseback, laden with gold, jewels, and plate, and with the caskets in which had been kept the supposed or genuine fragments of the bodies of the saints, or the remnants of their clothes, which had been worshipped by the piety of ages. There were few religious houses which were without one or more of such objects of devotion, celebrated in the neighbourhood as being efficacious in the cure of disease, or prompt in the aid of childbirth. Besides these, which were the relics proper, there were found in many places miraculous images or figures, some of which not only wrought cures, but gave signs of sensibility to adoration. In them the actions of life were imitated by mechanical contrivance ; and the faith of the worshippers in the saint was stimulated by beholding his body move, his eyes wink, his head nod, or his arms expand. Some of these also were brought to London with the rest of the spoil, and exhibited in public, to justify the King's proceedings. They, there can be no doubt, were impostures for the sake of gain : but in condemning them, it may appear to an enlightened age that the whole of the religion of rags and bones was nothing but the invention of rascality playing on folly. And yet, before dismissing the trumpery with contempt, it might be worth while to enquire whether there might not have been sincerity not only in the worshippers but in the ministers of so wide a cult : and whether there may have been any difference of kind among the relics themselves. Some of the relics, it may be answered, were genuine in the sense of being what they were said to be. Others, and those the strangest, may not have been genuine in the sense of being what they were said to be, but they may have been believed
1538.] Relics Disfiugitishable in Kind. 49
by those who possessed and exhibited them to have been what they were said to be. It is easy to under- stand that the relics of local saints would be genuine. The remains of St. Richard of Chichester or St. Thomas of Canterbury were preserved and adored in the very places where they lived : they must have been real, although there may have been the irresistible temptation to replace some fragment presented to an illustrious pilgrim, or lost by theft or accident. When the belief in continued miracles prevailed universally, we can have no difficulty in thinking that the priests and monks who exhibited such relics may have shared the faith of the crowd which came to return thanks for the benefits which they had received from the saints. But when a fraternity of priests or monks exhibited the Avood of the Holy Cross, the spear that pierced our Saviour, the milk of the Blessed Virgin, or the girdle of St. Mary Magdalene, the last insult seems offered to reason : and we marvel at the patience which endured, at the credulity which devoured so enormous an absurdity. How could the thought have ever entered any mind that Eastern relics, of Evangelic and Apostolic date, should be found in the remotest parts of the Western world ? And yet the strangeness of the thing might suggest that there must be some explanation. These Eastern relics were once found all over Europe : over half Europe they are shown and venerated still. Europe was once filled with legends of their miracu- lous conveyance by aerial carriers. And they came really from the East, and so far forth they were genuine, except such as were subsequent forgeries : and they may have been believed to have been authen- tic relics by those who possessed and exhibited them. From the time of the Crusades, and especially about
VOL. II. E
50 Sketch of tJie History of Relics, [ch. vm.
the fourteenth century, Europe was filled with them. The Greeks gave, or more generally sold, them to the Crusaders, with solemn assurances of their age and sanctity : and the Latin princes, bishops, and abbots received and treasured them as the most precious of things. The greatest English ecclesiastic of the age of Coeur de Lion, Hugh of Lincoln, travelled through France, carefully enquiring into the history of such relics, of which he made a collection. The Emperor of Constantinople himself, Baldwin the Second, relieved his necessities by hawking about Europe the awful treasures of the imperial chapel : and raised an army with the price of them. St. Louis of France received- the chief of those treasures, the Crown of Thorns, in his capital, barefoot and in his shirt. Henry the Third of England accepted from the Templars and solemnly lodged in Westminster the gift of the Holy Blood : on which occasion the acute and able Grossteste preached a sermon on the authenticity of the relic. Erasmus has told us of the anxious care with which William of Paris procured in Constantinople the phial of the Virgin's Milk, which was eventually deposited in Walsingham. No doubt of these relics was enter- tained by the first purchasers, who were often deceived by unscrupulous dealers. But in the case of the greatest and most sacred of them the sellers may have been as sincere as the buyers : and the original deception, for the thing exceeds all credibility, must be referred to the earlier age of Constantine, of Helena, and of the Invention of the Cross,*
Human nature, in its vast commonness, is liable to
* I am much indebted here to an article in the CImrch Review of Oct. 1879. See also Mr. Perry's Life of Grossteste, p. 198. The story of the pretended exhumation of St. Andrew's lance in the first Crusade, and of the terrible punishment of the discoverer, which is in Gibbon, proves that the Crusaders kept their eyes open as wide as they could.
1538.] Pilgrimages. 51
the furious flashes of a false sublime. This is super- stition. We may rejoice in the discovery of fraud : but some perhaps harmless delusions, and some not ungraceful customs were abolished by the purification in the sixteenth century : and superstition, so far from being eradicated, was soon afterwards to put on her most ghastly and terrific shapes. Superstition is indeed ineradicable : and that aee is the wisest which can best direct her.
Among the things objected against relics and images was the practice of pilgrimage, to which they gave rise. The phrase was that they were " abused with pilgrimages." It cannot be doubted that pilgrim- ages were often the cause of great idleness. But it may be remembered that some amount of travelling seems to be necessary to human nature : the pilgrim- ages were the great means of relaxation in the Middle Ages : and a religious visit to the shrine of a saint might not of necessity be more chargeable with idleness than the modern substitute of a tour in search of the ruins ' by which that saint was once protected, or a sojourn in a watering-place, where rise the costly tabernacles of many sects.*
The disbelief of man in the sio-ns and wonders
o
* Several places of pilgrimage have arisen in England in modern times. The most celebrated of them perhaps is Stratford-on-Avon. The pilgrims begin to arrive about the time when April with his showers sweet has pierced the drought of March to the root. They come not only from every shire's end, but from the ends of the earth, a great number of them being Americans. They make the round, visit the relics, admire the effigies and monument. Their names, to the number of ten thousand every year, are inscribed in a book. The Jubilees and other high com- memorations are strictly kept, and greatly frequented. At the Jubilee of 1769 there were eight thousand persons present at once. In the more recent commemorations this number must have been greatly exceeded. It maybe observed, perhaps to the honour of the country, that the modern places of pilgrimage are all consecrated to the memory of the great masters of imagination.
E 2
52 Anecdotes of the Destruction [ch. vm.
wrought by the saints had been expressed In the first years of the Reformation by various acts of violence, which brought condign punishment on those who com- mitted them. And it must be owned that the zeal of the earlier iconoclasts was indiscriminate. They broke the crosses by the roadside, which were surely innocent enough, more frequently than the statues in the churches, which certainly were more difficult to get at.* But when the royal reformer and his myrmidons came on the scene, it was another thing. The destruc- tion of the monastic idols was pursued with order and with safety : and the course of it was illustrated with many quaint stories : a few of which may now be related.
When Doctor London was clearing out the chantry at Caversham, the priest who sang there attempted to escape with a one-winged angel to his own monastery of Notley. He had submitted to part with the silver- plated image of Our Lady, with the holy dagger that killed King Henry the Sixth, with the holy knife that killed King Edward the Martyr, and with the votive lights, shrouds, crutches, and waxen images with which his chapel was hung.f But to lose the one-winged angel that brought to Caversham the spear that pierced our Saviour was beyond his equanimity. However, the active visitor recovered the relic for the King. The Abbey of Boxley in Kent was famous for a mechanical rood, known as the Rood of Grace ; which
* Fox and Froude relate the story of some men who burned a rood at Dovercourt in 1532, and were hanged for it. Fox gives many other instances of the sort. The wayside crosses can hardly have been so elaborate and full of figures as some of the Calvaries of Brittany. But who can tell .'
t It would seem from this that such places were decorated with the waxen images of diseases which the saint had cured, that are seen in some Roman Catholic countries now.
I538-] of Relics and Images. 53
augmented by the pilgrims, whom it attracted, the in- come of a poor and indebted fraternity. When the abbey surrendered itself, the monks seem to have dis- placed this idol with their own hands ; and Southwell, the Visitor, who arrived after the surrender, found it lying dethroned and prostrate, '' a very monstrous sight. " It was resolved, however, for the confusion of idolatry, to put the Rood of Grace through a perform- ance in London, first before the King and his court, then before a large congregation in St. Paul's. Under the dexterous manipulation of the Bishop of Rochester, the image was made to roll its eyes, to weep, to bow its head : then, amid the general indignation, it was committed to the mob and the flames.* The image of our Lady of Worcester, a very popular object of esteem, excited the apprehensions of Latimer, lest she should have been " the devil's instrument to bring many to eternal fire." This "great Sibyl," as he called her, turned out on examination to be the statue of a bishop ten feet high.t By Latimer's advice, she, together with the images of our Lady of Walsingham herself, our Lady of Ipswich, our Lady of Doncaster, and our Lady of Penrice in Wales, were brought to London, and formed a sisterhood for Smithfield.J The Abbey of Hales, in the diocese of the same zealous prelate, possessed a phial of the blood, as it was believed, of Christ, to the sight of which the people came " by flocks." A com- mission, which included both the bishop and the abbot of the place, was sent by Crumwel to examine the relic. It took them all the forenoon " bolting and
* Orig. Lett. Park. Soc. pp. 606, 608, 609. Wriothesley says that it was made of paper and clouts from the legs upwards, with legs and arms of timber, and that it was worked with strings of hair. P. 75.
t Hall.
X Lat. Rem. p. 395. Wriothesley says that the Walsingham and Ipswich images were burned at Chelsea by Crumwel. P. 83.
54 Latimer: his Wavering. [ch.vih.
sifting " it, and their unanimous decision was that the supposed blood was an unctuous gum coloured/"
Latimer was in truth busy enough at this time in the detection of pious frauds. To his simplicity such a simple issue was a solace of heavy cares. To fling out of window an idol which it was said that no power could move : to turn the people of Worcester " from ladyness to godliness " by destroying the image which brought much custom to their city : to inform the Vicegerent " how pardoners did prate in the borders of the realm " : to give " the bloody abbot " of Evesham (for by that fine old English homespun word Latimer designated a neighbour of the mitre) the expense and trouble of a journey to London about some such matter of superstition : these were occupations which soothed an anxious and foreboding mind. He flattered Crumwel m his letters : he was fond of superfluously acquainting him with the state of his health : he adopted a familiar and jocular tone towards him : but he could neither conceal the depression which weighed on him nor escape the suspicion of looking doubtfully on the Revolution. It was even rumoured, about the beginning of the year following this, that he had " turned over the left " : that he had even preached before the King a sermon in which he extolled pilgrim- ages, the worship of saints, and the authority of the Pope.f It seems not improbable that his letters to Crumwel may have been the cause of this report. In spite of his jocose language, he was continually peti- tioning the Vicegerent in favour of the religious houses and persons of his diocese. History has taken some notice of his pathetic appeal that at least a few houses of religion might be spared here and there for the sake of the poverty of the country. " I know that I
* Lat. Rem. pp. 364, 407. t Ellis, ii. 2.. 104.
1538.] He hitercedes for the Monasteries. 55
play the fool, but with my foolishness I somewhat act the wise man, and mitio-ate the heaviness : which I am bold to do with you. The country is poor, and full of penury. Alas, my lord, shall we not see two or three in every shire changed to such remedy ? " "" But he did more than make a general remonstrance. He pleaded for Great Malvern that it might be changed to some good purpose, and allowed to stand. The prior, he said, was a good man, who " fed many, and that daily"; and the friends of the prior would furnish to the King five hundred marks, and two hundred to the Vicegerent, to let the house continue. He asked and obtained that a man whom Crumwel had put into the collegiate church of Stratford-on-Avon might be charged with the pension of the resigning incumbent, and not the college burdened. He begged for a friar, who was in danger of suffering condignly, that Crumwel would let him go with an admonition. He attempted to obtain the friary of Droitwich for some public use. He asked and obtained that the Black and Grey friaries of Worcester might be bestowed on the city of Worcester for the maintenance of their school. He feared not to express a wish that there were " better judgments in some of the King's judges," who often pronounced judgment without acquainting him, in cases in which he had a right to be acquainted, being ordinary. All this must have been troublesome to Crumwel, in spite of the jokes : and he laid up for Latimer a heavy whip, with which he smote him when the occasion came. On the other hand, Latimer showed his zeal for the new loyalty by presenting some preachers who favoured the Old Learning ; and in other ways.
* Strype, i. 399 ; or Latimer's Letters, from which also the following instances come.
56 The Image of Darvel Gadern. [ch. vm.
Amonof the imao;es that went to London to be burned was a hutre wooden idol from Wales, the statue of an armed man, bearing the uncouth name of Darvel Gadern, with the reputation of being able to fetch men " out of hell, when they were damned." '" This virtue had given to Darvel Gadern a high esti- mation in his own country: it now inspired the Supreme Head and his Vicegerent, who were tired perhaps with the combustion of so much inanimate matter, with one of their happiest devices. They resolved not only to burn Darvel Gadern, but tc make Darvel Gadern burn a living man. They had the choice of a con- siderable number of religious persons who lay in Newgate. There were the White Friars of Don- caster, to the number of some six or seven, with their Prior Cooke, who were there for their share in the Pilgrimage of Grace. There were the surviving London Carthusians, the first severity of whose treat- ment must have been mitigated, since they were in prison still. The choice fell, however, upon Friar Forest, of Greenwich, the eloquent provincial of the dissolved Order of the Observants, and confessor of the late Queen Katharine : who was in Newgate with the rest. Forest, it is said, had taken the Oath of Succession and Supreme Head;t but he had been found advising penitents in confession to stick to the old fashion of belief, arguing that he himself owed a double obedience, first to the King, by the law of God ; second to the Pope, by his rule and profession. He also extolled Thomas Becket ; and discerned a
* Price to Crumwel. Wright, p. 191. May not this armed figure have been a genuine relic of paganism, the figure of Hu Gadern, the Mighty Guardian, the Hassus of Lucan, the Celtic Mars? Bishop Barlow called it " a Welsh God, an antique gargel of idolatry." — Wright, 208.
t If he did, he was the only one of his convent, for they refused the oath. Vol. I. p. 215, huj. op.
1538.J Horrible Executioji of Friar Forest. 57
parallel between the murder of that prelate and the execution of Bishop Fisher of Rochester.* For these offences he was liable to the new laws of verbal treason, and might have been hanged : but it was resolved to proceed against him for heresy. He was examined at Lambeth by a commission over which Cranmer presided, and articles were ministered to him in the forms of ecclesiastical law. At first he ab- jured, he subscribed the articles, and expressed him- self willing to undergo public penance : but afterwards in prison, being encouraged by the company of his fellow prisoners, he withdrew his abjuration, and declared that he would not appear as a penitent, preferring to die the death rather than to bear the faggot of a heretic. He had denied the Pope, he said, in his outward, but not in his inward man. On the following Sunday, May 12, there was a large congregation at Paul's Cross. Latimer occupied the pulpit : but no penitent was there. The preacher could but exhibit and read the articles which Forest had signed, calling on the people to pray that even yet he might be turned from his proud obstinacy, and brought to a better mind.f
But in this case there was neither place nor hope of repentance, and at the expiration of ten days. Forest was brought to Smithfield on Wednesday, May 22. At the request of Crumwel, the Bishop of Worcester
* Froude, iii. 292, from a Rolls House MS.
t The articles which Forest abjured were — "First, That the Holy Catholic Church was the Church of Rome, and that we ought to believe out of (according to) the same. Second, That we should believe on the Pope's pardon for the remission of our sins. Thirdly, That we ought to believe and do as our fathers have done aforetime fourteen years past. Fourthly, That a priest might turn and change the pains of hell of a sinner truly penitent, contrite of his sins, by certain penance enjoined him in the pains of Purgatory." — Wriothesley, p. 79 ; cf. Cranmer'' s Lett. P- 365.
58 Horrible Execution of Friar Forest, [ch. vm.
accepted the office of preaching the sermon at the execution, saying that he was content " to play the fool after his customary sort": but requesting that the pulpit might be placed near enough for the sufferer to hear, and perhaps repent ; and putting in a plea, " such was his foolishness," that if he could be brought to submit to the Church, he might not afterwards be hanged for treason.* On the day appointed, a long scaffold was erected, next to St. Bartholomew's Gate, on which sat the King's Council, the mayor and aldermen of London, and other gentlemen and commons. On another side stood the pulpit, and beside it a scaffold on which the prisoner was to stand to hear the sermon. A railed space in the centre included a fire and a new gallows adorned with some doggerel verses,tand an iron chain dependent : and by that stood the wooden Welsh idol. When the prisoner arrived, the service began. Latimer delivered his discourse — " a noble sermon" ; and at the end of it asked the prisoner " what state he would die in." The friar with a loud voice answered that, " If an angel should come from heaven, and teach him any other doctrine than he had received and believed from his youth, he would not now believe him : that if his body should be cut joint from joint, or member
* Latimer's Lett. p. 392. Hall, Stow, Wriothesley. t David Darvel Gatheren, As said the Welshmen,
Fetched outlaws out of hell. Now he is come with spear and shield In flames to burn in Smithfield,
For in Wales he may not dwell.
And Forest the friar, That obstinate liar.
That wilfully shall be dead. In his contumacy The Gospel doth deny.
The King to be Supreme Head.
- Hall.
I538-] Case of AutJwny Brown. 59
after member, burnt, hanged, or what pain might be done on his body, he never would turn from his old profession." Fixing his eyes on Latimer, he added, " Seven years back thou durst not have made such a sermon for thy life." * The penalties of treason and of heresy were ingeniously combined in his death. He was hanged by the armpits in the iron chain, and Darvel Gadern was kindled beneath him. When he saw the fire come, he caught hold of the ladder of the gallows, and tried to draw himself aside : and this incident and the agony of death, which followed, appeared to the dull and pitiless chronicler who has recorded, and who probably witnessed, the scene as evidence not only of the weakness of nature, but of the guilt of the conscience, t
This execution was considered to be so fine a stroke of political wisdom that it was resolved to exhibit a spectacle somewhat resembling it in another part of the country : and by the rarest good fortune a victim was found in another Observant, of the very same convent as Friar Forest. Anthony Brown, on the dissolution of his order and of the house of Greenwich, had turned hermit, near Norwich. About this time he was accused and condemned for uttering treason,
* Uugdale, Monast. Wriothesley.
t " So impatiently took he his death, that no man that ever put his trust in God, never so unquietly nor so ungodly ended his life : if men might judge him by his outward man, he appeared to have little know- ledge of God and his sincere truth, and less trust in him at his ending." —Hall.
Mr. Froude gives this piece of business a turn to the prejudice of the Church. " It was the single supremacy case which fell to the conduct of ecclesiastics : and ecclesiastics of all professions, in all ages, have been fertile in ingenious cruelty." But it also appears from him that it was "the crown prosecutors " who resolved to torture Forest so horribly. Four years afterwards, one Margaret Davie, " a maiden," was boiled alive in Smithfield as a poisoner. Wriothesley, 134. What body of men in the realm had the most to do with that ?
6o Other Exeeutioiis of Religious, [ch. vm.
and would have been hanged forthwith, but that it struck the justices that a sermon, to be preached by the Bishop of Norwich, as Latimer had preached at the execution of Forest, would be a meet addition to the ceremonies of death. The Duke of Norfolk, whom they consulted, heartily approved of the sugges- tion of the justices : the more that Rugg, the Bishop of Norwich, was suspected of a want of fervour in the new loyalty. Rugg, however, consented to do what was required: and now, though the hermit was thought to be half-witted, yet, as no persuasions could bring him to acknowledge the Supreme Head, a further ques- tion presented itself to the Duke. This was, whether Crumwel would have him executed at Norwich imme- diately, or sent to London to be examined by torture in the Tower.* It may be supposed that, whether he were tortured or not, the hermit met his fate.f About the same time the Vicegerent presided over the torture of an Irish monk, suspected of treasonable communication with Cardinal Pole.J And to these victims of the year must be added Cooke, the prior of the White Friars of Doncaster : George Crofts, the vicar of Shepton Mallet in Somersetshire, and several others. ^
Cranmer at this time had his troubles, and many
* Norfolk to Crumwel, 4 Aug.— iT/ZzV, ii. i, 85. There was another hermit in the hands of Crumwel and the Earl of Shrewsbury. — Ellis, ii. 2, 135. [Brown's name is in the list of Observants of 1535.]
t But after some enquiry I have been unable to ascertain this. No- thing is known at Norwich, the Assize Rolls having been destroyed. So I am informed by the Rev. Dr. Jessop, of that city.
+ " I am advised to-morrow once to go to the Tower, and see him set in the brakes, and by torment compelled to confess the truth." — Crumwel to the King, 27 March. Ellis, ii. 2, 130. This was not the only dealing that Crumwel had with the brakes or rack, which had been illegally set up in the Tower in the reign of Henry VI. See Ellis, ii. 2, 121.
§ Burnet : Cranmer's Lett. p. 385 ; Hunter's Yorkshire, i. 17.
I538-] Cranmer : his Official Troubles. 6i
of them : but we can discern in him nothing- but the official of the new loyalty. Of the uncouth jocularity and hidden anguish of a Latimer we should ex- pect no trace in him, but neither is there any in- dication of doubt or scruple concerning the enormous measures that were littering the land with ruins and crowning it with gibbets. He was ever ready to be led ; ever willino- to trust himself to those who showed the power of leading. His acquiescence was wonder- ful in a man of conscience and goodness. It may be imputed in part to the intimate manner in which he found himself involved with the King and Crumwel, partly to the hope which he nursed of good arising out of evil, partly to a sincere religious belief and the conviction that in ending the abuses of the old system a beneficial work was being done which would outlast the horrors of the process. As usual, the burden of the war, such as it was, fell on him, being an eccle- siastic, not upon the laymen for whom he laboured. He was placed in the midst of the enemy, in the stronghold of the Old Learning : and while the King and Crumwel were inhaling the incense of flattery, and were never approached without the humblest submissions, Cranmer had often to face the scowl of indignation, and listen to the voice of resentment. He showed himself stout : it was natural that a man in such a position should meet his difficulties resolutely. The Old Learning, for nothing is so valiant as party, claimed, amid the sighs and crackings of the tree of antiquity, to have the advantage in what things were ordered in The Bishops' Book, or Institution of a Christian Man. A Kentish justice of the peace was reported to the Archbishop to have said that the King showed himself in the new book to be in favour of the old ways. At assizes and sessions this justice was
62 Cramner and the Kentish J list ice. [ch. vm.
affirmed to attempt to stop the people from hearing or reading the Scriptures by threatening to indict them for assembhng unlawfully : and his servants were heard to say that the book " allowed all the old fashions, and put all the knaves of the New Learning to silence." Cranmer wrote to him in severe terms ; and a warm correspondence ensued. The prelate told the justice that but for the favour he bore him he would proceed aeainst his servants as heretics. The justice answered that he was sorry that the archbishop was prone to hear the tongues of false liars : that the new book was so perfect that it needed no expositor ; and that he would abide by his own words, and his servants might answer for theirs. The archbishop complained in return that at sessions and leets the justice was far more zealous in setting before the people mere voluntary things, which had no ground of Scripture, than in setting forth things necessary to be believed, such as justification by faith only, the difference between faith and works, or the obedience due to the prince. He was credibly in- formed, he said, that in the declarations of the justice it seemed to be made out that there were no abuses in the old customs, and that the King and Council were worthy of no praise at all for their great pains, ex- penses, and labour. His former letter, he added, was but a friendly admonition, for the justice had probably erred in ignorance : the distinction, however, between voluntary and necessary things was made in the book, and he marvelled that he had not perceived this in reading it, seeing that it needed no expositor, as he said. The justice replied that he marvelled more that the archbishop so marvelled without surer intelligence : and that as to his lordship's friendly admonition, though he were a high prelate, and percase deeply seen in divinity, and himself a man but meanly learned
1538.] The Official Action of Crannier. 63
in morality, yet he could discern between a friendly admonition and a captious impetition or a dangerous commination.
This is enough to show that The Bishops' Book was variously taken. The quarrel between the two men, who had so strangely reversed the merits of the long struggle between ordinaries and justices, seems to have been continued for some years, the justice harassing the New Learning at the sessions, the prelate present- ing the justice at his visitation, and at last appealing to Crumwel.* Cranmer had indeed much petty and persecutive business to transact with the Vicegerent, many petitions to urge on the behalf of friends who wanted monastic lands or other preferments, many complaints to utter concerning his enemies, especially those of his own convent of Christchurch.f In the midst of his bickerings with the latter, while he was overriding their chapters and interfering with their elections, it occurred to him that it would be a good thing to have the blood of St. Thomas examined, which was shown among his other relics at Christ- church : for he suspected it to be a feigned thing, " made of some red ochre, or of such like matter." He
* Cranmer's Lett. pp. 349, 367. This justice is thought by some to have been named Ingram, or Ingham. If so, he was presented again before Cranmer in 1543. — Stfype's Cratim. b. i. ch. xxv.
+ He asked Crumwel to set aside their election of prior, in favour of another monk who was " very tractable, without superstition, and ready to set forth his prince's cause." Lett. 385. He also wrote to him, complain- ing that the chapter had readmitted a runaway monk. — lb. 373. In the letters to Crumwel about this time there is a great deal of the sort of business described above. For instance : — 29 Jan. Please punish a priest at Ashforth. — 28 Feb. Please give John Wakefield Pomfret Priory. — 12 Jiuie. At Croydon the Pope's name is not put out of the church books. — 5 Aug. Please give Hutton something, make him an abbot, and his wife an abbess. — 23 Aug. Please give Basset Tudbury Abbey, or Rochester, or Croxden. — 25 Aug. Let an old friend re- nounce his priesthood, but keep his mastership. — 28 Aug. Please give Dr. Barnes Tamworth College.
64 The Shrine of Canterbury. [ch. vm.
suggested to the Vicegerent that the great Legh, along with his own chaplain, should be appointed " to try and examine that and all things there " : * nor fell the counsel upon unwilling ears. But Cranmer was only adding a pebble to the mighty ruin of St. Thomas, of which the mandate had already gone forth. Not only the blood, but the bones, the tomb, the name of the martyr of English freedom were assailed in this age of slavery with a rage of animosity which deserves to be ranked among the most remarkable incidents of the reign of Henry.
The shrine of St, Thomas of Canterbury was the richest in the world : the glory of England, almost the common property of Christendom. The princes of Christendom had vied in laying upon it the most precious products of the mine and of the loom, the fairest works of the most skilful artificers. The offerings of thousands of pilgrims, continued through three hundred years, had been poured in a golden flood upon the church and city of the martyr : and expended without grudging in the efforts of architec- ture to provide, to renew, or to enlarge the fabric of the temple that might be worthy of so magnificent a sanctuary. The ancient religion, it is probable, scarcely presented even in the apostolic seats of Rome and Compostella so striking a spectacle as that which met the eyes of the army of pilgrims, who approached the holy city of England on one of the Jubilees of St. Thomas. The two vast towers rising into the sky, the waving flags, the silvery bells, sounding far and wide over the surrounding country, awoke the expecta- tions which were not disappointed by the splendours that awaited a nearer view. In the as^e in which the- scene that had fed the eyes of Chaucer faded for
* Cran. to Crum., Aug. 18 ; Lett. p. 31S ; or State Pap. i. 580.
1538.] Former Visit of Erasmus to it. 65
ever from the view of men, it was visited by several memorable pilgrims. The greatest of the early human- ists, in the company of a congenial friend, stepped from the indulgent roof of Warham, in the first years of the century, to make the visit of the saint : and Erasmus and Colet tittered or fumed together : that is to say, Erasmus tittered and Colet fumed : or with half repentant recollection went through the customary ceremonies of devotion, while the appointed officers displayed to them the wonders of the vault, the chapel, and the shrine. "We passed," says Ogygius,* "into a vault underground, where they showed us first the martyr's skull, as it was bored through : the top of it we could touch with our lips, but the rest was covered with silver.f The shirt, the girdles, and breeches of the saint, which were hung up there in the dark, sent a shudder through our degenerate frames ; and he wore them for mortification. When we returned to the choir, they unlocked a private place to the north : and it is incredible what a world of bones they brought out of it : skulls, chins, teeth, hands, fingers, whole arms, which with great devotion we beheld and kissed. But my fellow pilgrim, Gratianus Pullus, was very indiscreet here. The officer, or mystagogue, brought us out an arm with the flesh on it still bloody, and he made a mouth at it, instead of kissing it : whereupon the officer shut up all again. Then we went to see the table and ornaments of the altar : and when I be- held the treasures there, I could not help forming the sacrilegious wish (for which I repented on the spot) that I had a few such relics at home in my own coffers, for
* The name which Erasmus gives himself in the colloquy " Iter ReHgionis Ergo." His friend Colet figures as Gratianus Pullus. The story of Erasmus' visit is also related by Dean Stanley {Mem. of Cant.).
t This head was afterwards affirmed to have been a~ counterfeit. See in next chapter, the " Nameless Apologist of the King." VOL. II. F
66 Evasnius and Colet at Canterbury : [ch. vm.
they beggared Midas and Croesus. In the vestry again what a pomp of silken vestments and golden candle- sticks ! But the crook of St. Thomas was a simple reed covered with a silver plate : his gown, silken indeed, but plain, unembroidered, unimpearled : his handkerchief marked with the sweat of his neck and retaining the stain of his blood. These relics, which are not shown to everybody, we kissed right willingly. Another ascent, beyond the high altar, led us as it were into another church : where we saw the whole face of the holy man, gilt and set with jewels, in a chapel. And here it must be said that my friend Gratianus lost himself extremely. For, when we had said a short prayer, he asked the officer whether St. Thomas, who was so charitable on earth, would not be well satisfied in heaven if some poor woman with a family of starving children, or a sick husband, were to crave to make free with a trifle out of his immense treasures. The officer said nothing in reply : so Gratianus added with some warmth that he was cer- tain that the saint would be well pleased if the poor in this world were the better for him. The officer began to frown, and we were in danger of being turned out of the Church ; but I told him that my friend was a wag, and touched his hand with some- thing of the whiteness of silver. And now, as we were come to the greatest sight of all, out comes the Prior himself, a learned and prudent man, whom I knew to be something of a Scotist. He opened us the box in which is deposited the rest of the body of the saint : which neither is permitted to be seen, nor could be without a ladder. On this wooden box there stood a golden one : and when this was raised with ropes, what an inestimable treasure was disclosed ! The basest part of it was gold : everything sparkled,
1538.] A Picture of the Old Religion. 67
flashed, and flamed with the rarest, the most stupen- dous gems. There stood around with great veneration some of the monks. On the raisinof of the cover we all worshipped : and the Prior with a white wand touched every stone, one by one, telling us the name, the price, and the donor.* We then went back into the vestry, where was a box with a black leather cover. This was set upon the table : and when it was opened, we all fell on our knees. It was full of old handkerchiefs that had never been washed, the relics of the linen which the orood man had used for his
o
nose, and the other homely purposes of the human body. Once more Gratianus lost his credit here. For when the gentle Prior, by way of peculiar favour, picked out a filthy rag, and presented it to him, in- stead of receiving it with proper gratitude, he took it squeamishly between his finger and thumb, made a wry face and a low whistle, and laid it down again. Shame and terror distracted me : but the Prior, though he felt the affront, seemed not to notice it ; and dismissed us courteously, with the parting civility of a glass of wine." But they had not quite done with St. Thomas yet. As they rode out of the city, an old man rushed out of an almshouse, flung a shower of holy water over them, and presented them the saint's shoe to kiss. Gratianus, who eot the chief share of the
* It was evidently the shrine z'/j^^ which the courteous Prior, who was Goldwell, undertook in person to exhibit to the guest of Warham. A shrine, the reader may be reminded, consisted of several parts, i. The stone altar or pedestal ; on which was 2. The bier containing the body of the saint. The pedestal was so high at Canterbury, as Erasmus says, that the bier could not have been looked into without a ladder. So it was also in St. Cuthbert's shrine at Durham. 3. The cover, which could be raised or lowered by ropes, to display or conceal the upper part of the shrine. A person ordinarily entering the Church would only see the pedestal, the bier, and the cover. When the cover was raised, the riches of the shrine were displayed.
F 2
68 TJie Last Visit paid to Canterhtvy. [ch. vm.
aspersion, burst into a rage. " Heavens," he ex- claimed, " do these brutes expect us to kiss the shoes of all the good men that have ever lived ? They will next expect us to kiss some other things belonging to them." But he spoke in the heat of- the moment : not without a cause. " For my part," adds Ogygius, " I took pity on the poor old man, and bestowed a small alms upon him : reflecting at the same time how much greater was this man than the tyrants of the earth. He reared that magnificent church : he extended the authority of the priesthood in England : his very shoe is an hospital for the aged poor."
A few years after this memorable visit, another pair of pilgrims enjoyed the splendours of St. Thomas and the hospitality of Warham. In the year of the last jubilee of the saint, 1520, the King of England, Henry himself, and the Emperor Charles, in the glory of their youth, surrounded by their nobles, came to Canterbury, and spent there an Easter of profuse festivity. But the spirit of the monarch had changed the spirit of the age when, eighteen years after- wards, the same scene was visited by the last pilgrim whose visit remains on record. The edict for the destruction of the shrine was already gone forth when a great French lady, Madame de Montreiiil, passed through Canterbury on her return from Scot- land. She and her gentlewomen, like Erasmus and Colet, were ushered into the vault where the head was kept : but though the Prior himself thrice opened that precious relic, saying, " This is St. Thomas' Head," and offered her thrice to kiss it, the lady would neither kiss it nor kneel, though cushions were brought and placed for her ; nor, sad to relate, would she kneel at the shrine, though the timid adhibition of cushions
1538.] The Becket War. 69
sueeested the attitude there also: she stood, ever Qrazine at the treasure, and repeating that " there was never a man in the world wouid have made her to believe that it was so great if she had not seen it." *
To proclaim war against the champion of the . Church and of liberty was a happy device : by which the shadow of a shade at least was added to the host of enemies who in modern times have been discovered to have engaged the utmost energies of a reforming monarch, and to have given a just occasion to the seventies which he used in every victory. But here a single campaign gave to the conqueror the spoils of an unresisting of an undefended foe. The greater Festival of St. Thomas (for his year was marked by two), that of the Translation of the Relics, was already fallsn by the operation of the ordinance for abrogating superfluous holidays, which had inured two years before ; f and when it came round in the following year, Cranmer, the official of the new loyalty, had marked the vigil, or fast of the evening which pre- ceded it, by the unprecedented license of a dinner of flesh. X The other, the less important festival of the
* One of Crumwel's spies to Crumwel. — State Pap. i. 583.
tin 1536: see Vol. I. p. 424, hiij. op. It fell in harvest time, which was reckoned from ist July to 29th September: and the ordinance in question abrogated all harvest-time feasts, except two or three.
+ "The same year (1537) the archbishop of Canterbury did not fast on St. Thomas even, but did eat flesh, and did sup in his (parlour) with his family: which was never seen before." So remarked a monk of the neighbouring and perhaps rival monastery of St. Augustine. Nicliols' Narratives, 285. Cranmer indeed was very busy at this time punishing persons who persisted in observing the holidays that had been abrogated : and in threatening his parsons and curates with deprivation for the same cause. He never wrote a more characteristic letter than that which he addressed to Crumwel about a month after he had eaten flesh, as above related, on St. Thomas even. He desires that all the bishops should follow a common course of severity on those who persisted in keeping the abrogated days, adding that he would fain that all the envy and grudge of the people in the matter should be diverted from the King and his
70 Desf ruction of the Shrine. [ch. vm.
Martyrdom, which fell in December, still remained : and for the last time in the same year the bells of Canterbury were rung, the church was adorned, and the processions were formed, to welcome a diminished band of pilgrims. Before the Martyrdom came round again, the royal mandate was issued for the obliteration of every memorial of the saint who had braved a king. The commissioners who were charged with the errand of destruction arrived at Canterbury. The jewels and the gold were carried out in two vast chests upon the shoulders of six or eight men : they, the vestments, and the rest of the goods filled twenty-six carts that waited at the door : and the whole treasure started on the way for London. The stonework of the shrine was smashed to pieces with hammers : the long worshipped bones of the saint, instead of the decent dismission of a burial, were burnt to ashes, mixed with rubbish, and scattered to the winds. A hollow gap, an empty space, a pavement broken by violence, but bearing still the ineffaceable vestiges of the former piety, remain alone to tell of the departed glory of St. Thomas of Canterbury.
To explain these vigorous proceedings, a Royal Proclamation was issued, in which it was declared that on investigation by the advice of the Council it had been found that Thomas Becket was a traitor, who
council, "and that we, which be ordinaries, should take it upon us." He then added a gentle admonition, for it would seem that he was far before his masters in zeal ; " My lord, if you in the court do keep such holidays and fasting days as be abrogated, when shall we persuade the people from keeping of them ? For the King's own house shall be an example unto all the realm to break his own ordinances." — Lett. p. 347, or Strype's Cran. App. xix. Cranmer was certainly a stout and willing servant, and of a limpid honesty. We may now see why the abrogation of holidays had been allowed to be effected by Convocation without Parliament. It was that the temporalty might avoid the odium of interfering with the habits of the people — always a dangerous thing.
1538.] Victorious Close of the Becket JVav. 7 1
had resisted the laws of his king, and had fallen in a brawl : and that he had been canonised by the authority of the Bishop of Rome only. It was there- fore ordered that he should be called St. Thomas no longer, but Bishop Becket : that his Festival should be no more observed: that his name should be erased from all books, and his images and pictures plucked down and avoided out of all churches throughout the realm.* This order, which spread the war against St. Thomas from the seat of Canterbury to every part of England, was executed with a fatal punctuality. The splendid windows which the Church of England had raised everywhere in honour of one of her boldest maintainers, on which the colourist had lavished his utmost skill, were smashed wherever they were found : to the irreparable injury of one of the greatest of the mediaeval arts. So hioh ran the indignation of the people, notwithstanding the terrors of the time, that a drunken man was presented before Cranmer (who failed not to report the case to Crumwel) for saying that it was pity, and naughtily done to put down the Pope and St. Thomas. t
* loth November. Wilkins, iii. 848. A particular degree of cere- mony attended the smashing of the windows of St. Thomas of Acre, in London, where the saint was believed to have been born. Wriothesley, 87.
+ Cranm. Lett. p. 367, 368. I have omitted the story, which the cautious Lingard admits, that the King summoned the saint to appear in court and answer to the charge of treason ; and that after thirty days, as St. Thomas neglected to leave his shrine and appear in person, a proctor was assigned to him, to plead his cause against the attorney-general. The court is said to have sat in Westminster, the case to have been tried, and the absent culprit condemned to those penalties which he suffered, if not in the flesh, in the bones. This curious story passed current on the con- tinent, and was repeated by several foreign writers, one of whom, PoUini, professed to give the original of the citation and of the sentence. ( Wil- kins, iii. 835.) Mr. Froude, however, has given good reasons for con- cluding that, whatever be the truth of the story itself, these documents must be spurious (vol. iii.). As to the story itself, Dean Stanley observes that there is nothing but negative evidence against it {Mem. of Cant. 198):
72 Destruction of Shrines [ch. vm.
The destruction of the shrine of Canterbury was but the most conspicuous example of a process which, being exactly observed throughout the kingdom, ad- vanced against the parish and cathedral churches the same blows that were shatterino- the monastic edifices to pieces. The sheriffs, magistrates, and other laymen
and Lingard thinks that it is confirmed beyond doubt by the language of the Pope in his Bull against Henry : " in judicium vocari, et tanquam contumacem damnari, ac proditorem declarari, fecerat " {Wilk. 341). But this does not support more than half the story ; though it renders it possible that half the story may be the whole truth. Further, Lingard and others think that the word now, which is found in Henry's Pro- clamation against Becket, must refer to these forensic proceedings. " For- asmuch as it appeareth now clearly," &c. And Dean Stanley quotes a Declaration of the year following, 1539, which says, " By approbation it appeareth clearly " what a villain Becket was. But might not these ex- pressions refer merely to the historical investigations which the King caused to be made into Becket's life, of which the Proclamation speaks ? and may not these investigations, together with the Proclamation that followed on them, be what the Pope meant ; and be also the foundation of the rest of the story? It is true that there is only negative evidence against the story : but that negative evidence is very strong. No con- temporary writer, none of the chronicles, none of the letters, are known to mention it. For instance, Pole knows nothing of it. If he had known of it, he would not have omitted such a tempting subject for his rhetoric. He knows of the Proclamation of the King : he knows of the historical investigations which preceded it, which he terms a falsification of history : he quivers with indignation and horror : but he knows nothing of the judicial farce. This is what he says : " Edictum enim fecit, tanquam ipse fuisset ille Rex, cujus conatibus Divus Thomas restitisset, vel nunc iterum cum multo magis impie moliatur et perficiat, cui rediens ad vitam Sanctus ille vir obstiterit : Sic quidem edictum scribit, in quo Divum Thomam proditorem pronuntiat, et quasi jam recenter venissent testes post trecentos annos, qui nee illo tempore, cum caedes facta est, inveniri potuerunt, nee tot sasculis postea, qui non aliter quam in historiis scrip- tum est, narrarent, sic dicit se pro comperto habere Divum Thomam suae mortis causam fuisse, qui militem quendam Regis verbis, et in causam Regis eum acrius alloquentem, manu a se violenter repulerit : qua violentia commotus miles gladium strinxerit, et in caput episcopi vulnus inflixerit, quo statim cecidit. Sic quidem novum Edictum rem declarat: quare ita concludit : ut, qui suo judicio noluerunt esse absoluti, militem ilium et quotquot conscii et adjutores fuerunt impise casdis per edictum absolvit, et Thomam Becket (sic enim in Edicto Archiepiscopum appellat) proditionis condemnat." — Pole, vol. i, p. 105 (Apol. ad Cces.).
1538.] throitghoitt England. 73
received commissions to repair to the cathedrals, churches, or chapels, which were named to them, to take away the relics, the reliquaries, the gold and the jewels of the shrines, for the King, and to see with their own eyes that the shrines themselves were levelled with the ground. At the same time they were to have an eye for any other image in the edifices which they inspected, that seemed super- stitious, and convey such images away : and the clergy were ordered " at their extreme peril " to assist the laity in their work.* The same admonitions were conveyed in a more general form, in the Injunctions which the Vicegerent issued about this time. A scene of universal devastation ensued. The most illustrious sons of England, if they had earned the title and adoration of a saint, had their bones or bodies insulted and their tombs violated, from St. Cuthbert of Durham to St. Edward of Westminster, from St. Richard of Chichester to St. William of York. Every shrine in England was destroyed.! The goldsmith to pick out the jewels, the blacksmith and the mason to wrench the metal or to break the stones, laboured hard under the eyes of the appointed com- missioners. There was scarcely a consecrated building in the land that was not ransacked under the pretence of superstition : and thus was commenced that fright- ful ravishment not only of the relics of the saints but of the monuments raised by human piety to the
* As the commission which Mr. Froude (iii. 298) found in the Rolls House in an unarranged bundle of MSS. seems to be substantially the same with the commission for taking down the shrine of St. Richard of Chichester in Wilkins (iii. 840), it may be concluded that separate com- missions, extending only to shrines named therein, were issued at first.
t But the shrine of Edward the Confessor in Westminster, of which the stones had not been taken away, was reconstructed in the reign of Mary, and remained the sole specimen of an extinct kind of thing, till it was joined the other day by St. Albans.
74 History of English Bible this year. [ch. vm.
memory of the dead, which, being continued with little intermission for thirteen years, to the end of Edward the Sixth, might seem to deserve the groans, if not the curses, of posterity. The shrines went early : but some of their covers and other remnants of them being thought to be still preserved or hidden in some parts, a renewed search, instigated by the zeal of Cranmer, swept them from the last lingering of existence three years after the desecration of St. Thomas of Canterbury.*
The privileged Grafton and the favoured Cover- dale were now despatched to Paris, to prepare a new and better edition of their Bible, under the patronage of the Vicegerent and the protection of the rising Doctor Bonner. In the capital of France it was believed that the work of printing would be done better than it could have been done in England. From their new domicile they soon sent specimens of their work to their great patron.f They described the manner of their labours, and expressed their confidence that as Heaven had moved Crumwel to set them on, so would the way which they took be to the glory of Heaven, and the joy of all who served their Prince in. true obedience. But neither at home nor abroad was the work without dis- couragement and danorer. While the undertakers were still in Paris, a rival sprang up in Southwark : and James Nicolson put in print the New Testament both in Latin and English, with the name of Cover- dale on the title-page. The learning of Coverdale, as Grafton complained to Crumwel, was brought into
* In 1 541. IViVh'ns, u'l. Ss7 ; Cnitwier's Remains, \z^^.
+ Coverdale and Grafton to Crumwel, 23rd June. — State Pap. i. 575. They tell Crumwel that they intend to print two copies on vellum, one for him and one for the King-.
1 538-] Grafton and Cover dale in Paris. 75
contempt by a book that was " so foolishly done, and so corrupt " : and the common people were deprived of the true and sincere sense of God's word. The zealous printer therefore, in addition to his other labours, put forth a revised edition of the New Testament, overseen and corrected by Coverdale him- self: which he endeavoured to stamp with authority by the words " Cum gratia et privilegio Regis." He also ventured to make an implicit division of the English bishops into two parts : and to that part of them which he believed to be favourable to himself he gave the title of Christian. To almost every Christian bishop of the realm he had sent, he said, a copy of this revision. But this zeal was a little too much for Crumwel : who sent him an intimation that the words "Cum privilegio" were to be limited by the addition of " ad imprimendum solum " : and inhibited him from putting books into print that had not been allowed by one bishop at least. The zealous printer ventured to protest and argue with the Vicegerent. He had never heard, he said, of such a limitation before : surely such words should not be added in the printing of a true translation of the Scriptures, for then the enemy would have occasion to say that it was not the King's mind to set it forth, but only to license the selling of such as were put forth. As for the bishops, if Crumwel wished them to overlook trans- lations, he should appoint some of them thereto : and then they might show themselves as ready to allow as other ofood men were to make translations. It was seven years since the bishops had promised to set forth the Bible themselves, and they had found no leisure as yet : though certainly it must be granted that Christian bishops could have but small leisure.*
* Grafton to Crumwel, ist V)&c.— State Pap. i. 591.
76 TJieirlVovk Seised by the Inquisition . [ch. vm.
The remonstrances of the printer seem to have been made in vain.
In Paris, notwithstanding the encouragement of Bonner, who procured the letters patent of the French king for allowing it,* the work met with serious interruption from the Holy Inquisition. The English printer and translator lodged in the house of the French printer Francis Regnault, where the work was being done. Regnault had been for years " an occupier " or purveyor of books for England : f and it may be that the eyes of the Holy Office had been long directed toward his establishment. When they heard of so important a work being executed there, when they observed the house to be graced by the frequent presence of the English ambassador, who in his young zeal for the Gospel would often dine at it, and treat the company at his own expense, they appear to have deemed it an occasion for inter- ference. The work was just finished, when, in the month of December, the French printer was suddenly cited by the Inquisitor-General for the Kingdom of France. Coverdale and Grafton fled, leaving behind
* Strype's Cranm. App. xxx. The letters patent contained a clause which was sufficient to allow the interference of the Inquisition — that what was printed should be "citra ullas privatasaut illegitimas opiniones." — Westcott, p. 74.
t " He hath been an occupier into England more than forty year : he hath always provided such books for England as they most occupied : so that he hath a great number at this present in his hands, as primers in English, Missals, with other such like : whereof now (by the Company of the Booksellers in London) he is utterly forbidden to make sale, to the utter undoing of the man." — Coverdale and Grafton to Cruniwel on behalf of Regfiault, 1 2th Sept. State Pap. i. 589. The London book- sellers seem to have disliked the bad English of the books which he put forth : for Coverdale and Grafton go on to say that, if he might sell his existing stock unmolested, he would print no more without a learned Englishman to correct the press, &c. He printed the Sarum Breviary in 153 1, in Latin : a very fine edition.
I538-] The Great Bible. 77
them all their Bibles, which were seized and burned. Of the whole impression of two thousand five hundred copies, only a few escaped, four vats full, which were sold by a corrupt official to a haberdasher, to line his caps withal. Under the encouragement of Crum- wel, however, the English persons concerned in the work ventured to return to Paris, and succeeded in conveying thence their plant, the wreck of their edition, and the company of French compositors whom they had engaged : and so at length, in their own country, they successfully printed off that final result of Crumwel's patronage of Coverdale, the Great Bible, or Bible of the largest volume.*
The Bible of the largest volume, which struggled thus into existence, was an expurgated edition of Matthews' Bible, without the prologue and preface, and having the notes mitigated. It was reprinted several times in the two or three following years under the care of several editors besides Coverdale, and at the presses of other appointed printers besides Grafton : but no new translation was attempted in the reign of Henry the Eighth, unless that distinc- tion be claimed for the hasty private version of Taverner.f For all these issues or editions, though
* Fox ; Strype's Cranm. ch. xxi., where the Citation of the Inquisitor is partly printed. Coverdale seems to have sent part of the Bible to Crumwel four days before the Inquisitor's visit.— Z^^/. Park. Soc. 497 ; Westcott, 75, The Inquisition seems to have interfered in the belief that the work was not sanctioned by any authority, as they say that it had been undertaken contrary to Acts of Parliament. " It is provided by Edicts of the Supreme Court of Parliament that none should print the Old and New Testament in his mother tongue, or sell it being printed." — Strype's Cran. As no public notice was taken of what they did, it seems probable that Crumwel was acting throughout on his own authority, without the King. Cf. also Herbert, Burnet, and Collier, ii. 150.
t Richard Taverner of Oxford, a layman and a lawyer, a scholar and a preacher, put forth in 1539 an edition of the Bible, in folio and in quarto, with a commentary. Both the translation and the notes were based upon
78 The Great Bible: [ch.vih.
the eyes of the curious may distinguish many con- siderable variations among them, the common name of the Great Bible, or the Bible of the largest volume, might be well retained : but some of them, having been furnished with a preface by their most dis- tinguished editor, have acquired for themselves, and even for the others, the appellation of Cranmer's Bible.* They were adorned with the celebrated frontispiece, the spirit of which is said to indicate the hand of Holbein. In this composition the form of God is seen above the kneeling figure of Henry the Eighth, and from the mouth of the Almighty a scroll issues bearing the words, " I have found me a man after my own heart, who shall fulfil all my will." The answer of the Supreme Head is, " Thy
Matthew. His zeal, which may have been stimulated by the accidental delay, may have been checked by the final publication of the Great Bible : and his work, after one or two whole or partial reprints, fell into complete neglect. Westcoit, p. 85.
* Canon [Bishop] Westcott justly desires to bestow or retain the con- venient name of the Great Bible for all the editions. If an exacter classi- fication be desired, the first edition, which was of April, 1539, might, as he observes, be distinguished as Crumwel's Bible. The six later issues, of 1540 and 1 541, all have Cranmer's preface, and might claim to be known by the name of the Archbishop : but two of them, of November 1540 and November 1541, bear also on their title-pages respectively the names of Tunstall and of Heath : who are said to have " overseen and perused the translation at the commandment of the King's Highness." They might therefore, if great exactness be wanted, be further distinguished as the editions of those prelates. — Westcott, p. 78. In a book published in Henry's last year, The Complaint of the Poor Commons, it is said that Tunstall and Heath got their names taken out of the title-pages of the subsequent editions. " When your Majesty appointed two of them to overlook the translation of the Bible, they said, they had done your Highness's commandments therein : yea, they set their names thereunto. But when they saw the world like to wring on the other side, they denied it ; and said, they never meddled therewith : causing the printer to take out their names, which were erst set before the Bible." Apud Strype, i. 613. Several printers were privileged to issue these various impressions — Grafton and Whitechurch, Petyt, and Redman for Barthelet. — Blunfs Plain Account, 48.
I538-] Description of tJie Frontispiece. 79
word is a lantern unto my feet." Below this com- partment the King is seen seated on his throne, holding out in each hand a Bible ; one of which he is giving to the bishops with the words, " Take this and teach " : the other he presents to Crumwel and a group of lay lords, saying, " I make a decree that in all my kingdom men shall tremble and fear before the living God." Underneath these figures the bishops and doctors are distributing Bibles to the people, a preacher is preaching, some prisoners are rejoicing even in prison, and the people are shouting, " Vivat Rex." *
* For a more enthusiastic description of this frontispiece than I can pretend to give the reader is referred to Mr. Froude (iii. p. 82). Mr. Wornum, in his Life and Works of Holbein, treats with disdain the notion that it is Holbein's work. An engraving of it may be seen in Lewes' English Bible. I am indebted to the learning and courtesy of the Rev. Dr. Wood, President of St. John's College in Cambridge, for much valuable information concerning the Great Bible. In the library of that college there is a superb copy on vellum, of the date of April 1539, which is probably one of the two mentioned in Coverdale's letter as having been made for the King and Crumwel {see above). Dr. Wood says of it : — "I have collated the copy, and can therefore say that it is absolutely perfect from beginning to end. The pictures in the text are not, as in the paper copies, woodcuts, but illuminations, as also are the initials. And the frontispieces to the several parts are also paintings. In the descriptions which are given of the several editions of the ' Great Bible ' so called, it is always stated that the so-called Holbein woodcut is used, in the edition of 1539, as a frontispiece to the Apocrypha, as well as at the beginning of the book, and in the other editions as a frontispiece to the New Testament, as well as in the beginning. And this, I presume, is correct so far as regards the paper copies. I mean that it is the same woodcut that occurs in the two places. But in our vellum copy the two pictures are not precisely the same — a point to which, so far as I know, attention has not been drawn in any notice of the book. Even Mr. Fry, who is usually so accurate even in regard to the smallest variations, does not seem to have observed the difference. The grouping of the figures is indeed, except in one part, the same in the two. But the faces and the dresses of many of the figures are quite different, and the colours are throughout as different as they can be. Cranmer, for instance, in the first frontispiece, on the middle compartment has a scarf or stole : and his cas- sock, both in this and the upper compartment, is a bright scarlet ; whereas in the second frontispiece he has no scarf, and his cassock, in both
8o Great Bible Ordered for Churches, [ch.vih.
The Vicegerent ushered the Great Bible into the realm with the authority of the Crown. But the un- foreseen misfortune of Grafton and Coverdale in Paris, which delayed the publication, made the injunction to procure and use the book appear somewhat premature. It was ordered to be used in all the churches six months before it appeared in print. In the beginning of October Crumwel issued the second series of his Injunctions to the clergy ; and in them he ordered " One book of the whole Bible of the largest volume " to be provided in every church at the joint and equally divided cost of the parson and of the parishioners, and to be set up where it could be read with most convenience. At the same time the parson was warned in strong language not to discourage the reading of the volume thus provided.* In this manner for the second time the patron of Grafton and Coverdale
compartments, is of a pale lilac colour. But the most important differ- ence is that the prison, which appears on the right hand of the lowest compartment in the woodcuts, and which is found in the frontispiece to the Apocrypha in our copy, is altogether absent from the first frontispiece : and instead of it there is a group of people listening to a layman reading the Bible as he stands : intending, I suppose, to correspond to the group on the left hand listening to a cleric. This copy differs from the paper copies of the same date in having for title nothing but the words, " The Byble in Englysh," printed in large letters in black and blue on a gold ground, in the centre of the frontispiece. There is no name of printer, nor yet of the place where it was printed." Dr. Wood adds that he has recently found reason to believe that it came to the college from the library of Archbishop Williams, who claimed relation, " when it was convenient," with the Cromwell or Crumwel family.
* " Item, That ye discourage no man privily or apertly from the read- ing or hearing of the same Bible, but shall expressly provoke, stir, and exhort every person to read the same, as that which is the very lively Word of God, that every Christian man is bound to embrace, believe and follow, if he look to be saved : admonishing them nevertheless to avoid all contentious altercation therein, and to use an honest sobriety in the inquisition of the true sense of the same, and refer the explication of obscure places to men of higher judgment in Scripture." — Wilkins, iii. 815.
1538.] Critmivers Injunctions. 81
sought to impose their inckistry upon the realm : and his admonition remained, as it will be seen, for the second time almost a dead letter.
These Injunctions of Crumwel, which may boast themselves the original of the more celebrated Injunc- tions of Edward the Sixth, and after them of Elizabeth, were conveyed in a somewhat heightened tone of expostulation and menace towards the clergy. Several contemptuous expressions regarding the ceremonies of the old religion, which were admitted into them, re- vealed a spirit which had been more prudently con- cealed in the former admonitions of the reign. The clergy were addressed directly, and commanded to obey both these and the former Injunctions upon pain of additional penalties. The former directions for teach- ing the Pater Noster. the Creed, and the Ten Com- mandments in Enolish, accordinor to the Kincr's Articles, were renewed : but it was further ordered that every person who came to confession in Lent should be examined- whether he could repeat the same, before he were admitted to the Blessed Sacrament of the altar : those who failed were to be told that they stood in peril of their souls, and warned that, unless they did better next year, they would be excluded from " God's board," and that injunctions to that effect were to be expected next year from the King. Of preaching much was said. The clergy were to preach one sermon at least in every quarter of the year, declaring purely and simply the very Gospel of Christ, and exhorting their hearers to perform such works of charity, mercy, and faith, as were commanded in the Scripture, and not to repose their trust in works devised by man's fantasies beside Scripture : as, wandering to pilgrimages, offering of money, candles, or tapers to images or relics, or kissing and licking
VOL. II. G
82 Crumwers Injimctions. [ch.vih.
the same : or saying over a number of bedes not understanded, and such-like superstition. For doing these things, there was no promise or reward in Scrip- ture : nay, contrariwise, there were great threats and maledictions against them, as tending to idolatry, which of all other offences most diminished the honour and glory of Almighty God. The King had already travailed much, said Crumwel, and meant to travail more, for the welfare of the souls of his subjects, in abolishing images : and the clergy were commanded to take clown and " delay " forthwith any feigned images which they knew to be abused with pilgrim- ages or offerings ; and to suffer thenceforth no candles or images of wax to be laid before any image or picture in their churches. The only lights which they were to allow were the light which commonly went across the church by the roodloft, the light before the Sacrament of the altar, and the light above the sepulchre. Their parishioners they were to admonish that images served no other purpose but to be the books of unlearned men. And if in times past they had preached to the extolling of pilgrimages, feigned relics or images, or any such superstitions, they were now to recant openly before their parishioners, as having been led and seduced by a common error and abuse crept into the Church through sufferance and avarice. If they knew of any who was a letter of God's Word read and preached in English, or of the Injunctions ; or who was a fautor of the pretended power of the Bishop of Rome, they were to present him to the King, his Council, or his Vicegerent, or to the nearest justice of the peace. These and the former Injunctions they were to read openly and deliberately once in every quarter of a year, for the admonition both of themselves and of their people.
^538-] Their Regulations as to Discipline. 83
In the midst of the pretences of specious cupidity, some sense of pubhc utiHty may be discerned in the rest of the directions for order and discipline, of which this code consists : nor will these minute particulars be deemed altogether trivial by the reader who seeks to gather from the remnants the features of the age. The clergy who had benefices on which they resided not were commanded to appoint able and godly curates to do their duty : failure on the part of the curate to be strictly visited upon the parson. Un- licensed preachers were not to be allowed : neither were licensed preachers (an order of men useful in supplying the place of the regulars, nor less in demon- strating the orthodoxy of the Revolution) to be re- sisted, when they came to do their office. A register of wedclinofs, christenin«"s, and burials was ordered to be kept in every church, in a box having two locks and keys, to be kept by the parson and the wardens : and, in the age which destroyed the greatest part of the antiquities of the country, a conservative ordinance, which has preserved the more recent curiosities of many parishes, demands applause, though it was but an Inadequate attempt to supply the loss of the registers of various kinds which had been kept by the monks. For every omission a considerable fine was to be ex- acted, and employed in the reparation of the church : a needful provision in the time of the frightful defacement of the fabric of nearly every church in the kingdom by the forcible removal of Images and shrines.* No man
* The people received this order about registers with suspicion. "Many of them in sundr}^ places within the shires of Cornwall and Devonshire be in great fear and mistrust, what the King's Highness and his Council should mean to give in command to the parsons and vicars of every parish, that they should make a book, and surely to be kept, wherein to be specified the names of as many qs be wedded, buried, and christened. Their mistrust is that some charges more than hath
G 2
84 CvitinweTs Iiijuuciious. [ch. vm.
was to be allowed to refuse to pay his tithes upon the pretence of duty not discharged by his curate ; and so redub one wrong with another : it la) with the ordinary to correct such lack or defect in the curate as could be proved upon complaint. The order and manner of observing fasting days, or of any prayer or service, was not to be altered at the will of the parson, until such time as they should be settled by the King : but the eves of those holy days which had been already abrogated were not to be observed as fasts : the com- memoration of Thomas Becket was to be abolished, and the ferial service used Instead. Some of the Pope's dregs were detected by the Vicegerent to be sticking even yet to the church bells : the people had a custom of repeating Aves Vv^hen the bells were knolling after service, and this was called knolling the Aves. Now whence had this custom arisen .-^ It had arisen and been begun by the pretence of the Bishop of Rome's pardons : henceforth it was to be omitted and left, lest the people should trust to have pardon for doing it. And it seemed to the Vicegerent far better for the people, in the Processions or Litanies, not to sing " Ora pro nobis" to so many saints as were invoked, and then have no time to oet in the orood suf- frages which followed, such as " Parce nobis, Domine," or " Libera nos, Domine." They were to be taught that it would be better to omit the one than not to sing the other.* In these last ordinances may be
been in time past shall grow to them by this occasion of registering of these things." — State Pap. i. 612. They thought that some new exaction was designed, and this notion lasted long.
* Wilk. iii. 815. They were issued the last day of September, and the beginning of October. Strype., i. 498. The reader should carefully observe these regulations ; many of the questions most fiercely disputed in the following reigq, and indeed in the present age, had their origin in them.
1538] Persecution of Anabaptists. 85
discerned the approach of the liturgic reformation, of the reformation of the pubHc worship of the Church.
In the midst of such a revohition, it behoved the Supreme Head to give some demonstration of his orthodoxy. To this he was exhorted indeed by a brother in Reformation, the Landgrave of Hesse, a man whose matrimonial adventures and profligate character recalled himself, and who like him disliked uncommonly those radical applications of the principles of alteration which affected not only prelates but princes, the temporal estates not less than the dignity of the Church. Said the one to the other, " Beware of the snares of the devil ! He is labouring continually to turn our truth into the imputation of heresy. You have some Anabaptists among you. Put a difference between those destroyers of society and the true followers of the Gospel. Make examples of them, keep down error, and serve Christ's glory."* A com- mission was issued by the Vicegerent in the royal name to some of the bishops against the foreign Ana- baptists. It was addressed to Cranmer, to Stokesley, to Sampson of Chichester ; to Archdeacons Skipp, Heath, Thirleby, Gwent, of Dorset, Stafford, Ely, and London ; to Doctors Barnes and Crome : com- manding them to proceed with rigour against all who were infected with " the error or rather the furor " of that unhappy sect : t and an easy and popular demonstration was afforded by the faggoting and the burning of several of those strangers.]; But a more notable argument or victim was furnished by the
* The Landgrave of Hesse to Henry VHI. 25th Sept. State Pap. viii. pp. 47-50.
t Wilkins, iii. 836. 1st October.
+ " Four Dutch Anabaptists, three men and a woman, had faggots tied to their backs at Paul's Cross : and one man and a woman were burnt in Smithfield." Collier, 152. So Hume.
86 John Lambert : his fonney Troubles, [ch. vm.
Sacramentarians of England herself. We are com- pelled to open a page of history that men of all opinions, who love their country, would fain obliterate or hide for ever ; the page which contains the trial of Lambert the heretic before the Supreme Head, the Vicegerent, the prelates and nobles of the realm.
John Lambert, otherwise Nicolson, was a priest of the diocese of Norwich, and a follower of Frith. He had been formerly under suspicion of heretical pravity, and had been committed to the custody of the gentle Warham, by whom he was examined at great length. The answers which he then made to the Articles demanded of him still remain. They are learned and prudent : but they are chiefly valuable in that they exhibit in an actual protestation the essential difference between English law and ecclesiastical law. To the interrogatories concerning the Sacrament, which were put to him, Lambert refused to answer, and flung the burden of proof upon the accuser.* It would have been well for the history of England, and of Christendom, if the processes of the Church had not been founded on the principle of interrogation or inquisition. A person suspected of heretical pravity was examined either orally, or by articles ministered in writing, or in both ways : and his answers gave the proof of innocence or of guilt. Paternal enquiry and filial confession might be beautiful in the abstract : but when the issue was of life or death,
* On the Sacraments he said, " I make you the same answer that I have done (orally) : that is, I will say nothing until some man appear and accuse me in the same." On the question of the Presence he said, " I neither can nor will answer one word otherwise than I have told since I was delivered into your hands. Neither would I have answered one whit thereto, knowing so much as now I do, till you had brought first some that would have accused me to have trespassed in the same ; which I am certain you cannot do, bringing any that is honest and credible." — Fox.
1 538-] He gets into trouble again now. 87
too great a power was given into mortal hands by such a process : and though, in England at least, this tremendous engine was managed by the ordinaries with an amazing forbearance and tenderness, to which history has done no justice, yet it is easy to see that, through the pressure of tyranny, statecraft, or public panic, at any time it might be turned into an instrument of the direst cruelty, Lambert escaped from his first troubles, it seems probable, through the compassion of Warham, who kept him in custody from a worse fate until his own death, which happened in the next year : after which the prisoner was set at large. He then turned schoolmaster in London, tried to rid himself of his priesthood, and designed or effected his marriage. At length it was his fate to be present at a sermon preached in St. Peter's Church in Cornhill by Dr. Taylor, a learned and liberal man, afterwards Bishop of Lincoln. After the sermon, Lambert went to the preacher, and entered into argument with him on the subject of the Eucharist. Taylor was foolish enough to bid him come again, and bring his opinions expressed in writing. Lambert brought his opinions digested into eight theses: and Taylor communicated them to Barnes, a well known favourer of the New Learning. By the advice of Barnes he also brought them under the notice of Cranmer. If Taylor had meant to work the destruc- tion of the unhappy author, he could have taken no surer way. Both Barnes and Cranmer had just been armed with the royal commission to persecute the Anabaptists, and all others who shared their opinions. Barnes, a reformed friar, and an old adversary of Sir 1 homas More, was one of that earlier band of Gos- pellers who strove rather to attack the abuses of the Church generally than to make all things turn upon the question of the Sacrament ; he was one of those
88 Lambert appeals to the King, [ch.vih.
whose opinions had been formed before the appear- ance of Fridi, by whom the question of the Sacrament was brought into prominence.* Cranmer had lately declared himself to hold the doctrine of the Corporeal Presence in the fullest extent, and had deprecated strongly the agitation of the question among the re- formers.! As the ro)al commission had again opened his court, he summoned Lambert before him, and tried him there. Lambert appealed from the Archbishop to the King, hoping, it may be, for a trial by English law. On the morning of one of the most disgraceful days recorded in English history, the King's hall in the palace of Whitehall was filled with a company of nobles and prelates, who were seated in their robes upon two newly erected platforms. An empty throne, or siege royal, rose between them : and opposite to it was a stage on which stood the shrinking figure of a solitary man. The assembly had been convoked by commis- sion for the trial of the heretic Lambert, and were
* So More testified of him, in his controversy with Frith. " Friar Barnes, albeit that he is in many other things a brother of this young man's sect, yet in this (the Sacrament of the Altar) he sore abhorreth this heretic, or else he lieth himself. For, at his last being here, he wrote a letter to me, wherein he writeth that 1 lay that heresy wrongfully to his charge : and sheweth himself so sore grieved therewith, that he saith he will, to my reproach, make a book against me, wherein he will profess and protest his faith concerning this blessed Sacrament." — Answer to FritKs Letter j Works^ p. 843.
t In his letter to Vadian, a Swiss Sacramentarian, to which the date of 1537 has been assigned. " Ouum heec, quam tenemus, catholica fides de vera praesentia corporis tam apertis ac manifestis scripturis fuerit ecclesiae ab initio promulgata, et eadem postea per primos ecclesiasticos scriptores fidelium auribus tam clare tamque studiose commendata : ne, quasso, ne mihi pergatis eam tam bene radicatam et suffultam velle amplius convellere aut obruere. Satis jam, satis tentatum est hactenus. Et nisi super firmam petram fuisset firmiter sdificata, jamdudum cum magnse ruinee fragore cecidisset. Dici non potest quantum h^ec cruenta controversia, cum per universum orbem Christianum, tum maxime apud nos, bene currenti verbo evangelii obstiterit." — Cranmer s Lett. p. 343.
I538-] ScandaloTts Scene of his Trial. 89
waiting for the entrance of the Supreme Head. Henry had resolved to exercise his spiritual functions in the last resort, and to hold the examination according to the principles of the usual process in heresy. On the rieht hand of the throne sat the Primate of all England and his suffragans ; some of whom held papers in their hands, and bore the aspect of expectant anxiety. They were the champions who were to take part with their royal master in the ensuing tournament : and to each of them was committed the confutation of one of the eight positions of the heretic. Behind them were the lawyers in robes of purple. On the left hand sat the peers of the realm, the judges* the gentlemen of the Privy Chamber : among them the Vicegerent. All the seats and places that could be got around the platforms were filled with an eager auditory. At twelve of the clock the Supreme Head entered, and took his throne. He was dressed all in white, and the cushion of his throne was of the same innocent colour : but his countenance was stern, and his brows were bent. He rose, and called upon Sampson, the Bishop of Chiches- ter, to open the disputation. Sampson delivered an introductory harangue, declaring that the Supreme Head would give no liberty to heretics, though he had abolished the Bishop of Rome. " Think not," he said, " that we be here assembled to dispute on heretical doctrine : we are here that by our industry the heresies of this man, and of all such, may be refuted or openly condemned in the presence of all." The Supreme Head then rose again, and, leaning on his white cushion, directed his look toward the prisoner. " Ho, good fellow," said he, " what is thy name ? " The sight of that terrible face, the sound of that cruel voice, seems at once to have unnerved Lambert, and convinced him how litde was to be hoped from his
90 Trial of Lainbevt before tJie King. [ch. vm.
appeal.* He fell on his knees, and gave the answer of his double name. "What," said the Supreme Head, " hast thou two names ? I would not trust you, having two names, if you were my brother." Lambert then tried to conciliate him : the cruelty of the bishops, he said, compelled him to bear two names : the bishops " mur- dered and put to death " many good and innocent men privily, without the King's knowledge : but he thanked God that he was to be tried by a prince endued by divine goodness with so great gifts of judgment and know- ledge.! " I come not hither," answered the King in Latin, " to have my own praises painted out in my presence : go briefly td the matter without any more circumstance." Lambert was abashed, and stood silent. " Why standest thou still ?" exclaimed Henry; " answer as touching the Sacrament of the Altar, whether dost thou say that it is the Body of Christ, or wilt deny it." The Supreme Head, as he spoke, lifted his cap. Lam- bert replied, " I answer with St. Augustine, that it is
* I follow in the main the account of an eye-witness, "A. G.," which has been preserved and perhaps embellished by Fox, It is fair to say that Lingard believes the behaviour of Henry to have been conciliatory, not severe and overbearing. He bases this opinion on a letter in which Crumwel excessively commends the King's demeanour. " It was a wonder to see how princely, with how excellent gravity, and inestimable majesty his Highness exercised there the very office of Supreme Head of the Church of England. How benignly his Grace essayed to convert the miserable man ; how strong and manifold reasons his Highness alleged against him. I wish the princes and potentates of Christendom to have had a meet place to have seen it. Undoubtedly they should have much marvelled at his Majesty's most high wisdom and judgment : and reputed him no otherwise after the same than in manner the mirror and light of all other kings and princes in Christendom." As for Lam- bert, he calls him "a miserable heretic Sacramentary." — To Wyatt \ Collier, ii. 152.
t Lambert evidently expected in a layman and a king a clemency which he despaired of finding in the bishops. He did not desire to be converted, but expected the King to pardon him as a heretic ; which he thought that the bishops could not or would not do. He soon found out his mistake.
I538-] Trial of Lanibeyt before the King. 91
the Body of Christ after a certain manner," — " Answer me neither out of St. Augustine, neither by the autho- rity of any other," said the monarch, " but tell me plainly whether thou sayest it is the Body of Christ or no." The answer was, " Then I do deny it to be the Body of Christ." Then said the King, " Mark well ; for now shalt thou be condemned by Christ's own words, Hoc est coi^pus 7iieumr And, considering that he had run and won the first course, he called on Cranmer to charge the heretic in turn. The Arch- bishop began mildly, calling him " Brother Lambert," and leadinpf him to consider an arofument drawn from the history of St. Paul. But as it soon appeared that he was more likely to be beaten by the heretic than to beat him, the impetuous Gardiner is said to have in- terposed, though out of turn, after kneeling to the King for permission. He pressed the heretic with the argument where Cranmer had left it ; and, after a gallant resistance, bore him down, and the course was concluded.* The next champion was Tunstall, who
* Such conduct on the part of Gardiner seems doubtful and unHkely, though recorded by an eye-witness. It is far more probable that Gardiner spoke in his turn, and that his turn was next to Cranmer. The eye-witness says that Gardiner was to have come sixth. But we happen to know that it was Sampson who was sixth (his first speech being merely preliminary), and his oration remains, " The Answer or Declaration of Richard Bp. of Chichester against the sixth argument of Jn. Lambert." Strype's Cranin. Append, xxiv. The eye-witness (or Fox) appears to have had a violent prejudice against Gardiner, and indeed lays on him the blame of the whole affair. He says that Gardiner came to London before the trial, and concerted it all. Gardiner, however, had gone home to his diocese in dudgeon on his return from France, after being superseded by Bonner, without coming to court : and it seems unlikely that he would come up on hearing of Lambert's appeal, to interpose in business that did not concern him. He probably came when he was summoned to attend the trial, like the other bishops. The eye-witness adds that he contrived it as a plot for Crumwel, in order that that fervent favourer of the Gospel might either have the pain of reading Lambert's sentence or, by refusing
92 Trial of Lambert before the King. [ch. vm.
appeared armed with a long preface, and the argument that the words on which the belief in the Corporeal Presence was founded could be performed by Him who spoke them, and would not have been spoken unless they had been to be performed. Lambert retorted this by denying that there was any place in Scripture in which the Redeemer clearly promised to. change bread into His Body, or that there was any necessity why He should so do. But his arguments were drowned in the hostile clamours of the audience : and the course came to an end. Stokesley came next, with an argument drawn from natural substances and their changes : which, and the answ^er, may be spared the reader : and he was followed by the remaining combatants. The whole contest lasted for five hours : and every course is said to have been concluded in vociferous confusion, in which the King took the lead.* Torches were broueht in before all was ended : and when the last bishop had finished his argument, the King addressed the prisoner thus: "What art thou now, after all these great labours which thou hast taken upon thee ; and all the instructions and reasons of these learned men ? Art thou not yet satisfied ? Wilt thou live or die ? What sayest thou ? Thou hast yet free choice." The exhausted heretic, who had stood the
to read it, incur the like danger ! The fondness of Fox for putting the blame of everything upon " wily Winchester" is well known.
* One would fain disbelieve that the audience joined in baiting and roaring the poor wretch down : and perhaps this is irreconcilable with Crumwel's account of the King's "excellent gravity and inestimable majesty" in this sorry business. Crumwel of course was an eye-witness. There is a third eye-witness, the dull and ferocious Hall, who only says, as to this point, " certain of the bishops ministered divers arguments, but especially the King's majesty himself did most dispute with him." He says also that Lambert "shewed no such learning as he was of many supposed that he could and would have done : but was exceeding fearful and timorous."
1538.] Barbarous Execution of Lajubert. 93
whole time, had long ceased to make answer to his assailants, though his heart was good. He replied with a last (which was indeed the same as his first) appeal to the clemency of his merciless judge. " I yield and submit myself wholly to the will of your Majesty." — " Commit thyself into the hands of God, and not into mine," was the fatal response. " My soul I commend to God," returned Lambert, " my body I submit to your clemency." Then said the King, "If you do submit yourself unto my judgment, you must die, for I will be no patron of heretics. Crumwel, read the sentence." The Vicegerent performed his office ; and the session broke up. Four days afterwards, on the twentieth of November, Lambert was burned with circumstances of sickening barbarity. Such was the inquisition managed by the Supreme Head. The only consolatory reflection that can be suggested is that all was done openly. There were no infernal chamber tortures before the final fire, such as were practised in the Holy Inquisition in other countries.*
For five years the Pope had been minuting bulls and censures aoainst the heretic of Encrland, which he dared not publish. In the year 1533, Clement the
* For Fox's story that Crumwel asked Lambert to forgive him, one would like to believe it ; but then look at Crumwel's letter to Wyatt ! There were some more of P'ox's martyrs about this time. i. Collins, who was burned at Smithfield for mimicking the elevation of the host in a church by lifting up a little dog by the legs and showing it to the people : Fox thinks that he was not clean sequestered from the Lord's saved flock and family, but that he belonged to the holy company of saints, though he was a little mad. 2. Cowbridge, another madman, burned at Oxford, whose articles were so fantastic that Fox will not say what they were, but refers his readers to Cope's Dialogues. 3. Puttedew, burned in Suffolk, for coming into a church, and merrily telling the priest that he drank up all the wine and then blessed the people with the empty cup. 4. Leiton, a monk of Suffolk, who was burned at Norwich for speaking against an idol that was carried in procession : and for saying that the Lord's Supper should be ministered in both kinds.
94 77/^ Papal Censures against Henry, [ch. vm.
Seventh subscribed a sentence against the King's Divorce, which, though not intended to be generally known, was sent into Flanders and. exposed on the door of a church in Dunkirk. It was, however, taken down in the night by Butler, the royal commissary of Calais, who stole out for that purpose :* and about the same time an attempt was made by the English ambassador in Flanders to get the papal breves and censures excluded from that country by the Queen Regent.t As soon as Fisher and More were executed, the sterner measure of a Bull of Excommunication and Deposition was prepared by the newly elected Pope, Paul the Third. But the Bull was not published for three years at least.t At length, when by the continued destruction of monasteries, shrines, and images, and, above all, by the outrage on St. Thomas of Canterbury, the King of England had dared the worst, the thunder- bolt was taken from the armoury again : the suspen- sion of it was revoked, the execution was solemnly ordered In a new writing. It was a terrific instrument. It had been forgfed in such a heat of malediction as no former hierarch had ever applied. But was it ever
* Fox and Wilkins, iii. 769, give the Sententia. Fox relates the exploit of Butler. I have presumed that they refer to the same paper : but there is much difficulty here. Hall says that " a curse from the Pope, which accursed the King and the whole realm," was set up in Dunkirk, and taken down by Locke, a London mercer (p. 808).
t State Pap. vii. 328.
X The Bull certainly was not published in 1535, though it was dated August 10 of that year. Wilkins, iii. 792 ; Collier, ii. 98 ; Sanders, 107. It was ordered to be set up on the church doors in Tournay, Bruges, and Dunkirk. In the Order for Preaching of that year, 1535, it is said that the Pope had " given out a sentence by manner of excommunication and interdiction " of the King and realm, which was set up in Flanders. Cranni. Rejn. 462. Cf. Vol. I. p. 256, hiij. oper. This is a good example how well Henry and Crumwel were informed of Roman proceedings : for the Order for Preaching is dated June 3 : more than a month earlier than the Bull.
1538.] The Bull of Excomimmication . 95
launched ? Threatenings and curses, such as had never withered the enemies of Hildebrand or Innocent, resounded, as the historians tells us, from the lips of Paul : but who heard them ? The crimes of the peccant monarch were painted in a flame of indig- nation : and the obedience of Christendom was sum- moned to aid in the abscision of a rotten member. Where was the summonition published ? " The time of mercy is passed," said the Servant of the servants of God, " the Holy See has been raised above all kings and peoples, having dominion not more for the benefit of the good than for the punishment of the impious and impenitent. The King of England was named Defender of the Faith, but he is fallen from the faith. He denies that the Roman Pontiff is the head of the Church and the Vicar of Christ : he calls himself Supreme Head of the Church of England. The hardness of his heart resembles Pharaoh. His adul- teries, his murders, his sacrilegious outrages are innumerable. He burns .and scatters the bones of saints : and, himself the fellest of wild beasts, he stables wild beasts in the desecrated homes of religion. It is time to remember the schismiatics who were sent down quick into hell by Moses, and the sorcerer who was struck blind by the Apostle. Therefore let the King of England appear before us personally or by proxy within ninety days : let his adherents, accomplices, fautors, and followers appear within sixty days : or else we pronounce him and them excommunicate, we deprive him of his kingdom, them of their goods : and if they depart from the number of the living in an impenitent state, we decree that they ought to lack Christian burial, we smite them with the sword of anathema, malediction, and eternal damnation. Their lands, their churches, their religious houses we place under
96 JVas the Bull ever published ? [ch. vm.
an interdict, so that none of the offices of rehgion may be performed, not even on the pretext of indulgence granted, save in lawful cases, and then only with closed doors : we command all the subjects or de- pendents of the King and his followers to renounce their obedience, and take up arms against them : we dissolve all treaties between them and other powers. Let not foreign nations hold commerce with them : but rather capture their goods and persons ; let princes pursue them with war, so long as they remain in error and rebellion. Let all ecclesiastics depart out of their country within five days, save only so many priests as may be needful to baptise infants, and to give the Sacrament to those who may die in penitence. Let this sentence be proclaimed in every church within three days with bells and banners, with candles lit and then extinguished. Let it go everywhere : let - the originals be fixed on the church-doors : let transumpts be made, and sent into those parts which it may be more difficult to reach."* Such was the Bull : but where was it published ? In the later instrument or writing of this year, ordering it to be executed, it was commanded to be published in several places, which were named, in Flanders, France, Scotland, and even in Ireland. Dared Charles, Francis, or James have it published in their dominions? Dared the Archbishop of Armagh or Tuam have it published ? Was even the instrument that ordered it to be executed ever sent abroad ? It fell in great silence : and if it were neither promulgated now nor at any former period, the figure, created by the modern imagination, of the reformatory hero, armed with the Word of God and the sword of liberty, meeting unscathed the lightning hurled by the
* Wilkins, iii. 792, 840 ; Burnet, Coll. bk. iii. No. ix.
I538-] Was the Bull ever published ? 97
infuriate tyrant of the Seven Hills, may retire into the realm of phantoms.*
Henry was engaged, at the moment when the excommunication is said to have been published, in killing some of the nobles of the West, so as to prevent another rising in favour of the White Rose, or of the Old Learning. Courtney, the Marquis of Exeter ; Henry Pole, Lord Montague; Sir Geoffry Pole; Sir Edward Neville ; Sir Nicholas Carew, and some
* It was Lingard who first denied that there was any evidence to show that the Bull of Excommunication was ever published. I have been un- able to find any. Six years after this time, one of Henry's agents in Germany, Buckler, wrote as if it had been still unpubhshed. " The Bishop of Rome intendeth to accelerate his Council appointed at Trent : and further he maketh earnest pretence to declare his curse against your Majesty : which is esteemed very vain to him whom God hath blessed." At the same time Vaughan, another agent, wrote to Wriothesley, "■ Men talk much of the coming down of the Bishop of Rome's Excom- munication against the King's Majesty and his subjects, and say that it is daily looked for." — State Pap. x. p. 284. The literary history of the bull, so far as I have traced it, confirms the opinion that it was never fulminated, i. Hall and the other contemporaries know nothing of it. 2. Fox, whose work appeared in 1563, knows nothing of it. If he had, ■ he would not have omitted such an occasion of rhetoric. 3. Sanders, in 1588, gives a full summarj'- of the bull under the year 1535 in his book : and this was, I believe, the first account of it that ever came abroad. He had evidently read it. Of course he had peculiar sources of infor- mation. But even he never says that it was fulminated. He says that the execution of it was suspended : and then says no more about it. 4. Fuller, about 1650, knows nothing of it. 5. The full text of it appears for the first time in English literature in Burnet's Reformation. Whence got it Burnet ? Not from any of the many documents of the reign of Henry which he transcribed. He tells us himself that he got it out of Cherubini's Collection of Papal Bulls, which was printed in 1677 at Rome. I make no doubt that it saw the light for the first time in that collection. Mr. Froude, however, makes no doubt that it was launched in full terror in our present year, 1538. " The opportunity was in every way favourable. France' and Spain were at peace: the Catholic world was exasperated by the outrage of Canterbury. The hour was come — he rose upon his throne, and launched with all his might his long forged thunderbolt. Clement's censure had been mild sheet-lightning, flickering harmlessly in the distance. Paul's was the forked flash, intended to blight and kill."— iii. 304.
VOL. II. H
98 Slaughter of the Poles, and other [ch. vm.
other persons, including two priests and a mariner, were arrested in the beginning of November, tried for verbal treason in the beginning of December, and executed in the course of the month : all but Geoffry Pole, who saved his life ingloriously by informing airainst the others. The c^reat nobles of the West, though attached to the ancient cause, had witnessed the rising of the North without stirring, but they found themselves none the less suspected for that. The Poles were grandsons of Clarence, the brother of Edward the Fourth : Courtney was the grandson of Edward the Fourth himself Both families were re- garded with veneration by the remnant of the ancient party of the Yorkists : and, in the case of the dethrone- ment of a traitor king, a successor to the throne might have been found in Henry of Exeter. At the same time that they were arrested, the mother of the Poles, the aged Countess of Salisbury, was put into strict but honourable confinement. The slaughter of so many persons nearly allied to himself, as it raised the horror of Europe to a higher pitch and caused the King to publish a vindication of himself: so it proved the resolution, and perhaps the sagacity of the tyrant : and crowned most worthily a very prosperous year.*
* Mr. Froude has carefully collected the scanty circumstances which go to prove that a dangerous outbreak, a second Pilgrimage of Grace, was prevented by Henry's promptitude. They seem to amount to very little in themselves. I am inclined to Herbert's conclusion : " The par- ticular offences of these great persons are not so fully made known to me that 1 can say much." I'ole himself said on reading the King's vindica- tion, " Nihil tandem invenire potui, nisi id quod liber tacet et quod ipse diu judicavi, odium tyranni in virtutem et nobilitatem.''— ^/<?/. ad Cces. That there was something going on is very hkely : and well there might be. liut it is observable that all the prisoners were tried for what they had said, not for anything that they had done. Their trials may be seen in the Third Report of the Deputy Keeper of Public Records, pp. 251-259, append, ii. They show the friglitful operation of Henry's treason laws, and the slavery of the nation. Take a specimen or two. Sir Geoffry Pole
1538.] Great Nobles of the West. 99
(who betrayed the rest) was tried for saying to a man going to Rome, ' Commend me to my brother, the Cardinal Pole, and show him that I would I were with him, and I will come to him, if he will have me, for to show him that the world in England waxeth all crooked. God's law is turned upso down, abbeys and churches overthrown, and he is taken for a traitor : and I think they will cast down parish churches and all at the last," &c. Neville was tried for saying, " The King is a beast, and worse than a beast. I trust knaves shall be put down, and lords reign one day : and that the world will amend one day." Crofts, one of the priests, who was hanged, said, " The King is not Supreme Head of the Church of England, but the Bishop of Rome is Supreme Head of the Church," and that " there was nothing that ever he did more grieved his conscience than the oath which he took to renounce the Bishop of Rome's authority." In the indictment itself of Neville and Pole, the following declarations deserve notice. "Whereas the King is on earth Supreme Head of the Church of England and that his progenitors from time whereof is no memory to the contrary have also been Supreme Heads of the Church of England ; which authority and power of the said King, Paul the Third, Pope of Rome, the public enemy of the King and Kingdom, and without any right or title, arrogantly and obstinately challenges and claims." The accuracy of these positions the reader must test for himself The severities executed in the counties, especially Cornwall, were protracted for some months : see a letter from Willoughby to Crumvvel, i6 Mar. Ellis ii. i, 104.
CHRONOLOGY OF THE BECKET WAR.
1536. The greater Festival of the Translation of the Relics, which was
in harvest (July 7) abrogated. Vol. i. 424 of this work.
1537. Cranmer eats flesh on the Vigil of the same. Vol. ii. 69.
— December 29. The Festival of the Martyrdom kept for the last time.
1538. Aug, 18. Cranmer suggests that the Blood of St. Thomas should
be examined. Vol. ii. 63. Destruction of the shrine.
— Nov. 10. Proclamation to erase the name of St. Thomas, and
smash his windows. P. 71.
— His commemoration abolished in Crumwel's Injunctions. P. 84. 1542. Cranmer complains in Convocation that his name was still kept
unerased in many Church books. P. 291,
H 2
CHAPTER IX.
A.D. 1539.
The Pope cursing the King would have been sublime, but futile ; a thunderbolt assailing a conflagration. Nevertheless, the knowledge that the thunderbolt was balanced in the Pontiff's hand may have come abroad, and availed somewhat : and, if anything were ever to be attempted against the heretic of England, the conjuncture seemed not unfavourable. Charles and Francis were at peace. The project of a war against the Turk afforded the pretext for assembling the naval forces of the Empire : and certain signs, prognostic of danger, began to rise in the political horizon. A powerful fleet, of which the destination was unknown, was gathered in the port of Antwerp. Until it should have sailed, the English merchantmen in Flanders were detained. The Spanish and French ambassadors were withdrawn from London, as it happened, simul- taneously. The language of the Imperial Court and of the Regent of Flanders became cold and ambiguous. Amid the rumours of the hour it was disputed whether the attempt were to be made directly upon England, a Sparfish army landed in Ireland, or the auxiliary and the starting-place of a double attack be furnished by the realm of Scotland. But the King of England
I539-] Second Legation of Cardinal Pole. loi
showed a bold front. His ambassadors held high language everywhere : and he not only resorted to language, but actually parted with some of his monastic spoil to fortify various points upon the coast. The Tudors were always great in defence.* The musters were called out : the gentlemen furbished up their armouries : and the warlike spirit of the nation rose to meet the anticipated danger. But the enterprise, which may have been meditated, could not be carried out. The Empire and France could not be united against England : nor could Charles embark alone in a hazardous undertakine, which would have left his flank exposed to his rival. The times, he discovered, would not serve. Once more the clouds of danger were dissipated into air : the hostile armada was broken up in March, part going into clock to be dismantled, part sailing away upon insignificant ex- peditions.
A second legation of Cardinal Pole accompanied the abortive attempt of the papal power to bring the forces of Christendom to bear upon the revolted kincrdom. This time Pole directed his course to Spain, where the Emperor was : and met an honour- able reception from the same prince who had forbidden him his dominions when he appeared formerly in the character of legate. " Will you receive the traitor of the King my master?" asked the English ambassador
* The sack of the monasteries seems to have been followed by as pro- fuse an outlay for a small result. Henry's principal works were at Dover : they are said to have cost 160,000/. Wriothesley advised him to spend 20,000/. in preparation. He probably far exceeded that sum. Besides the works at Dover, he built Deal Castle, a strong place, and two other castles near Deal, viz. Sandown and Walmer. At Portsmouth he con- tinued the fortifications which had been begun by Edward IV. and which were completed by Elizabeth. The real cause of all this was to provide work for the poor, who were beggared by the Revolution.
4
I02 Poles ''Apology to Ccesar^ [ch. ix.
Wyatt. " I would receive the Pope's legate, if he were my own traitor," was the answer of Charles. But the only fruit of Pole's activity was the elaborate epistle which he wrote to the Emperor, under the title of an " Apology to Caesar." This he designed to be the preface of the more famous invective in which he had already attacked the royal leader of the English revolution* In it he renewed his former vituperation of the avarice and cruelty of the King, the treasures wrung from unwilling subjects, the decrees extorted from reluctant Parliaments : he repeated his descrip- tions of the earlier atrocities of the revolution, the horrid deaths of the Carthusians, the Brigitites, and the rest: and he again urged the Emperor to rescue a realm that was groaning under the scourge of an Antichrist. These misconceived representations of the flourishing course, on which the King was wafted by the prayers of all who hoped for gain, were followed by an eloquent description of the more recent enormity of the destruction of the lesser monasteries. " Three hundred and sixty monas- teries," cried Pole, " in one day he caused to be assigned to himself by a single decree of the Council of the Kingdom. The monuments of the nobility, the aliment of the people became the prey of his cupidity. What a destruction ! He could not rest a day while any vestige of any single building stood to show that all had not been always his. He rent, he shattered, he plucked down. If the walls that had been raised in the perpetuity of piety resisted his im- plements too long, he applied gunpowder, as if he were storming the fort of an enemy. Thus perished the
* Mr. Froude (iil. 308) says that Pole's book was published in November or December, 1538. It may perhaps have been republished then, with the Apologia : but it had been published before.
I539-] His Description of CniniweL 103
noblest edifices in the kingdom ; the greatest glory of the realm of England." But the most interesting part of the Apology is the biography of Crumwel, whose career is described from the beginning. Pole's standing appellation for him is, " the Messenger of Satan." The monster of England, as he put it, had been accompanied through every step of his bloody progress by a messenger of Satan : a wretch of low birth, brutal insolence, and atheistic morals. It was he who first proposed the rupture of Christendom in the rebellion of England : he had continued feeding- every evil desire of the King at the cost of everything precious or noble in the kingdom.* Now they had proceeded to their last enormity, the slaughter of Exeter, Montague, and Neville, three men who had ever been faithful and loyal, who had never given the least sign of disaffection. " The Man of Sin and the Messenger of Satan will ruin all," cried Pole, " unless Caesar ofive aid aoainst them."' At the same time he sent another effusion, which he called a Proem, to the Kine of Scots, whom he extolled for his zeal in the holy cause. f But the Scottish monarch, thouofh zealous, was feeble : the rhetoric of Pole could not overcome the difficulties which the rulers of Christendom perceived, or the lukewarmness which
* This account of Crumwel seems to have been the original of P'ox's life of him : though Fox of course has changed the colours.
t The King of Scots had signalised his zeal by burning some books sent him from England, perhaps by Tunstall. This pleased Pole vastly. " Licet earum insidiarum tuam Majestatem minime inexpertem novi, qui gloriosissimum tuum factum audivi, cum ad te ab eo qui se decipi libenter est passus, libri mitterentur qui per Scripturarum autoritatem licentiam defectionis darent ac tuerentur, statim inscriptionem legisses, libros ipsos, licet magni muneris loco ad te missos et preciose ornatos, illis ipsis astan- tibus, qui attulerunt, te in ignem projecisse, cum satius esse diceres illos a te in ignem projici, quam te propter illos, si impiis eorum suasionibus adhaereres, in periculum seterni ignis venire." — Proe7n ad Reg. Scot. Epist. i. 174.
104 ^^^^ Protest ants at Fi'ankfort. [ch.ix.
they felt : and he and Contarini were left trembling with one another, lest their Caesar, like his mighty eponym, should even become the subverter of the Roman Republic, catching the contagion both of the independence and of the orthodoxy of the King of the fierce countenance and the Messenger of Satan.*
Nor were these fears altoq-ether without crround. When the Protestants met at Frankfort, in February, it was agreed that a convention should ' be held at Nuremberg in the ensuing summer between them and the Pontificians, under the protection of the Fmperor, for the settlement of religion. The meeting never came to pass : but it was observed that there was no mention made of the Pope, or of any legate of the Holy See to be present at the conference. The orators of Csesar, of the Most Christian King, the representatives of the Augustan confederates, and those of the newly formed Catholic or Holy League, were to dispute the things of the faith ; and no other parties were invited to be present.f On
* " Etsi prassentibus omnibus conatibus regis Angliee maxime sit ob- standum, tamen non hunc esse qui maxime sedi ApostolicEe possit nocere. Ego ilium timeo quem Cato ille in Republica Romana maxime timebat, qui sobrius accedit ad illam evertendam ; vel potius illos timeo. Nee enim unus est hoc tempore." — Contarini to Pole, July, 1539. Pol. Ep. ii. 158. This refers to the Nuremberg meeting ; see next note.
+ " De rebus Germanias audio quod molestissime tuli, indicium videlicet esse conventum Norimburgensem ad Kal. Octobris pro rebus Ecclesias componendis, ubi sunt conventuri oratores Cassaris et Regis Christianissimi : sex autem pro parte Lutheranorum, et totidem pro par- tibus Catholicorum, de rebus Fidei disputaturi. Et hoc fieri ex decreto superiorum mensium Conventus Frankford. In quo nulla mentio fit, nee de Pontifice, nee de aliquo qui pro Sede Apostolica interveniret. Video,
credo, quo ista tendant et nisi istis privatis conventibus cito
obviam eatur, ut non brevi major scissura in Ecclesia cum majori detrimento autoritatis sedis ApostolicjE oriatur, quam multis sasculis fuerit visa, non possum non maxime timere." — lb. The proposed convention never took place, mainly through the Emperor's demand that in the meantime the Protestants should admit no new member into their League.
I539-] Letters of MelancIitJion to Henry. 105
the other hand, this attempted private solution offended Enoland not less than Rome. The Kins: of Enorland, the other extreme of the Christian world, despatched his agents, Mount and Paynel, to the Protestants at Frankfort, to make remonstrance. He told them that he took it ill that they treated of a pacification without his knowledge, and asked the plain question whether they intended to be constant to their pro- fessed doctrine.* The Germans replied that they had taken these measures because they had been aggrieved by the long delays and indecision of the English monarch. However, they promised to send another embassy into England.
After the former German mission into England on account of religion, some coolness had arisen between Henry and the Protestants. The jealous monarch failed not to observe that the orators wrote no letters to him on their return. But a rupture, which neither party could have afforded, was prevented by the good offices of the anxious Melanchthon, That great theologian, who in his intense seriousness touched unconsciously the humour of Erasmus, favoured Henry about this time with several of his most persuasive epistles. " Ajax," he said, " asked Achilles which of his labours he found the most severe : and was answered, that they were those that he had undertaken for his friends. When Ajax proceeded to ask, which of them had been the lightest, the answer was, the same. Thou, O prince, art our heroical Achilles : the Church is thy friend ! This I boldly say, for our Burghart, when he came back from thee, loudly proclaimed to me thy noble virtues and thy gracious favours. f Now, nobly as thou
* Sleidan, lib. xii. Herbert, Crumwel to Henry, i8 Mar. 1539. State Pap. i. 605.
t Melanchthon ad Reg. 26 Mar. 1539. Strjpe, ii. 393.
io6 MelanchtPioiis '' Sophistics^ [ch. ix.
hast laboured for the Church, the Church requires thee still. There are abuses in her, such as curious rites, or priestly celibacy. And there is sprung up a sect, or school of thinking- that excuses these abuses. They aim at retaining them all, they practise them all, but they explain away the common acceptation of them, or they add some astute allegorical interpretation whereby they justify them. In Egypt there used to be an old custom for the people to come into the temple at the time of ripe figs, and eat the new fruit, singing a song about the sweetness of truth. If such a custom still existed in the Church, these people would retain it, and eat the figs. The figs they would eat, and say that it was a mystic rite in praise of the Word of God.* This sect is springing up everywhere. They say that they are reviving the mystic theo- logy of Dionysius. I call them the Sophistics : and unless our rulers take care, they will make a horrible confusion in religion, and upset the truth. There is all the difference in the world between their sophistry, which would retain everything, and a simple and per- spicuous line of liberty in things indifferent. St. Paul knew what liberty and comprehension were, but he was for uprooting all the Levitical rites. The leaders of this sect I commend to your Majest)^ : they are — Contarini, Sadolet, and Pole : to whom may be added Hermann, the author of the book called The Reforma- tion of Cologne. It increases daily in Germany."! Is there nothing new under the sun ?
The spirit of accommodation and concession was
* "Erat in Egypto sacrum, cum fici maturuissent, populus enim in templo edens recentes ficos, addebat canticum his verbis, Dulcis Veritas. Huic ritui facile est bellam significationem addere, eumque accommodare ad laudem Verbi Dei : nee tamen propterea hie mos in Ecclesias revocandus est."
t Melanchthon ad Reg. 26 Mar. ; Strype, ii. 393.
I539-] Second Gevjnan Mission into England. 107
indeed abroad at diis time : which the susceptible Me- lanchthon might denounce, but could not resist : and it was shared by the men in whom Melanchthon confided most. It was the same Burghart who had been in EnMand before who now returned at the head of the
o
second and final German embassy to effect a religious compact with England. He was accompanied by another orator, whose name was Baunbach. The English envoys, Mount and Paynel, returned with them, bringing back a general profession of friendship, an acknowledgment of the importance of the English alliance, and the protestation of the German princes that they would rather die than renounce their League and their Confession.* It soon appeared that, if liberality on their side could ensure it, a concord, a unity of doctrines would now be effected. Burghart and his colleague proceeded to exhibit the Protestant doctrines in so conciliatory a form, in order to meet the supposed scruples of the Supreme Head, that in several points they may have overshot the mark, and condemned principles which had been already put in practice, or applauded usages which were already fallen into disuse in England. They confessed that there ought to be episcopal government and jurisdiction in the Church ; and they even admitted the primacy of Rome. " We admit," said they, " that it is good and convenient that in the Church there be a Bishop of Rome, that may be above other bishops ; who may gather them together, to see the examination of the doctrine, and the concord of such as do teach discre- pancies in the Church. But we admit not the pomp, riches, and pride of the Bishop of Rome ; who would
* Crumwel to the King. State Pap, i. 6i6 ; Strype, ii. 401. Burghart was armed with another letter from Melanchthon to the King. Strype, i- 394-
io8 Second German Mission [ch. ix.
make realms subject unto him. The which things do neither help nor promote the Gospel : because the kings that have right thereto may and owe to rule the same." For ceremonies, they thought that an agreement might easily be made, if there were a concord of doctrine first. They held that confession and rehearsal of sins ought to be made in the church : but that the doctrine of remission and the power of the keys ought to be taken away : and the people taught whence came remission of sins. Justification they declared to be by faith : but faith ouo^ht not to be idle, but adorned with o-ood works. Free will, they largely said, holpen by the Holy Ghost, might " do somewhat," or have some share in justification, whenever a man would withdraw from sin. The Holy Ghost they believed to be given after remission of sins : but to depart after the com- mission of any deadly sin. They would retain the office of the Mass, seeing no necessity for changing it : but they admitted not private masses, because there was an open market made of, them. They admitted the Real Presence in the Eucharist : they themselves received in both kinds, but they would have this left free to the receiver. " Because one of the species hath by man's constitutions been forbidden by the Bishop of Rome, there might be a remedy found without peril or danger ; so that he that would might have both species ; and that there should be a prohi- bition made, that the one should not insult against the other." They allowed the holy days and feasts of saints, and the invocation of saints, so that it were taught " that Christian men should not convert the same hope to the saints which they ought to have unto God." The images of Christ and of the saints they rejected not, but only the idolatrous adoration of them. They condemned not monasteries, nor the life of the cloister ;
1 539-] into England. 109
but the trust which some men put in the regular obser- vation. Vows made upon things which man could not observe they rejected : and thought that the power of dispensing with vows should He with the Pope, so that it were free for every man to keep or not to keep them. And they lagged so far behind the English Reforma- tion, which they thought to be lagging behind them, that they thought that monasteries should not be put down, but turned into schools. " We will not the monasteries be put down, but that they may be turned to schools, in which good doctrine should be taught." The marriage of priests should be in the Pope's hands, who might admit it : the concublnate, which was prac- tised by many, should be forbidden : and none but grave persons should be advanced to dignities. As for Purgatory and pardons, it was the abuse of them that they rejected, rather than the things themselves : and they deemed it better to dispute of them in the schools than in the pulpit. They added that the Zwingllans and the CEcolampadians had not yet received these articles, but that they hoped for conformity even there : and that Luther had lately revoked all the books wherein were things contrary to these articles, had retracted them with his own hands, and acknowledged his faults.*
These admirable propositions, which seemed to afford a basis for the general pacification of Christen- dom, came to nothing In Enoland. The German orators
* Strype, i. 526, from Cleop. E. 5, 228. Collier, who also transcribed these articles, seems to have been misled by the title, which they bear in the MS., into thinking that they were drawn up by the Protestants among themselves, and had nothing to do with England : he was surprised not to find them in Sleidan. The title is misleading enough : it is, " A Copy of such things as Marten Luther, Philip Melancton, and certain cities and Princes of Germany, their adherents, have admitted, March, Anno 1 539-" This second mission of the Germans has been almost overlooked by historians.
1 1 o Failure of the Mission. [ch. ix.
waited long, nearly a year : and in the time of their sojourn here they must have witnessed enough to con- vince them that there were sordid and dishonest causes at work which forbad the hope either of reconciliation with Rome, of union with themselves, or of an accom- modation in which all Christendom mio-ht have been embraced. If Henry had formerly prevented the re- union of Christendom by the ill reception which he gave to the' papal scheme of a General Council, which the Protestants were willing to have entertained, he may now, it is possible, have frustrated the same design by the coldness with which he received the offers of the Protestants themselves . Their mission seems, however, to have been involved in the jealousies which rose about the fourth matrimonial adventure of the Kine. At length they were dismissed after the marriage with Anne of Cleves, which took place at the beginning of the next year. The King sent them away with the same answer which he had returned before : that he desired to conclude an agreement with them on .poli- tical causes first, and afterwards to confer with them about a league for religion. To this the German princes sent a reply full of consideration and firm- ness. Their League, they said, was for no other pur- pose than religion,' and therefore no other causes could be admitted : their position in doctrine they were willing to fortify, if it were required of them, by further reasons : and they proposed another conference of divines. But though negotiations were renewed before the death of Henry, yet all the hopes of a union be- tween the Protestants and the Church of Eno-land had now vanished for ever.*
The monastic suppression in the meantime pro- ceeded with unabated ardour. The panic of the friars
* Strype, i. 548 ; ii. 437-
T539-] The Monastic Suppression. 1 1 1
of the North still continued : and in two successive days the Minorites, the Austins, the Preachers, and the CarmeHtes of Newcastle, to the number of forty-seven in all, surrendered themselves without waiting for a visitor, and abandoned for ever those picturesque dwell- ings of brick, fragments of which may be discovered still amid the crowded buildings of the banks of the Tyne. Their example was imitated by the cell of Walk Knoll, and the large Benedictine priory of Tynemouth, consisting of eighteen monks, of the annual revenue of about five hundred pounds. The Minorites of the Yorkshire Richmond followed ; and the two Augustinian priories of Newburgh and Bolton, in the same county, about the income respectively of four and of three hundred pounds, the latter a convent of eighteen. To them may be added the nunnery of Lacock in Wilt- shire, where there were eighteen religious ladies of the same order, with twQ hundred pounds a year, which place the King had lately refounded perpetually : and the great Benedictine abbey of Hyde, in the city of Winchester, valued at nearly a thousand pounds a year, the opulent possession of twenty-one Black monks, whose commendatory prior, the Bishop of Bangor, induced them to surrender.* The great Doctor
* Sel/sKn-endered Houses itt t/ie Jirst pari of i^2)(), before the Meeti7jg of Parliament : —
9th Jan. Minorites, or Grey Friars, of Newcastle, i?yw. xiv. 631. 9th Austin Friars of Newcastle. /i(5'. 624.
loth — Dominicans, Preachers, or Black Friars, of Newcastle.
7^.615. 10th — Carmelites, or White Friars, of Newcastle. Id. 631. loth — Cell of Walk Knoll, Newcastle. Id. 624. 1 2th — Tynworth, or Tynemouth. Id. 623. 19th — Minorites of Richmond, Yorks. /<^. 2ist — Lacock, Aust. nun., Wilts. Id. 632. 22nd — Newburgh, Aust. can., Yorks. Id. 615. 29th — Bolton, Aust. can., Yorks. 7^. 623. 29th April, Hyde, Winchester, Bened. Id. [The
1 1 2 Career of London and Tregonwell [ch. ix.
London continued his career, by suppressing the Preachers of Derby, six in number : having, it is probable, previously sealed the doom of Stixwold nunnery in Lincolnshire, a small house of thirteen Cistercian ladies, rated about a hundred and fifty pounds ; which it had pleased the King to alter to the Prsemonstratensian Order, and to refound for ever. This place was granted to one Robert Dighton. The terrible Doctor then proceeded to deliver his long- meditated attack upon the town of Coventry : where in an assault which lasted two days he dissolved the cathedral priory, the noble foundation of Leofric anci Godiva, of twenty-five Benedictines and seven hundred pounds : and the house of the " unwise " Carthusians, a prior and eight monks, whose income barely raised them above the degree of a lesser monastery. Nor failed he, it is probable, to take in his course the compliant Cistercians of the neighbouring house of Combe, fourteen in number ; on whom he had fixed already a longing eye : their income was above three hundred a year.* The well reputed nunnery of
The surrender of Hyde was completed by London in the autumn ; see below, pp. 145, 147.
These are all, or nearly all, in Burnet's list also : and in the Eighth Record Report. So of all the other houses throughout the Suppression. I may add that my knowledge of the annual revenues of the monasteries has been readily acquired from the pages of the invaluable Tanner. I have kept to round numbers, and sometimes struck a balance between Dugdale and Speed (whose computations Tanner gives), the latter of whom exceeds the former in his estimations of the incomes of the monasteries, often as much as a hundred pounds a year.
* "And forasmuch as Combe is so nigh unto Coventry, and the abbot with all his friends at your lordship's commandment, as I am privy of their minds, if it be your lordship's pleasure, I shall be glad to go through with that house also. All the sort of them do look duly for their departing, and therefore they make their hands by leases, sales of wood, and of their plate. I suppose this abbot will leave his house and lands like an honest man," &.c.—Lo7tdon to Crumw. 28 Dec. (1538). Wright, 234. " If my lord will have me do anything at Combe, then I would my lord would
1 539-] before Pavliameitt. 113
Polesworth fell before him next : where fourteen Black ladies maintained themselves on ninety pounds a year. He smote the Carmelite and the Minorite, that were in Nottingham, to the number of seven and eight, in one day.*
Doctor Tregonwell and Doctor Petre ran together the race of the swift. The former took Bradenstoke in Wiltshire, a house of fourteen Austin canons, of a little more than two hundred pounds a year. In Somersetshire he dissolved Kynesham, another Augustinian house of ten persons, of double the value : and the cathedral church of Bath, a Benedictine foundation, which had been returned in the Valor Ecclesiasticus four years before at the revenue of eighteen hundred : but was now so reduced by aliena- tions, or the expedition of the monks, as to yield no more than seven hundred. He disdained not the two small hospitals of St. John the Baptist in Wells and in Bridgewater, two brotherhoods they of four and eight : and pursuing his way through the same county, he de- stroyed Athelney, a Benedictine house of nine : and
send some one of his trusty servants to me at my being there, to receive the house with all other reckonings to my lord's use, the goods being in- differently appraised. He cannot have a more commodious house, and the longer he tarrieth the worse everything will be, so universally they make their hands all they can, that as yet remain not suppressed. When I am at Coventry, I am but three miles from Combe." Wright, 236. London thus destined Combe for his Lord Crumwel himself. It does not appear that Crumwel got it.
* Lond flit's Career before Parliament in 1539 : —
Stixwold. Wright, 235 ; Tanner.
3rd Jan. Friars Preachers or Dominicans of Derby. Ryni. 620. 15th ■ — Benedictines of Coventry. Z^. 629. i6th — Carthusians of Coventry. 7-^. 628 ; Wright, 2i\. 2ist — Combe. Wright, 234-6. (Record List.) 31st — Polesworth. Rym. 621. 5th Feb. White Friars or Carmelites of Nottingham. lb. 5th — Grey Friars or Minors or Cordeliers or Franciscans of Nottingham. lb. VOL. IL I
1 1 4 Career of Tregonwell and [ch. ix.
the two Austin houses of Buckland and of Taunton, the former a nunnery, the latter the abode of a prior and twelve monastic canons : all exceeding two hun- dred pounds of revenue. Passing into Devonshire, he dissolved the Cistercians of Donkeswell, of ten persons and three hundred pounds : and the site of their house was given to the newly created Lord Russell. He struck down Canonleigh and Hertland, both of the Augustinian order ; the one of two, the other of three hundred pounds : the smaller the abode of eighteen nuns, the larger of no more than four canons and an abbot. Three more establishments of the same exten- sive association fell before him next in Cornwall : the priories of Lanceston, of Bodmin, and of St. Germain : all about the same number of eight or nine' Black canons : in income all about three hundred pounds. Returning into Devonshire, he found a richer prey in an older order : and at Tavistock the abbot and twenty Black or Benedictine monks resigned an income of nine hundred pounds, and a superb abode, the site of which was conceded to the favoured Russell.* He omitted not the smaller Cistercian house of Newham, of the value of two hundred and fifty pounds a year : nor, in the neighbouring Dorsetshire, the priory of Bindon, of the same order, of somewhat inferior value, a convent of eight persons. In the latter county he was rewarded by an ampler spoil : the three great Benedictine establishments of Middleton, Cerne, and Shaftesbury fell before him ; of the respective revenue of seven, of three, of thirteen hundred pounds : com- posed, the two former, of thirteen and of seventeen religious men : the last a famous nunnery, of unknown number, which had lately furnished to a suffragan
* Willis (i. 169) wrongly puts this surrender in 1538.
I539-] Petre before Parliameitt. 1 1 5
bishop the title of his office.* In Wiltshire he dis- patched Wilton, another Benedictine nunnery of twelve ladies and six hundred pounds : and paused in a distinguished career among the less opulent Carthu- sians of Hinton in Somersetshire : where twenty monks subsisted on an income of two hundred and fifty pounds, t
In his labours at Bath and at Buckland, Tregonwell was associated with the no less eminent Doctor Petre. But the two, being engaged in the same region of the south-west, appear to have avoided one another so far as it was possible, and the advance of the one was the signal of the retirement of the other. In one day Petre brought down St. John's Hospital in Exeter, of the Austin order, consisting of four priests, nine
* John Bradley, abbot of Milton, was consecrated Bishop Sufifragan of Shaftesbury in I'-^iZ.— Siiype's Crafivi. He was also commendatory of Middleton, and now surrendered it to Tregonwell. t Tf-egonwelV s Career in the First Part of \^y) : —
18th Jan. Bradnestoke, August., Wilts. Rym. xiv. 632. 23rd — Kynesham, Aust, Somers. lb. 629. 27th — Bath, Bened. lb. 636. (Petre also.)
3rd Feb. Wellen, Hospit. lb. 637.
7th — Bridgewater, Hospit., Somers. lb. 635.
8th — Athelney, Bened., Somers. lb. loth — Buckland, Aust., Somers. lb. 634. (Petre also). I2th — Taunton, Aust., Somers. Ib.62,S- 14th — Donkeswell, Cist., Devon. lb. 632. 1 6th — Canonleigh, Aust. nun., Devon. lb. 630. 22nd — Hertland, Aust., Devon. 73.636. 24th — Lanceston, Aust., Cornw. lb. 634. 27th — Bodmin, Aust., Cornw. lb. 637.
2nd Mar. St. Germain, Aust., Cornw. lb. 634.
3rd — Tavistock, Bened., Devon. lb. 630.
8th — Newham, Cist., Devon. lb. 636. loth — Bindon, Cist., Dorsets. lb. 630. nth — Middleton, Bened., Dorsets. //a 633. 15th — Cerne, Bened., Dorsets. lb. 637. 23rd — Shaftesbury, Bened. nun., Dorsets. lb. 634. 25th — Wilton, Bened. nun., Wilts. lb. 637. 31st — Hinton, Carth., Somers. Jb. 614. I 2
ii6 Petres Career before Parliament, [ch. ix.
choristers, twelve poor, and one hundred pounds : and the Benedictine nunnery of Polstow in Devon- shire, of the lesser value. In the same county the houses of Torre, Buckfast, Buckland, and Plimpton, of the Prsemonstratensian, the Cistercian, or the Augustinian orders, with their heads and convents ranging from ten to twenty monks, yielded in suc- cession the generous prizes of four, or five, of three, and of nine hundred pounds a year. In Somersetshire he put an end to the Charterhouse of Witham, the original English seat of an obstinate and detestable order, which scarcely rose above the value of a little one : but returning swiftly into Devonshire, he captured Ford, where twelve Cistercians existed, a prey of double worth. In Dorsetshire he emulated the deeds of Tregonwell by the expulsion of the Bene- dictines of Abbotsbury and Sherbourne, the latter an ancient bishopric. In numbers they were eleven and seventeen : their annual incomes were five and six hundred pounds. In Somersetshire he despatched the Cluniac abbey of Montague, of similar value, fourteen in convent.* In two successive days he scattered the Austin canons of Edington and Bruton, in Wiltshire and in Somersetshire, thirteen or fourteen in number
* Petre's Career in the First Part <'/" 1539 : —
20th P'eb. Exeter, St. John's Hospital. Ryi/ier, xiv. 634. 20th — Polstow, Devon, Bened. nun. lb. 629. 23rd — Torre, Devon, Prsmont. lb. 634. 25th — Buckfast, Devon, Cist. lb. 635. 27th — Buckland, Devon, Cist. Jb. 632.
1st Mar. Plimpton, Devon, Aust. lb. 630.
5th — Witham, Somers., Carth. lb. 633.
8th — Forde, Devon. Cist. lb. 633. 1 2th — Abbotsbury, Dorsets., Bened. lb. 633. 1 8th — Sherbourne, Dorsets., Bened. lb. 637. 20th — Montague, Somers., Clun. Jb. 638. 31st — Edington, Wilts., Aust. lb. 638. 1st April, Bruton, Somers., Aust., lb. 615.
I539-] Other Surrenders before Parliament . 1 1 7
in either place : and both of them about the revenue of five hundred pounds.
Besides the industry of these great men must be enumerated the fall of Brusyard Nunnery in Suffolk, where nine Minoresses, or sisters of the small order of St. Clare, resigned to the visitor Cave a revenue of fifty pounds, and witnessed the concession of their site and their endowments to one Nicholas Hare. Tarent, a Cistercian nunnery in Dorsetshire, consisting of an abbess and eighteen nuns, surrendered a more opulent patrimony of the annual return of three hundred and fifty pounds to one John Smith : and became immediately the reward of the merit of Sir Thomas Wyatt. The Benedictines of Warwick, twelve in number, and their prior : the defamed Prsemonstratensians or White canons of Cockeirsand in Lancashire, a convent of an abbot and twenty-two religious, with fifty-seven servants, both renounced their existence before some unknown visitors : the latter relinquishing the not inordinate income of two hundred and eighty pounds.* To these miscellaneous surrenders may be added the White Monks or
* Miscellaneous Surrenders in the First Part ^1539, before Parlia- ment : —
15th Jan. Warwick, Bened. Burnet. I can find no account of
any Benedictines that were at Warwick. 29th — Cockersand, Lane, Prasmont. Burnet,
7th Feb. Brusyard, Suff., nun. Rym. xiv, 628. 13th Mar. Tarent, Dorsets., nun. lb. 629. 31st — Tower Hill, White Monks. Wriothesley, 92. 31st — Minoresses without Aldgate. lb. Besides these, Burnet has Bushsham, Devon., February 19; which I cannot identify. He also gives without date the Dominicans and Franciscans of Cambridge and the Dominicans of Thetford. These fell this year, and numbered x6, 24, and 6 (8th Rec. Rep.). Burnet has another place called St. Maria de Pratis, where the abbot and nineteen monks re- signed. Where was this ? There were two St. Marj's De la Pre, one by St. Albans, the other in Northampton : but they were both nunneries.
ii8 New Parliament. [ch. ix.
Carthusians of Tower Hill, and the MInoresses without Aldgate, above the revenue of three hundred pounds. The suppression, it will be evident, had proceeded to great lengths with the greater and lesser monasteries alike, since the last session of the last Parliament, which granted the lesser houses only to the King. Three years indeed of indiscriminate plundering or transferrence, of sacrilege or unresisted resumption, had now rolled over. It was time, it was now prudent, to rebuild the legal sanctuary.
The writs for a o-eneral election were issued in the spring. No opposition was expected : the work to be done was but the regular and unexciting toil of gain- ful slavery : but still no pains were spared by Crumwel and the court to collect such a body of legislators as might be worthy to continue the course of their pre- decessors :* and Crumwel's secretary, Morison, was charged with the office of answeringr in the Commons for the Crown, if any objection had been brought against the late measures. f The Houses met at the end of April, after the celebration of the usual Mass, and an humble prayer for the Divine direction. The Lord Chancellor read the speech from the throne : from which it appeared that the great business before them was still ecclesiastical, and above all the calming of any agitation or bewilderment, that might have been
* Mr. Froude (iii. 374-379) has related the history of this election : how the Earl of Southampton went round the south of the country : how Crumwel dictated the choice of Oxford and of Canterbury.
t " Amongst other, for your Grace's Parliament, I have appointed your Majesty's servant Mr. Morison to be one of them : no doubt he shall be ready to answer, and take up such as would crack or face with literature of learning, or by indirect ways, if any such shall be, as I think there shall be few or none : forasmuch as I, and other your dedicate Councillors, be about to bring all things so to pass, that your Majesty had never more tractable Parliament." — Crumwel to Henry, 17 Mar. State Pap. I. 603.
I539-] Committee for Uniformity. 1 1 9
felt of late, in a smooth uniformity of opinion. The course also which the legislators might take seemed to have been sketched out for them. " His Majesty- desires, " said Audley, " above all things that diversity of religious opinions should be banished from his dominions : and since this is a thing too arduous to be determined in the midst of so many various judgments, it seems good to him to order a committee of the upper House to examine opinions, and to report their decisions to the whole Parliament." The com- mittee which was chosen consisted of the Vicegerent, the two Archbishops, and the Bishops of Bath, Ely, Worcester, Bangor, Durham, and Carlisle ; who with- drew themselves, that they might pursue their labours without molestation : all but the Vicegerent, who appears modestly to have relinquished the discussion of theology to the appointed prelates. But a con- clave composed so equally of the Old and the New Learning was more likely to exhibit than to allay the diversity which the King disliked. The business of the session proceeded in the House : day followed day ; but no message of agreement came from the chamber of the disputants : and at length the Duke of Norfolk, to whom more than to Crumwel was now confided the task of maintaining the royal interest, rose, and propounded to the lords another scheme already matured by the Court ; the embryon which was presently developed into the formidable body of the Six Articles. " Ten days have elapsed since spiritual peers were assigned to examine the diversity of opinions concerning religion in this realm of England. It has seemed doubtful from the first whether they would ever come to an agreement. Let then the matters in dispute be determined openly and freely in full Parliament : and let a penal statute be passed
120 Debate on the Six Articles. [ch. ix.
against all who shall transgress the settlement so made. These matters may be digested into six articles, as follows : Whether the Eucharist be the very Body of our Lord without Transubstantiation :* Whether the Eucharist ought to be administered to the lay people under both kinds : Whether by divine law vows of chastity ought to be observed : Whether private masses be to be retained by divine law : Whether by law divine priests may have wives : Whether auricular confession be by divine law a thing of necessity."
Hereupon the Committee appears to have been recalled: and a long debate ensued in the House of Lords, conducted solely by the bishops. Cranmer, Latimer, Shaxton, Goodrich, Barlow, and the less ad- vanced Heath, now of Rochester, stood on the one side : on the other, Lee, Gardiner, Tunstall, and Aldrich of Carlisle. The temporal lords kept silence : and it was particularly observed that at this crisis neither Crumwel nor Audley, the new men who owed all to the Revolution, spoke a word. On the third day of the debate the victory was decided by the arrival of a reinforcement so powerful that opposition died before it. The King himself entered the house: and carried his orthodoxy so fiercely that the New Learning was effectually routed. The only prelate who remained obstinate was the determined Shaxton, who now showed a spirit which afterwards deserted him. Cran- mer, Latimer, Barlow, yielded ; and the silent laymen, in a sudden animation, showed that their hearts and votes were with their sovereign lord.f Nor was his
* " Absque Transubstantiatione."— Z<?r<^j' Journ. It is difficult to understand this expression. Perhaps it means, without considering the process, the quomodo, whether it be transubstantiation or otherwise.
t The honours of this discussion are usually given to Cranmer by the historians, who speak as if he had been on his legs "three whole days" arguing against the Six Articles. This comes out of Fox, who describes
I539-] Penal Statute to enforce them. 121
Majesty unmindful of the other suggestion of his duke, to have his unity of rehgion enforced by a penal statute. Ten days after his appearance among them, he sent to the lords a message by the Lord Chancellor, " that whereas both he and the spiritual peers had studied and toiled until they had got to a settlement upon the preceding six articles, it was his royal will that a penal statute should be made, to compel his subjects to observe, and to prohibit them from gain- saying the unity thus determined, or dissenting from it : but that he left the form of punishment to them." By common consent two committees were appointed to compose and submit to the King two forms of a penal statute of the kind indicated : the one consisting of the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Bishops of Ely and St. David's, and Doctor Petre : the other of the Archbishop of York, the Bishops of Durham and
Cranmer as " standing as it were post alone against the whole Parliament, disputing and replying three days together." This is a gross exaggera- tion of Fox's original, Morice. See Nicholl's Narratives, p. 248. Ac- cording to a contemporary eye-witness, however, the honours belong rather to Shaxton. " Never prince showed himself so wise a man, so well learned, and so Catholic, as the King hath done in this Parliament. With my pen I cannot express his marvellous goodness, which is come to such effect that we shall have an Act of Parliament so spirited, that I think none shall dare say, in the blessed Sacrament of the Altar doth remain either bread or wine after the Consecration : nor that a priest may have a wife : nor that it is necessary to receive our Maker sub utraqiie specie : nor that private masses should not be used as they have been : nor that it is not necessary to have auricular confession. And notwithstanding my lord of Canterbury, my lord of Ely, my lord of Salisbury, my lords of Worcester, Rochester, and St. David's defended the contrary long time : yet finally his Highness confounded them all with God's learning. York, Durham, Winchester, and Carlisle have shown themselves honest and well-learned men. We of the temporality have been all of one opinion. And my lord Chancellor and my lord Privy Seal as good as we can devise. My lord of Canterbury and all his bishops have given their opinion, and come in to us, save Salisbury, who yet continueth a lewd fool." — Letter of a Member of Parliament. Strype's Cjatimer, App. No. 26.
122 The Act of the Six Articles: [ch.ix.
Winchester, and Doctor Tregonwell* Their work was performed within ten daj's, the King perhaps approving the form presented to him by the latter committee : and, after a provision had been added by the Commons, the penal statute was passed on the 1 6th of June. Such was the true history of the celebrated " Act for abolishing of diversity of opinions," commonly known as the Statute of the Six Articles, and termed by the heretics " The Bloody Bill," and " The Whip with Six Strings." It was a new Heresy Act, proceeding not from the Church, though sanctioned as to doctrine by the Southern Convocation ; but from Parliament, at the commandment of the King, and on the instance of a layman.f It was made apparently in favour of the Old Learning, at the very moment when the Old Learning, or at least a great part of the
* " Per Dom. Cancell. declaratum est quod non solum Proceres spirituales verum etiam Regia Majestas ad unionem in precedentibus Articalis conficiendam multiplicato studuerunt et laboraverunt, ita ut nunc unio in eisdem confecta sit : Rcgias igitur voluntatis esse ut Penale aliquod Statutum efificeretur, ad coercendum suos subditos ne contra determinationem in eisdem Articulis confectam contradicerent aut dis- sentirent ; verum ejus Majestatem proceribus formam hujusmodi male- factorum puniendorum Proceribus committere. Itaque ex eorum communi consensu concordatum est quod Archiep. Cant. Episc. Eli. et Minev. et Doctor Petre unam formam ejusmodi actus concernentem punitionem hujusm. malefactorum dictarent et componerent : similiterque quod Archiep. Ebor. Episc. Dunell. et Winton. et Doctor Tregonwell alteram ejusm. efifectus dictarent et componerent formam : quas quidem formas sic compositas et dictatas illorum utrique Regias Sublimitati die prox. Dominico prassentarent." — Lof-ds' Journ.
t It need scarcely be said where Fox lays the blame of the Six Articles. They were " devised by the cruelty of the bishops, but specially of the Bishop of Winchester : and at length subscribed also by King Henry." Fox is followed here by most writers : and it is fair to add that, as we shall see, his opinion concerning Gardiner's part in the matter was shared by the contemporary Melanchthon. Mr. Froude says that it was the " report " of the committee on which Gardiner was that was accepted by "the peers." It may have been so : but it was not so much a report as a draft or scheme of an Act. And it would seem to have been accepted by the King, before it was accepted by the peers.
I539-] Examination of it. 123
old system, was undergoing the agonies of death. It was in truth the first Act for uniformity of rehgion, the beginning of a continuous and most perilous course of modern legislation. It is said to have marked a re- action in the King's mind : it marked no reaction in the King's cupidity. After rehearsing the Six Articles themselves in a strain of fulsome loyalty,* the Statute proceeded to enact " pain of death by way of burning," with loss of goods, as in the case of treason, against all persons convicted of speaking against the first of them. No abjuration was allowed to excuse the offender : which was a new provision, doubling the severity of the older laws against heresy. The loss of goods, and imprisonment at the King's pleasure, were the penalties attached to the first offence against
* The Six Articles stand thus in the Act 31 H. VI 11. c, 14 :—
" 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 form 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 remaineth no substance of bread or wine, nor any other substance but the substance of Christ, God and man.
'■^Secondly, That communion in both kinds is not necessary ad salutem, by the law of God, to all persons : and that it is to be believed, and not doubted of, but that in the Flesh, under the form of bread, is the very Blood ; and with the Blood, under the form of wine, is the very Flesh : as well apart, as though they were both together.
" Thirdly, That priests, after the order of priesthood received, as afore, may not marry by the law of God.
" Fourthly, That vows of chastity, or widowhood, by man or woman made to God advisedly, ought to be observed by the law of God : and that it exempteth them from other liberties of Christian people, which without that they might enjoy.
" Fifthly, That it is meet and necessary that private masses be continued and admitted in this the King's English Church and Congregation, as whereby good Christian people, ordering themselves accordingly, do re- ceive both godly and goodly consolations and benefits : and is agreeable also to God's law.
" Sixthly, That auricular confession is expedient and necessary to be retained and continued, used and frequented in the Church of God."
1 24 Severity of the Act. [ch. ix.
any of the other five Articles : for the second offence, the death of a felon without clergy. The whole Act, which was somewhat long, was ordered to be read in all churches by the clergy once in every three months. Commissions for proceeding under it were to be issued to the bishops, the justices, or other persons nominated by the King : and proceedings might be taken either by the oath of two witnesses, or before a jury.*
* Mr. Froude says (iii. 395) that the King himself drew out a sketch for a statute, to which "he had added two clauses, from which the bishops contrived to deliver themselves ; which, if insisted upon, would have crippled the prosecutions, and tied the hands of the Church officials." These were, that the judge should be bound to deliver to the accused, if it were demanded, a written copy of the matter objected, and the names and depositions of the witnesses: and, that the evidence of one witness only should be insufficient (see the draft in Wilk. iii. 848). As to the first of these points, it looks like a limitation of what it was expected that the judge should do, to keep him from doing too much for the accused : for the words are, "the names and depositions of the witnesses only." As to the second, the bishops did not " contrive to deliver themselves " from it, for it is in the Act. They were " to take information and accusa- tion by the oaths and depositions of two able and lawful persons at the least " (§ 7). Indeed this procedure by two witnesses (as an alternative for a trial by jury) was the old process which used to be taken before the ordinaries of the Church, of which the Commons had complained in their famous Supplication (p. 84, Vol. I. of this work), but which they now revived. Being doubled in severity by the stopping of the old loophole of abjuration, it is complained of by Hall as the most intolerable thing in the Act. " Such was the rigour of that law, that if two witnesses, false or true, had accused any, and avouched that they had spoken against the Sacrament, there was then no way but death : for it booted not to confess that his faith was contrary, or that he said not as the accusers reported : for they would believe the witnesses : yea, and sometimes certain of the clergy, when they had no witnesses, would procure some, or else they were slandered." To represent the King's draft as a mild effort on his part to instil a little charity into the ferocious edict of his bloodthirsty bishops is too ludicrous. If this draft had become law, the whip with six strings would have become the scorpion with six tails. For, according to it, silence, or refusal to answer on citation, would have been enough to condemn a man to the fire. The whole thing proceeded from the King, the court, the Parliament : not from the bishops or the Church. I have observed a case in which the first of the two clauses which Mr. Froude admires was observed, and the other was infringed. A tailor of Windsor,
^539-] Nttmeroiis Reckless Attainders. 125
The session was remarkable for the novel vigour with which it applied the process of attainder of treason. One comprehensive bill, embracing the names of many persons, was brought into the Lords on one day, and passed on the next. It included the dead, Exeter, Neville, Montague, who had suffered at the end of the year before : it included prisoners in custody, who were not produced to answer for them- selves. No witnesses were called, no questions were asked, no ceremony of justice was performed in this great exhibition of loyal confidence. In one case only was a show of evidence deemed necessary ; and when the name of the highest victim in the list was read — the name of the aged Countess of Salisbury, the mother of the Poles — Crumwel rose, and displayed before the Lords a tunic of white silk, on which were worked on the one side the arms of England, on the other the symbol of the Five Wounds, the banner which had waved before the ranks of the Pilgrims of Grace. This had been found by the Earl of South- ampton among the linen of the Countess. The Commons kept the bill five days, and then returned it with some more names added to those that were therein at first: so that altogether, between King, Lords, and Commons, fifteen persons were condemned in this way to the penalties of treason. They were the Marchioness of Exeter, who anticipated the law by a natural death ; the Countess of Salisbury, who was kept two years in the Tower ; Sir Andrew For- tescue ; Thomas Dingley, a Knight of St. John of
named Filmer, was tried for heresy in 1543. He called for a copy of the statute, and his wife handed him one. But his judge. Capon of SaHsbury, ordered it to be taken from him. He was entitled to have the depositions ofily, I suppose. He was condemned and burned, though there was only one witness against him, and that was his own brother. See Fox.
1 26 Relief Act for the late Religions, [ch. ix.
Jerusalem ; two gentlemen, five priests, two yeomen, a merchant, and a friar.*
A necessary measure was passed for the relief of the religious persons who had belonged lately to the houses which had been "■ suppressed, dissolved, forfeited by attainder, or otherwise rendered" to the King: for such is the parliamentary enumeration of the various modes in which the monasteries had fallen. They were enabled to purchase land, to sue and to be sued : and only those of them who were priests, or who had entered religion after attaining twenty-one years of age, were prohibited from marriage ; unless they could prove that unlawful compulsion had been used to make them take the vows.f A bill for extending the benefits of the Reformation to hospitals was intro- duced, but appears to have been withdrawn. The case of these establishments, several of which were suppressed already, was perhaps held to be included in the more oreneral measure which followed. The retrospective edict, which was to throw over the de- struction of so many of the greater monasteries the
* Lords'" Journ. Burnet, bk. iii. sub f. Three of the priests were Irish, and were no doubt those who were caught on shipboard. See last Chapter, p. 60, Ellis, ii. 128. The observation of Burnet, who gives an excellent account of these attainders, deserves to be quoted. " It is a blemish never to be washed off, and which cannot be enough condemned, and was a breach of the most sacred and unalterable rules of justice, which is capable of no excuse." He quotes Coke's exclamation, " Auferat oblivio, si potest : si non, utcunque silentium rogat." It is to be regretted that neither this Act of Attainder nor any of the Private Acts of this Parlia- ment are printed in the great collection of the Statutes of the Realm. We are informed, in the preface to Vol. III. of that collection, that it is in this year that "the distinction between Public and Private Acts is first specifically stated on the Inrollment : " and henceforward only the Public Acts have been printed, the Private Acts remaining unprinted. Hence a great mass of information, particularly relating to the sale and exchange of monastic lands, remains inaccessible. It would be a good work to print the Private Acts separately.
t 31 H. VIII. c. 6.
I539-] All Monasteries given to the King. 127
shield of law, was prepared and introduced by Audley. It went through Parliament in three successive days, the King gracing by his presence the third reading. It was a marvel of liberality. " Freely, voluntarily, under no manner of constraint, coaction, or compul- sion," declared the English senate, " have many abbeys, priories, friaries, hospitals, and other religious houses resigned themselves, their lands, their property, their rights, into the hands of the King, since the twenty- seventh year of his reign. Let the King and his heirs possess those houses for ever. Other religious houses may happen in future to be suppressed, dis- solved, renounced, relinquished, forfeited, given up, or otherwise to come into the Kinof's hands. Let him enjoy them. Let them be in the survey of the Court of Augmentations, unless indeed they be forfeited by attainder or other cause. Let the rights of all persons or bodies politic be saved, except the rights of the late heads or governors, and the rights of pretended founders. Let all unusual grants or leases, and all other bargains made by the late heads, and all feoff- ments within a year of the dissolution be void. But persons who have paid money on wool sales shall be recompensed, though the sales be void : all leases made to old lessees shall be valid : and all the leases shall remain good that have been made into the Court of Augmentations. And let not those who have bought monastic lands since the dissolution be dis- turbed, for the King himself has both bought and sold monastic lands within that time. Such houses as were free of tithe before the dissolution shall remain free of tithe under their new owners." All religious houses, and the churches belonging to them, it was added, were to be under the visitation of the ordinary of the diocese : an excellent provision if it had not been
L
1 28 The Act of Proclamations. [ch. ix.
enervated by the next words, that the King might appoint others to visit them. Great as the outcry throughout the Reformation had been against the abuses which prevailed in places exempt from ordinary jurisdiction, yet somehow it appeared not to belong to the purpose of Parliament to put an end to the prevalence of exemptions.*
But in the apprehension of constitutional historians the temporary measures, which provided for the present condition of a revolutionary epoch, have been less gravely censurable than another resolution of this loyal assembly, which raised the King's edicts to the rank of their own laws. The "Act that Proclamations made by the King should be obeyed," or have the force of statutes of Parliament, has been regarded, not without some reason, as the deliberate betrayal of the English Constitution, at the hands of the men who should have been foremost to protect it.f That it was a singular
* 31 Hen. VIII. c. 13. On the last point Burnet remarks very justly : "The last proviso for annulling all exemptions of Churches and Chapels had been a great happiness to the Church, if it had not been for that clause, That the King might appoint others to visit them : which in a great degree did enervate it. For many of those who afterwards purchased these lands, with the impropriated tithes, got this likewise in their Grants, that they should be the visitors of the Churches and Chapels formerly exempted : from whence great disorders have since followed in those Churches, which, not falling within the Bishop's Jurisdiction, are thought not liable to his censures : so that incumbents in them, being under no restraints, have often been scandalous to the Church : and given occasion to those who were disaffected to the Hierarchy, to censure the prelates for those offences which they could not punish, since the offenders were thus exempted out of their jurisdiction. This abuse, which first sprang from the ancient exemptions that were confirmed or granted by the see of Rome, has not yet met with an effectual remedy." (Bk. iii.)
t Thus Hume calls it "a total subversion of the English constitution," and adds that " to render the matter worse, if possible, they framed this law as if it were only declaratory, and were intended to explain the natural extent of royal authority." Hallam says that this Act "is a strik- ing testimony to the free constitution it infringed, and demonstrates that the prerogative could not soar to the height it aimed at, till thus imped
I539-] Real hitent of it. 1 29
decision for an English Parliament to make, even in this era of loyalty, cannot be denied : but it may be questioned whether the indignation of those who have denounced may not be somewhat beside the mark, not less than the more recent arguments of those who applaud, or at least who palliate, the measure. * It need not follow of necessity that a body of men who were profuse in dispensing to the King the lives and pro- perty of others would be equally prodigal of their own privileges : and the Act bears rather the appearance of a timid attempt to draw the prerogative within the limits of regular legislation than of a surrender of the consti- tution to the prerogative. The King had been issuing for years proclamations which had been obeyed as laws, or more than many laws : and these proclamations, which were upon every kind of matter, from the price of grain to the nature of heres)^ always contained the threat of heavy penalties which were not specified. They began or ended with the unlimited and formid- able menace of the " most high displeasure " of his Majesty against those who neglected or disobeyed them. These royal edicts were now raised or reduced to the level of Acts of Parliament : and, being invested with the formal character of laws, the King was re- quired to affix to them penalties that should be specified. The bill was brought into the Lords, it is true, at the King's instance : but it seems to have met with a somewhat different reception from that which the King designed. There were " many large words " before it was passed : * and though it was introduced
by the perfidious hand of Parliament." He justly adds, however, that " the power given to the King's proclamations is considerably limited therein." — Const. Hist. i. p. 33.
* Bishop Gardiner, in a letter written long afterwards, in the reign of Edward VI., informs us that this Act was caused by a clash between a Proclamation and an Act of Parliament about the price of grain. The VOL. II. K
130 Exception made of Heretics. [ch. ix.
early, on the twelfth of May, it was not finally expedited till the end of the session, June 26. Before it was sent to the Commons, it was committed to the Crown lawyers to be amended : by the Commons it was rejected : it was then drawn anew, and sent back to the Commons along with a paper of emendations : the Commons proposed further amendments, and then it was passed. The limitations inserted considerably lessened the concession made : and the language, though not unworthy of the new loyalty, betrayed the marks of caution. His faithful senators found it " more than necessary" to give to the proclamations of their master the force of statute laws, lest he should be driven by the frowardness of his subjects to extend his power and supremacy. But such proclamations were to be issued by the advice of his council : penalties were to be prescribed in each of them : and the penalties prescribed were not to contravene existing laws and laudable customs of the realm. But, as if the object of the legislature had been to assist religious per- secution, an exception was made in the case of heresy : the protecting clauses, which saved the subject from the fear of penalties or forfeitures beyond what might be specified, were removed from those who should offend against any proclamation that might be made thereafter concerning heresy : and they were left to the tender mercy of the King. The Parliament was as willing to make the King a present of heretics as of monks.*
judges had decided that the Privy Council could not punish some merchants who had exported some grain in defiance of a proclamation, because they were allowed to do so below a certain price by Act of Parlia- ment. On this the King demanded to have his Proclamations 'made equal to Acts of Parliament. " Many great words," says the Bishop, "en- sued in the passing." — Bitrnet, Coll. to Ins Ediu. VI. bk. i. No. 14; or Lingard, H. VIII. ch. v.
* 31 H. VIII. 6. Hallam justly observes that "the King claimed a power to declare heresy by proclamation, under penalty of death." Burnet has
I539-] Another Act about Monasteries. 131
The labour with which this Act was passed may be compared with the rapid expedition of another measure which may either have been designed to spread a fair colour over the monastic destruction, or devised by the King to calm a growing apprehension that he meant to keep all the monastic spoils : or which perchance may be taken as exhibiting some tinge of public virtue in perhaps the most corrupt legislature that ever sat in England. A bill was introduced by Crumwel, which was read once, twice, thrice, in the Lords, sent to the Commons, returned from them, and finally promul- gated, on the same day. It was to enable the King to apply the monasteries to public use. It reads, as events turned out, like a satire on the Revolution, composed by the authors of the Revolution. The slothful and ungodly lives of all sorts of those persons who were called religious was affirmed to be " not unknown," * but many of their possessions might be turned to better use.
some valuable remarks on it ; he says : '' There had been great exceptions made to the legality of the King's proceedings, in the Articles about religion and other injunctions published by his authority, which were complained of as contrary to law : since by these the King had, without consent of Parliament, altered some laws, and had laid taxes on his spiritual subjects." He adds that the curious restrictions which the Act contained gave great power to the judges, as expositors. But he is wrong in thinking that the great changes in religion in the nonage of Edward VI. were grounded on this Act, for it was repealed in his first year. Mr. Froude compares Henry to a Roman dictator, invested with special powers by the confidence of his subjects, to meet an emergency (iii. 386). But the Act was meant (as Hume notices) for perpetuity, and contains a provision for the minority of a future king. There was no emergency. Mr. Froude also, though he describes with care the limita- tions of arbitrary power which the Act contains, yet happens to omit the remarkable exception 'of heresy.
* The transformation of phrases is often curious. The mild " not unknown," which is the utmost that Henry, who drew this Act himself, ventures upon, becomes in Burnet — " It was known what slothful and un- godly lives had been led by those who were called religious." By the time that the slothful and ungodly lives reach Mr. Froude they are " notorious to all the world " (iii. 392).
K 2
132 Last Appearance of the Abbots [ch. ix.
God's Word might be set forth ; children might be brought up in learning ; clerks might be nourished in the Universities ; old decayed servants might have good stipends ; daily alms might be ministered ; high- ways might be mended ; ministers of the Church might have exhibition. The King was therefore empowered to create bishoprics by his letters patent : to appoint churches and cities to be sees, to limit dioceses, to erect collemate churches, in which all these eood purposes might be established ; and to endow them as he thought fit, instead of the religious houses. In such behalf his patents under the great seal were invested with the authority of Parliament.*
Such were the principal acts of the session. The mitred abbots sat silent in their place among the lords for the last time in the Parliament which authorised the destruction of their proud and beautiful abodes. Their last appearance was pathetic. Some of them came from homes no longer their own. Some were men who had been put in possession for the very purpose of surrendering their houses. Some were burdened with secret understandings which had been extorted from their weakness or their corruption. Others nursed within their bosoms the swelling con- sciousness of injury which may belong alike to virtue or to vice unjustly treated. They took no part in the debates, so far as it is known : and on the other hand their ears were spared the railing accusations which are said to have been brought against the religious orders in the former Parliament. There was no need for that now. The rams' horns had ceased to sound, now
* 31 H. VIII. c. 9. Burnet says that most of the preamble and other parts of this Act were written by Henry himself: and gives a scheme for erecting eighteen bishoprics, which was found on the same paper, also in his handwriting. To this we shall return.
1539-] /;/ Pajdiainent. 133
that the city was fallen. What booted it to resist an army of Achans, all intent on the Babylonish garments and the wedges of gold : an army which not the less professed itself to be composed of true Israelites, desirous only that the treasure should reach the house of the Lord ? And yet it might be asked whether those vast corporations need have been destroyed so easily, if their heads had made a firmer and a more united resistance. It is only when men speak out strongly that their rights are respected in time of danger. As soon as a cry is raised, it should be met by a counter cry as loud and bold : to tell the enemy that there is little use in try- ing there. Great is the power of sound : it can only be overcome by sound.
The Southern Convocation met in St. Paul's on the second of May : and on the second of June the Vicegerent entered their assembly, and exhibited to them the six theological questions which had been debated so ceremoniously in the House of Lords. The answers which the clergy returned were adopted into the Act of Parliament, and, with one significant variation, formed the text of the Six Articles.* The Convocation of York met at the same time in their usual place ; but no business was clone. t
* Wilk. iii. 845. The variation was in Art. 5. The clergy wrote that " It is meet and necessary that private masses be continued in this our Enghsh Church." The Parliament altered this into " in this the King's English Church and congregation." See above, p. 123.
t Wilk. iii. 850. Mr. Froude is mistaken in saying — " As a further evidence of the greatness of the occasion, the two provinces were united into one. The convocation of York was united with the convocation of Canterbury. A synod of the whole English Church met together, in virtue of its recovered or freshly constituted powers, to determine the articles of its belief." (iii. 379.) He has been misled by some ambiguous language in the Act of the Six Articles, which he quotes. The occasion was not great : and there never was an occasion on which there was less disposition to respect the assemblies of the clergy.
134 Proclamation for Uniformify. [ch. ix.
The effect of these various enactments was not so notable as it might be supposed. Freedom, already submerged beneath the laws of verbal treason and the rest of the generous concessions of the last Parlia- ment to the prerogative, could hardly be drenched deeper by the Act of Proclamations. That Act made indeed no difference to the subject, and very little to the King. As soon as it was passed, and probably whilst Parliament was still sitting, Henry took advan- tage of the powers conferred on him to issue another Proclamation, for the uniformity of religion. He lamented the animosity of his subjects about religion : their railing against one another by the terms of papist and heretic : the machinations of the one party to restore the old devotion to the Bishop of Rome, the old superstitions of pilgrimage and idolatry, and the rest of the religion of hypocrites : the audacity of the other party in wresting Scripture, In subverting the Sacraments of Holy Church, and the authority of princes and magistrates, of laws and common justice. His indulgence in allowing the Bible he declared to have been abused. He was not compelled by God's Word to set forth the Scriptures in English : he had done it of his own liberality and goodness, to bring his subjects from their old ignorance : but, instead of reading them decently, In convenient places and times, they read them with loud and high voices In churches and chapels, especially during divine service and the celebration of the mass. He therefore ordered them to use the Holy Scriptures according to his godly purpose, and desired that none but curates, graduates, or licensed preachers should preach, teach, or expound the mysteries of the Old or the New Testament : but that if any were In doubt of any text or sentence, they should resort to the learned, and not trust in their own
I539-] First Pevsectitioit tmder Six Articles. 1 35
arrogant and presumptuous expositions. In giving his subjects this admonition, he informed them that he acted according to the authority of Parhament already granted to him : and, not perhaps without a touch of savage pleasantry, he added to the pains and penalties, which now in accordance with the Act of Parliament were specified, the old indefinite threat of " his most high displeasure and indignation."*
The burning of Lambert and the Anabaptists had been followed in February by a general pardon of heretical offenders.! But by the Statute of the Six Articles the wings of persecution were imped again : and the abhorrence of the nation for all heretics was directed by the orthodoxy of the King. The laymen of London instantly became the most active ordinaries that the Church had ever had : and proved that the powers of ecclesiastical law had but slept in the arms of the much decried bishops. They formed a court or inquest upon heretics, which sat in the Mercers' Chapel. To sit on this tribunal none were admitted who had read any part of Holy Scripture in English, or who favoured any of those who had read it, or who loved the preachers of it. So ardent were the citizens in the pursuit of heresy that they were not content with en- quiring after offenders against the statute ; they enquired after offenders against their own interpretation of the statute. They not only enquired who spoke against masses, but who went seldom to mass : not only who denied in the Sacrament the natural Body and Blood
* Strype, ii. 434; Wilkins, iii. 810. The latter put this proclama- tion, which is undated, in 1536, "quia hoc anno multa a rege et episcopis agebantur, quae ad unitatem promovendam tendebant." The reference to parhamentary authority determines the date ; and Mr. Froude (iii. 389) rightly assigns it to the middle of 1539.
t Wilkins, iii. 842 : who follows the old style in referring this proclamation to 1538.
136 Heresy Court in the Mercers Chapel, [ch.ix.
of Christ, but who held not up their hands, who smote not on their breasts at the moment of sacring or con- secration. They sought to discover who went seldom to church ; who refused to receive holy bread or holy water, when it was offered them in church by the priest; who read the Bible in church; who contemned priests in their conversation, or images in churches : all of which particulars they termed " branches of the statute." In the space of fourteen days they had indicted and presented on suspicion of heresy five hundred persons ! There was not in the city a preacher, or any other person of note, who had spoken against the authority of the Bishop of Rome that had not been brought within the danger of the statute.* The prisoners were not tried in the courts of the Church, but by juries : and a considerable number were con- victed and put in prison. The game no doubt was plentiful : it had been plentiful for many years : but there had never been such sport before. But the clergy, be it observed, were no more concerned with the discovery and presentment of the offenders than with the process by which they were tried. t In the end, however, of this first persecution under the Bloody Bill, the zeal of the citizens was frustrated : for the King, not being prepared to illuminate his capital with so many flames, was compelled to pardon all the convicted prisoners in a body, and to set them
* Hall, who says " the stcpremacy of the Bishop of Rome." It seems hardly credible that anybody got into trouble about that : the King's views on the subject were not obscure.
t We happen to know this from Fox himself. When the persecution broke out again in 1541, the laymen asked that the juries or commis- sioners might consult the vicars and the curates, which they had been forbidden to do, though they had requested it : and the Recorder of London then said that "last year (1539, O. S.) the juries had done many things naughtily and foohshly" for want of instruction from the clergy. Fox's account of the execution of Mekins.
I539-] True Nat live of these Per seal fioiis. 137
at liberty. Such was the event of one of the first of the various attempts which have been made from the Reformation to the present day to combine the two great systems of ecclesiastical and of English law.* Such was the curious issue of entrusting the punitive functions of the Church to less cautious or merciful hands than those which had wielded them hitherto.
This was indeed the true character of all the persecutions which arose out of the Six Articles : but, though this is evident enough, yet, such is the blinding prejudice with which this part of history is approached, no writer appears to have discerned it. These were lay persecutions, not clerical : they were neither instigated by the clergy nor in the main conducted by them. The part taken in them by the clergy, and particularly by the bishops, was not primary but secondary : and was marked by the old reluctance to proceed against the heretics in any way. And yet by one writer after another the blame of these atrocities has been cast without hesitation upon the clergy : and even by those who would defend the clergy it is accepted as a thing of which there can be no doubt. The persecutions moreover, are described as if they had been going on continuously throughout the eight years during which the Six Articles were in force ; whereas they were sporadic and partial outbursts, three or four in number : which in time and place generally followed the humour of the King. The severity of them has been exaggerated by the outcry of the popular historians : but whether they were less or more severe matters not to the question.
* The latest is the present PubHc Worship Act, in which the presented parson stands in the position of the heretics of old, and is expected to answer interrogatories.
138 Inconveniences of the Six Articles, [ch. ix.
Whether more severe or less, they were abominable : only they are not chargeable to the clergy.*
The other inconveniences of the Act were not inconsiderable. A great number of the expelled monks and nuns were tied up from matrimony : so that, if they had been of the world but not in the world whilst they were in religion, they were capri- ciously required to be in the world but not of it, now that they were out of religion. Some of the clergy, who had taken wives, were compelled either to keep them in secret or to put them away. The married archbishop himself, Cranmer, was obliged to dismiss to her friends in Germany the wife whom he seems hitherto to have cherished in a prudent retirement. Shaxton and Latimer, the most prominent prelates of the New Learnincf, were forced to resicrn their
* Mr. Froude says, " The fury which had been pent up for years, revenge for lost powers and privileges, for humihation and sufferings, remorse of conscience reproaching them for abjuring the Pope, whom they still reverenced, and to whose feet they longed to return, poured out from the reactionary churchmen in a concentrated torrent of ma- lignity" (iii. 403), Oh, let us hope not. The tide of persecution in fact soon set the other way under Cranmer. As early as the February of the following year the gospeller Partridge wrote to BuUinger, " Good pastors are freely preaching the truth, nor has any notice been taken of them because of the Articles." The gospeller Butler wrote to the same correspondent about the same time : " There is now no persecution except of the Victuallers : of whom a certain impostor of the name of Wattis, formerly of the order of wry- necked cattle, is now holding forth (oh shame) in the stocks of Canterbury Bridewell, having been accustomed to mouth it elsewhere in opposition to the Gospel." — Orig. Lett. 614, 627. This Watts, or West, was an eloquent preacher of the Old Learning, very popular in London. Mr. Froude himself gives a good account of his persecution at the hands of Barnes and Cranmer (iii. 448). Mr. Froude says further that, by the King's pardon, " the bishops' dungeon doors were thrown open ; the prisoners were dismissed." For this he refers to Hall. I find nothing in Hall about " the bishops' dungeons," but much about the Mercers' Chapel. Hall, followed by Fox and the rest, down to Mr. Froude, lays the burden of this first persecution, which seems to have been confined to London, upon the clergy. Fortunately it is from Fox himself that we discover how little the clergy had to do with it.
I539-] Latimer s Troubles. 139
sees. They both underwent great troubles. The former, the circumstances of whose resignation are uncertain, is said to have been sent to the Tower : after which he sank into an obscurity from which he only emerged for a moment to be subjected to such a degradation as had never yet befallen an English bishop. Latimer's resignation, which has been widely famed as a scrupulous and voluntary act, occasioned by the Six Articles, was in truth forced upon him by Crumwel, who falsely represented to him the will of the King to be that he should relinquish his see. His tumblings and tremblings, his groans and Intercessions, his general inconvenience, had longf convinced the Vicesrerent that he was not the man for such a post* He was treated very roughly: he yielded to violence, as it was expected that he would : and, according to the custom of the times, he was committed to the custody of another prelate, Sampson of Chichester: where he lay, pre- paring his mind for sudden death, f But, as the
* Fox first represented Latimer's resignation of his bishopric as a voluntary sacrifice made to principle. " He did of his own free accord resign and renounce his pastorship." But Latimer himself said that Crumwel ordered him to resign, telling him that the King desired it. " Being borne in hand by the Lord Crumwel that it was his Majesty's pleasure he should resign it : which his Majesty after denied, and pitied his condition." State Pap. i. 849. Crumwel would have a lively remembrance of Latimer's letters : and seems to have given it him hot, when he once got hold of him. He made an indelible impression on Latimer, who said in a sermon long afterwards : " When 1 was in trouble, it was objected and said unto me, that I was singular : that no man thought as I thought : that I loved a singularity in all that I did : that I took a way contrary to the King and the whole Parliament : and that I was travailed with them that had better wits than I : that I was contrary to them all. Marry, sir, this was sore thunderbolts." — Serm. p. 136. Park. Soc. I suppose that this must refer to Crumwel.
t " When I was with the Bishop of Chichester in ward (I was not so with him but my friends might come to me, and talk with me), I was desirous to hear of execution done, as there was every week some, in one place of the city or other : for there was three weeks' sessions at Newgate,
140 Sampsoiis Troubles. [ch. ix.
troubles of the custodian himself began immediately afterwards, the prisoner in ward was set at large after a season. He fell into poverty and neglect for many years : and might have fared worse but for the benevolence of Cranmer and the shelter of Lambeth,
The troubles of Sampson, which befell at this time, involved a longer imprisonment, but not the loss of a see. The unlucky apologist of the Supreme Head miofht have seemed to be doinof well. He had issued injunctions to his clergy full of loyalty and obedience : he had required every priest in his diocese to repeat at mass " with his heart and mind lift up to God " a special collect for the prosperous health of his Majesty.* But he appears nevertheless to have missed the exact line of orthodoxy which the King was now tracing out : and to have taken several steps too much toward the Old Learning, He encouraged one of his clergy not to say the Pater Noster in English, though the King had enjoined it more than once. He maintained a licensed preacher of back- ward tendency against those who complained of him, saying that there ought to be no innovation in things unnecessary before the will of the Prince were fully known. He alleged that the Bishops' Book, or Institu- tion of a Christian Man, should be obeyed and taught at present, but that his Majesty might order some ceremonies otherwise. He was said to be much non-resident : and Crumwel's spies reported that he
and fortnightly sessions at the Marshalsea, and so forth : I was desirous I say, to hear of execution, because I looked that my part should have been therein. I looked everyday to be called to it myself." — Serin, p. 164. I can find no confirmation of the story that Latimer was sent to the Tower at this time.
* Stiype, ii. 377. It would seem that Crome and others also were in trouble. " Audio viros excellenti doctrina et pietate prjeditos, Lati- merum, Saxtonum, Cromerum et alios, teneri in custodia." Melanchthon to Henry VIII, Opera, iv. 837.
I539-] Weakness of Sampson. 141
both preached unsoundly and allowed odiers so to do. Crumwel let fall some threateninof words : of which the poor man heard, to his great terror. He wrote an humble letter to the Viceg-erent : that he would amend all his faults of non-residence and the like : that he was no more a papist than any man in England or in Germany : that, as to the " little sermon " with which he was charged, he conceived " in his little mind " that Crumwel would not have been displeased with it, if he had heard it : that in things determined no man was more conformable than he, though he sought to avoid unnecessary novelties: that he owed all to Crumwel, and honoured him next to the King.* However, it came out next that he had given charitable relief to some persons who were in prison for impugning the King's autho- rity.f Crumwel put him in the Tower. At first he seems to have denied everything : to the dissatis- faction of the King. % He then confessed that between the Old Learning and the New he had been distracted, halting, and bewildered : that three years before, when the Bishops' Book was being considered at Lambeth, and acjain, when the Conference was being held with the German orators, Cranmer pulled him one way and Stokesley and Tunstall the other : and that even lately that potent spirit Gardiner had encouraged him to stand by the old ceremonies and alter nothing, for that the King in reality was friendly to them. Those men he declared to be the authors of all that he had done amiss, and not him himself : thus he wrote to the Viceo-erent, " in intolerable
* Strype, ii. 378. His letter was of September, 1538; before the Six Articles. His fault was that he was before the age. t Fabian, Hall, and Stow. + State Pap. i. 627.
142 Progress of tJie Monastic Suppi'essioii. [ch. ix.
troubles of mind, and surely mortal." * Crumwel, unmoved by his contrition, took the opportunity of dissolving his London house, seizing his furniture, and even conveying that whereon he rode, his mule, the bishop's mule, for a present to the Duke of Suffolk. t Nor was the bishop let out of the Tower until some time after that Crumwel himself in his turn had joined and had left him there.
The monastic suppression was suspended while Parliament was sitting. The more eminent persons concerned in it, from the King and Crumwel to Doctors Layton, Petre, and Tregonwell, were im- mersed in the business of legislation.^ No sooner, however, was the session at an end, than the sup- pression began again ; and we are compelled to trace the accredited agents of a destruction now made legal through the remainder of their toils. The less exalted Dr. London was compensated by being first in the field : he equalled himself: nay, as the prey was rarer, the demolition of twenty-two religious houses in the latter moiety of the year may be accepted in testimony of an accelerated rapidity and a more dexterous zeal. Beginning in Lincolnshire, he reduced the Austin priory of Kyme, a convent of ten, and the Cistercian nunnery of H evenings, each of which had been re-
* Strype, i. 499; ii. 381.
+ State Pap. i. 627. One cannot admire this new Richard of Chi- chester. He accused Stokesley (who was dead) and Tunstall of perverting him. Crumwel sent this accusation to Tunstall, who denied it. Oh yes, said Sampson, it is true. They used to get together, and read Greek books about the old ceremonies of the Church, both in the gallery at Lambeth and in the barge when we crossed over the river, when we were consider- ing the Bishops' Book : and they drew me to them. He made the talk of a committee into an accusation.
X Petre and Tregonwell we have seen sitting with the bishops in com- mittee : they and Layton, being masters in Chancery, were busy also in carrying bills from the Lords "ad illos " ; the euphemism by which the serener assembly designated that which sat beneath them. Lords' Jourti.
I539-] London s Career after Parliament . 143
founded in perpetuity by the King : and the nunneries of Gotham, Irfurd, and Fosse : Cistercian, Prsemonstra- tensian, and Benedictine. These were miserably poor houses for the most part : their sites were granted to Lord Clinton, to Heneage, and others.'" The Doctor, who wanted nothino- of the shrewdness of a hard character, has left on record some observations, made in visiting them, which may illustrate the condition of the religious, or their more relaxed discipline at this advanced stage of the suppression. In the delicate business of examining the nuns, he found that some of them had become professed at ten or twelve years of age, and on coming to riper years had lived " in imperfect chastity." These poor creatures were glad to escape into the world, and blessed God and the Kinof for the new law which enabled those who had entered before the age of twenty-one years to marry. In conversing with the monks, he observed that they were everywhere well fed, and many of them young and lusty men. Some, who had become priests, were struck with consternation to find that they were ex- cluded by the Act from the permission of matrimony. As they were neither learned nor studious, the best counsel that he could give them was " to turn some of their ceremonies of idleness into bodily exercise, and not sit all day lurking in the cloister idly."t After this, the active visitor passed into Nottingham-
* Kyme supported eight canons on a hundred pounds a year. Gotham consisted of twelve nuns and a prioress, who hved on fifty : Irfurd had eight nuns, and thirteen pounds : Fosse, " a beggarly poor ruinous house," the same number of nuns, but only seven pounds : Hevenings had twelve nuns and a prioress, with fifty pounds a year. How such places had sur- vived so long the Act against httle houses is a mystery.
t It will be observed that he is speaking of other houses than those to which his commission went. He always looked about the neighbourhood, and sometimes suggested that there were other houses near which he might as well take.
144 Lojtdoiis Career after Parliament, [ch. ix.
shire, where he dissolved the Charterhouse of Beauval, in which there were nineteen monks, and the Austin priory of Newstead, where there were twelve. The former of these was granted to Sir William Hussey: the latter, being given to Sir John Byron, became the hall of the fathers of a great modern poet. They were both rather below the standard of two hundred pounds a year : in both of them the religious were found eager to depart. " They be in manner gone that night I have taken their surrender ; and straight- way in new apparel." * A little later he dissolved another nunnery, Elstow in Bedfordshire, of twenty- two sisters and three hundred pounds : and in another month another, Nuneaton in Warwickshire, of twenty- eight nuns, of the same value. The one was Benedic- tine, the other of the rare order of Fontevrauld. The site of the latter was granted immediately to Sir Mar- maduke Constable. He struck down, in Leicestershire and in Buckinghamshire, the two Austin establishments of Ulverscroft and Burnham, the one of canons, the other of nuns ; of like number, eight or nine : of nearly equal value, of one hundred pounds a year.
He then appears to have joined a company of visitors, including the renowned Ap Rice, Robert Southwell, and perhaps Pollard : in conjunction with whom he destroyed many of the religious institutions of Hampshire and Wiltshire. With them he dissolved the cathedral priory of Winchester itself, of the Bene- dictine order, dedicated to St, Swithin, and endowed with fifteen hundred pounds. The shrine of the saint they broke in pieces, but they found no gold, no ring, no stone, that was not counterfeit. The silver, how- ever, came to near two thousand marks : and they got
* Wright (213) wrongly puts this letter in 1538: the mention of the law about marriage determines that it was after the Parliament of 1539.
1 539-] London and others at Winchester. 145
some crosses of emeralds and gold, and some vessels and plate out of the vestry. As for the plate of the house, the old prior had made it so scarce that they could take none away without wholly disfurnishing the place. The prior and all the convent were, however, very conformable ; and the mayor and some of the corporation, the bishop's chancellor, and other honest personages were present at the opening of their com- mission, all giving praise to God and the King. The altar, they said, would be worth taking down, though it would be a long job to do it.* In the same ancient city they destroyed the two Benedictine foundations of King Alfred, called Newminster, or Hyde, and Nunna- minster, or St. Mary's, the latter of which the king had continued : the one of monks, twenty-one in number, the other of nuns ; the one over eight, under two hundred pounds the other. In the same county they overthrew the Benedictine nunnery of 'Wherwell, the foundation, the penitentiary, and the tomb of the guilty Queen Elfrida : of the annual worth of four hundred pounds : the site of which passed immediately to Sir Thomas West. The Austin abbey of Twynham, or Christchurch, the magnificent structure of the famous Flambard, fell before them. In this they found a prey of the revenue of three, four, or five hundred pounds, a conformable prior, and some precious jewels and holy vessels : while in the church they enjoyed the
* Pollard, Williams, and Sir T. Wriothesley to Cruniwel. Wright^ 218 ; State Pap. i. 621. London himself seems not to have been there : but he was of the company. They often subdivided themselves. The Bishop of Winchester, it may be remarked, was no friend of superstition, nor of those parts of the old system which were most liable to abuse. When he was in France, Thirlby asked him how he liked the doings in England, and the destruction of Becket's shrine at Canterbury. He replied that, " if he had been at home, he would have given his consent to the doing thereof, and wished that the like were done at Winchester."— 5Az/^ PaJ>. viii. 51. He now had his wish.
VOL. IL L
146 Activity of London and others, [ch. ix.
loyal satisfaction of defacing a chapel, and a monument, curiously made of Caen stone, which the mother of Reginald Pole had vainly prepared for her own last resting-place.* In Gloucestershire they despatched Winchecombe, an old Black or Benedictine house, of the foundation of King Offa, valued at seven hundred and fifty pounds a year : in Wiltshire, the equally venerable nunnery of Amesbury, or Ambrose- bury, renowned in ancient, nor less in modern British story ; the scene of the expiation of the fault of Gui- nevere the Fair : which was surrendered by the last abbess and a sisterhood of not less than thirty-four Black nuns. The revenue was about five hundred pounds : the site was granted immediately to the Earl of Hertford. t In the town of Bristol they dis- solved the great Austin priory, of six or seven hundred pounds, which was afterwards made into a cathedral see : and neglected not the contiguous hospital called Billeswike, though but of the annual worth of one hundred and fifty pounds : this, however, was conceded to the citizens, and still remains. The noble Malms- bury, an abbey of Black monks. In Wiltshire ; and in Gloucestershire the superb foundation of Black or Austin canons at Cirencester, were next despatched : the one of eight hundred, the other of a thousand pounds. The destruction of Hales, famous for the Holy Blood, and of the revenue of three hundred and fifty pounds; concluded for the year the labours of an indefatigable
* London, Southwell, and others, to Crumwel, 2 Dec. Wright, 231. They speak of "the late mother of Raynold Pole." The Countess of Salisbury was not executed till 1541 : but as she was attainted in April of this year, as we have seen, she was dead in the eyes of the law and of these zealous commissioners. This fixes the date of this letter in this year, 1539. Mr. Wright wrongly places it in 1538.
+ Willis, followed by Tanner, puts this surrender in December 1540 (32 H. VIII.). He must be wrong.
I539-] Pet res Career after Parliament. 147
party. They found this house in admirable order, the lands well farmed, the abbot honest and compliant : and they seized for their royal master great store of jewels, plate, ornaments, and money ; among the rest, the garniture of a small shrine, in which the late relic had been kept.*
Doctor Petre begun by dissolving the celebrated Hospital of St. Bartholomew in Smithfield, of the return of three hundred pounds. In the suburb of Southwark he destroyed the rich Austin abbey of Overy, of more than double the value. Bury St. Edmund fell before him next, the mighty Benedictine stronghold, which sometimes claimed to be the greatest monastery of England. In antiquity it yielded to few : in architectural splendour, in exemptions and franchises it stood proudly eminent. The annual in-
* London^ s Career in the Last Part ofi^'y) —
6th July, Kyme, Line, Aust. Ry7n. xiv. 662 ; Wright, 213.
8th — ■ Irfurd; Line, Aust. nun. Rym. xiv. 667 ; Wright, 213.
9th — Nuncotton or Cotham, Line, Cist. nun. Rym. xiv. 665 ;
Wright, id. nth — Fosse, Line, Ben. nun. 7?yw. xiv. 662 ; Wright, ib. nth — Hevenings, Line, Ben. nun. Rym. xiv. 667 ; Wright, ib. 1 8th — Beauval, Notts, Carth. Rym. xiv. 660. 2ist — Newstead, Notts, Aust. /(^.y Wright, 21$. 26th Aug. Elstow, Bedf., Ben. nun. Rym. xiv. 661. 1 2th Sept. Nuneaton, Warw., Ben. nun. Ib. 665. 15th — Ulverscroft, Leie, Aust. Ib. 660. 19th — Burnham, Bucks, Aust. nun. Id.
15th Nov. Winchester, St. Swithin's, Ben. Burnet; Wright, 218. 17th — Winchester, Newminster, or Hyde. Wright, 219. 17th — Winchester, St. Mary's, nun. Burnet j Wright, 219. 2 1 St — Wherwell, Hamps., Ben. nun. Burn. 28th — Twynham, Hamps., Aust. Burn.; Wright, 231.
3rd Dec. Winchecombe, Glouc, Ben. Burn.; Wright, 237.
4th — Amesbury, Wilts, Ben. nun. Burn.
9th — Bristol, St. Austin's, Burn.
9th — Bristol, Billeswike, Hosp. Burn. 15th — Malmsbury, Wilts, Ben. Burn. 19th — Cirencester, Aust. Burn. 24th — Hales, Shrops., Praem. Wright, 236 ; Burn.
L 2
148 Leg/is Career after Parliament, [ch. ix.
come of this vast establishment approached or exceeded two thousand pounds : the monks who surrendered it numbered, with their abbot, forty-five cowls. This Doctor concluded this term of his career by the dis- solution of Berking in Essex, a large nunnery of the same Black order, which yielded the annual product of a thousand pounds. The house and the domains were given to Sir Thomas Denis of Derbyshire.*
Legh and Layton, those ancient comrades, took again the itinerary of the North. Legh destroyed Kingston-over- Hull, a Charterhouse of thirteen monks and of two hundred pounds. He dissolved the Bene- dictine abbey of Burton-on-Trent, of three hundred pounds : of which the subsequent history may demand an observation. Exactly two years after the surrender the King founded on the site and in the church a college of a dean and canons, granting them two or three of the manors of the old monastery for their subsistence. The new collegfiate establishment stood for the unusual space of four years : it was then dissolved, and the King granted both the site and the endowments to Sir William Paget.f Legh proceeded thence to the Cistercian nunnery of Hampole, of fifteen nuns with seventy pounds a year : and thence to Nustell, an Austin house of six hundred pounds : the site of which, the reward of faithful toils, was o-ranted to himself. The Cluniac Pontefract, a house of eight, about four
* TJie Career of Pet re in the Last Part of 1 539 —
25th Oct. St. Bartholomew, Smithfield. Ryin. xiv. 667. 29th — Overy, Southwark, Aust. lb. 666; IVrioihesley, 108. 4th Nov. Bury St. Edmund, Suff., Ben. Rym. xiv. 667. 14th — Berking, Essex, Ben. nun. /i!^. 666 ; WriotJiesley, loZ. St. Mary's, Overy, Southwark, "the largest and fairest church about London," was bought from the King by the inhabitants of the borough with the assistance of Gardiner, " the good Bishop of Winchester putting his helping hand to the redeeming of the same." — Wriothesley, 112. t Tanner.
I539-] Destructio7i of St. Cuthbevfs SJivine. 1 49
hundred pounds ; the mighty Fountahis, well known to him of yore ; Nun Appleton, a Cistercian nunnery of thirteen or fourteen, with some eighty pounds ; and the venerable Whitby, once the abode of the earliest Eng- lish poet, and the greatest English abbess, worth five hundred pounds a year, fell in succession before him. The despatch of Mountgrace, a Charterhouse of three hundred pounds, and of Gisbourne, an Austin house of seven hundred pounds, completed his course in Yorkshire. In Northumberland he smote Nesham, a poor Black nunnery of twenty pounds : and ended his year with one of his proudest conquests, the cathedral church of Durham, the great Benedictine establishment of the North, of the revenue of two thousand pounds. Of this last achievement an authentic view may not be unacceptable to a reader weary with the mere repeti- tion of similar events. The Doctor was conjoined with two other Visitors, Doctor Henley and Mr. Blitheman : and, with the usual train of lapidaries, smiths, carpenters, and other workmen, proceeded to the celebrated seat of St. Cuthbert. There they found awaiting them the compliant prior, Whitehead, several others of the con- vent, and the keeper of the shrine. They made spoil of the countless ornaments and jewels which adorned a resting-place, only second in magnificence to that of St. Thomas of Canterbury : exulting especially over one eem which seemed to contain in itself the ran- som of a prince. Then, directing their attention to the upper part of the structure, where, as usual in shrines, the body of the saint reposed, they bade their goldsmith or lapidary fetch a ladder and ascend. The man obeyed, and with the stroke of a great forehammer dashed open the heavy coffin strongly clasped with iron : when, instead of dust and ashes, he beheld the body of the saint, fresh and entire, but wounded by
150 Destruction of St. Ciithberfs Shrine, [ch. ix.
the blow. The austere eyes of St. Cuthbert, which are said to have consisted of some mineral matter, were fixed sternly upon the intruder, and perchance less violence might have effected as good an entrance : the corpse, preserved by miracle or art, was wrapped in sacred vestments : a metwand of gold lay beside it. " I have broken one of his legs," said the terrified work- man. " Then fling down all his bones," called Doctor Henley from below. The goldsmith wrestled with the saint, but soon confessed that he found his joints and ligaments tougher than those that could be rent by man. Doctor Legh then mounted the ladder, and beheld the body unmutilated : and when Doctor Henley called aeain to have the bones cast down, he invited him to ascend also. " If you will not believe me," said Doctor Legh, " come up yourself and see." The obstinate resistance of the saint was respected in the end : and, happier than his brethren, secured for him a decent interment. But, as if to mark his resentment of his injuries, the celebrated illuminated manuscript of one of the Gospels, which bore his name, enriched with gems and gold, suddenly vanished for ever from his church ; although it must be owned that the disap- pearance of this precious remnant of antiquity was due to natural causes,*
* Higge's Dunholm : a curious narrative published in a book called the Legend of St. Ciithbeji, by one Taylor of Sunderland. The illumi- nated manuscript of St. John was afterwards numbered among the family possessions of Doctor Legh, who purloined it. See Raine's S. Ctdhbeft, p. 78 ; Lee's Sketches of the Reformatiojt, p. 13. The Career of Legh in the Last Part ofi^^g —
9th Nov. Kingston over Hull. Rymer, xiv. 664. 15th — Burton on Trent. lb. 669. 19th — Hampole, Yorks. lb. 670; cf. Wright, 166. 20th — S. Oswald, Nustell, Yorks. Rym. xiv. 665. 23rd — Pontefract, Yorks. lb. 663. 26th — Fountains, Yorks. lb. 664. 5th Dec. Nun Appleton, Yorks. lb. 671.
I539-] Lay toils Career after Parliament. 151
The victorious Layton was employed meanwhile in the same region not less actively. For first he smote Kirkstall, the beautiful Cistercian abbey of the Ayre, of the value of five hundred pounds a year. The site was granted in exchange to Archbishop Cranmer. The nunneries, Cistercian and Benedictine, of Kirk- leighs and Arthington, though not above twenty pounds a year apiece, fell almost upon successive days : and the site of the latter was also exchanged to Cranmer. In York itself he dissolved the superb Benedictine abbey of St. Mary ; where fifty Black monks enjoyed under their abbot Thornton, formerly prior of the dependency of Wetheral, an income of not less than two thousand pounds, St. Leonard's Hospital, of which the ruins stand hard by, received his stroke at the same time : and from the foundation of the Conqueror, of his son, and of King Stephen, there trooped forth the master, the priests, the brethren, the sisters, the choristers, the schoolmasters, the servitors, and the bedesmen, resigning their revenue of five hundred pounds to the King, and their site to Sir Arthur Darcy. He then assailed Selby, another abbey of the wide-spread order of St. Benedict, of the yearly return of seven or eight hundred pounds ; of which both the endowments and the site were granted to Sir Ralph Sadler, the church however being made parochial.* The dissolution of Melsa, or Meaux, a Cistercian abbey, of fifty monks and four hundred
The Career of Legh {continued) —
14th Dec. Whitby, Yorks. Rytn. xiv. 669. l8th — Mountgrace, Yorks. lb. 665. 22nd — Gisbourne, Yorks. lb. 659. 29th — Nesham, Durham. lb. 659. 31st — S. Cuthbert's, Durham. lb. 664. * Willis wrongly puts this surrender in the thirtieth year of Henry VIII. It was in the thirty-first.
152 Uvedales Career in the North, [ch. ix.
pounds, was the last exploit of this great official in York- shire ; but passing into Northumberland, he destroyed Alba Landa, or Blanchland, and Alnwick, two small Prsemonstratensian abbeys ; in the latter of which were fourteen White canons, living on forty pounds a year.*
To Uvedale also, of less renown, but a member of the Council of the North, several nunneries yielded. Swiney, a Cistercian sisterhood of fifteen, with about eighty pounds a year ; Nunkelling, a convent of twelve Black nuns, having the income of thirty-five pounds, fell before him : and their sites were bestowed on
* As to Blanchland, it may be noticed that John Wesley, two centuries later, found extensive ruins there. " I rode to Blanchland, about twenty miles from Newcastle. The rough mountains round about were still white with snow. In the midst of them is a small winding valley through which the Derwent runs. On the edge of this the little town stands, which is little more indeed than a heap of ruins. There seems to have been a large cathedral church, by the vast walls which still rema\n.''— Journal, ii. 49. The work of the Reformation lasted long in such places : the shattered abbey, the ruined town. Lay /on' s Career in the Last Part of 1539 —
1 2th Nov. Kirkstall, Yorks., Cist. Rym. xiv. 663.
24th — Kirkleighs, Yorks., Ben. nun. lb. 670.
26th — Arthington, Yorks., Cist. nun. lb. 664.
26th — St. Mary's, York, Ben. Lb. 665. 1st Dec. St. Leonard's, York. lb. 668. 6th — Selby, Yorks., Ben. lb. 669.
nth — Melsa, Yorks., Cist. lb. 663.
1 8th — Alba Landa, North., Prsem. lb. 664.
22nd — Alnwick, North., Praem. Lb. 665. In the course of their northern campaign, Layton, Legh, and three other visitors met at Selby, whence they wrote to Crumwel a joint letter, in which they described their exploits. With the confidence of merit they informed him that, wherever they had been (Hampole, St. Mary's, &c.), they had taken down the shrines, though they had no commission to do it ; and they requested Crumwel to furnish them with a commission for that purpose, bearing the date of their other commission : that they might have it " to shew if need should require." Mr. Wright (166) wrongly puts this letter of 1539 in 1538: before another letter which was of 1538, and therefore earlier than it by a year. If ever that book be reprinted, it should be re-arranged.
1 539-] Careers of other Visifoi^s. 153
Sir Richard Gresham. Maryke, another Benedictine nunnery of seventeen, with fifty pounds, was captured by him : and the site of it was granted to himself. He gave the final stroke to the almost exhausted order of the Gilbertines, which was pursued with so warm a diligence by Petre in the year preceding. Walton and Malton, their remaining houses, amounting together to seven hundred pounds a year, resigned themselves to him. Of Walton the convent was composed of fourteen brethren and nine sisters. The site of Malton was granted to the ready Holgate. the prior commendatory of both, the general of the whole order, the Bishop of Llandaff: whose ability and loyalty now occupied the important post of Pre- sident of the Council of the distracted region of the North.*
The Austin priory of St. Osith, near Colchester, an establishment of sixteen canons, was taken by one Pynton. A year before its fall, the Lord Chancellor Audley himself, who had devoured so much in that region of Essex, had interceded with Crumwel that it might remain. Above twenty places had fallen already in Essex, he justly urged : if this might be allowed to stand, he could promise a thousand pounds to be given to the King, and to Crumwel himself two hundred. f But Crumwel preferred to have the site : which he took. Williams, another Visitor, was a deserving man. He took three surrenders in one day. First he took the virtuous house of Godstow, which had
* Uvedale in the Last Half of 1 539 —
9th Sept. Swiney, Yorks., Cist. nun. Rym. xiv. 658. loth — Nunkelling, Yorks., Ben. nun. lb. 15th — Maryke, Yorks., Ben. nun. lb. 661. 9th Dec. Walton, Yorks., Gilb. lb. 658. nth — Malton, North., Gilb. /<^. 670. t Wright, 246.
1 54 Other Surrenders after Parliament, [ch. ix.
resisted Doctor London himself.* The stately Austin abbey of Osney, seventeen in number, which rose amid the sweet meadows of Oxford, was his second con- quest. The church of that foundation, of which not a wreck remains, is said to have been unmatched in England for beauty.f He smote, in the third place, the Cistercians of Tame, who were also seventeen, with two hundred and fifty pounds ; of whom the com- mendatory, Richard King, was a suffragan bishop holding the fictitious title of Reone. Only two days after that, he despatched the Benedictine nunnery of Stodeley, in the same county : where fifteen nuns subsisted on a hundred pounds a year. It was granted immediately to one John Cooke. | Haughmond, in Shropshire, an Austin house of an abbot, ten canons, and three hundred pounds, surrendered voluntarily ; and passed into the possession of one Edward Littleton. The great but solitary Brigitite house of Sion, the scene of so many of the early struggles of the new loyalty, of the revenue of not less than two thousand pounds ; and the celebrated Charterhouse of Shene in Surrey, of near a thousand, fell about this time : but under circumstances of which no particular account seems to have been preserved. The house of Shene was given to the powerful Earl of Hertford.^
* It is satisfactory to record that Katharine Bulkeley received the pension of fifty pounds. She had just before paid the abominable exac- tion of the firstfruits, and had run into debt to do it. — Weight, 230. Her house was given to the King's physician, one Owen. t Ingram's Oxford, p. 45.
X Career of Williams in the Last Part 0/ i^^g — 17th Nov. Godstow. I^/rn. xiv. 661. 17th — Osney. /i>. 17th — Tame. Id. 19th — Stodeley. 3. 662. § Ot/ier Surrenders in the Last Part ^ 1 539 —
28th July, St. Osith's, Essex. Ryni. xiv. 666. 20th Aug. Shene, Carthusian. Wriotheslej, 104.
I539-] Three Abbots Executed. 155
The regular surrender, the unresisting comph"ance of all these houses touched with a moral solemnity the fate of those which passed to the common doom by another road. The three Benedictine houses of Reading, Colchester, and Glastonbury, were forfeited to the King because their abbots were attainted of treason. This was a scandalous interpretation, but it was usual : the exact manner in which the inevitable may arrive is of little importance : and in these in- stances our attention is fixed rather on the men who died than on the houses which fell. Of the crimes of Farinordon, the head of the defamed house of Reading, no particular record seems to have been preserved.* He was hanged, drawn, and quartered in sight of his own monastery : his gibbet and his guilt were shared by two priests named Onion and Rugg : the forfeiture and dissolution of the splendid abbey which he ruled added to the Crown the grateful tribute of two thousand pounds. The spoils of Colchester reached but the fourth part of that sum ; but the
Other Surre?iders iti the Last Part <?/ 1539 (contimted) —
9th Sept. Haughmond, Shrops. Ryni. xiv. 666. (But see above, page 35 •) 29th Nov. Sion, Brigit. Wriothesley, 104.
Burnet adds, 7th Nov., a commission for the surrender of St. All- borough, Cheshire, which may perhaps have been on the little island of Holburgh, where there is said to have been a Benedictine cell. — Tanner. Wriothesley gives to Sion the character of being " the virtuousest house of rehgion that was in England."
* Hall says that he denied Supreme Head. In one of the 07'ig. Lett. (p. 316) it is said that the three abbots were in a conspiracy to restore the Pope : in another, that they suffered for " imposture " (p. 627). Hall says that "they were in the same confederacy and treason": which probably means no more than that they thought alike. He adds that Faringdon was a man wholly without learning, which is a mistake. Faringdon suffered 8th November. Burnet disputes the assertion that the three abbots were attainted about Supreme Head : and CoUier again dissents from Burnet. It matters little ; but perhaps Supreme Head was tendered to them again, though they may have acknowledged it formerly.
156 Case of IV hit lug, the aged [ch. ix.
verbal treasons of the abbot, Beach, were terrible and dangerous. He said that the world would be the merrier if the northern men in their insurrection could have got hold of Crumwel, Audley, and Cranmer ; he said that it was a pity that the deeds of the northern men had not been equal to their words : he was unwilling to surrender his house."** He suffered at Colchester, in front of his own door. But the most conspicuous example of the virtue and severity of the revolutionary party was afforded by the fate of Hugh Whiting, the aged abbot of Glastonbury. He fell under the imputation of crimes which the censorious might rather have attributed to the revolutionary party itself. He was accused of church robbery ; and exe- cuted not for treason only, but for sacrilege. His examiner was Layton : his judge may have been Russell ! This old abbot was a model of the monastic virtues. Seldom out of his monastery, of exemplary life, he was particularly noted as a preceptor of youth : and from his lordly chamber it was computed that at least three hundred of the sons of the gentry had departed, well furnished in morals and learning. Being very infirm, he had excused himself from attending in the late parliamentary session, and had not witnessed the passing of the decree which sanctioned the destruc- tion of his order. But his abbey, which was the most magnificent, which claimed to be the oldest, was also the richest in the kingdom. An income of three thousand pounds ; four parks ; domains and manors innumerable ; furniture, jewels, and ornaments reputed to be of priceless value, absorbed the gaze of Crumwel and the King : and at the same time their cupidity was alarmed by the not unfounded rumour of great concealments. Layton himself, accompanied by two
* Froude, iii. 426.
I539-] Abbot of Glastonbury. 157
other tried Visitors, Pollard and Moyle, and armed with Articles to be enquired, which the Vicegerent himself had composed, was despatched to Glastonbury with haste.* They found the abbot at one of his neighbouring manors, where they questioned him out of Crumwel's Articles, but without that result which was desirable. Accompanying him home, they searched his study : where they found a book against the Divorce, a Life of Becket, and some bulls and pardons : but nothing more material to their purpose. They then tried him in Crumwel's Articles again : and at last he betrayed a cankered, traitorous heart concerning the royal succession. His answers were sent under seal to the Vicegerent. The Visitors then, giving to the abbot " as fair words as they could," conveyed him out of the way into the tower of the abbey ; and, " the abbot being gone," they proceeded with all celerity to ransack the house and discharge the monks and the servants. The former they dismissed with presents, with which they had come furnished by the King for the purpose ; the latter they sent away with half a year's wages. All were glad to go, and returned humble thanks to the King. But great was the dis- appointment of the Visitors when they entered the treasure house, and found it nearly empty. There were no more jewels nor ornaments than would have served for a poor parish church : and it seemed likely that they would have to be content with a beggarly sum of three hundred pounds, which they had seized at their first entry into the abbey. However, they proceeded to a more diligent search, and discovered a quantity of money and plate walled up In vaults and in other secret places : and they heard of more that
* Mr. Froude says that they went first to Reading (p. 427). If so, they may have taken part in the process against Faringdon.
158 Execution of Abbot PVhiting. [ch. ix.
had been carried off into the country estates and manors of the great abbey. The two treasurers, who were monks, the two clerks of the vestry, who were lay brethren, they detected in an arrant and manifest robbery ; and committed them to gaol. Four days afterwards, they made the discovery of divers treasons committed by the abbot : of which they informed Crumwel, sending the names of the deponents. So serious appeared the state of things to the Vicegerent that he had the abbot up to London, though the Visitors themselves acknowledged him to be a " very weak man and sickly," and examined him in the Tower upon some more Articles. By a skilful and severe investigation he seems to have been driven to the confession of some more concealments of gold and silver. He was then sent back to Wells to be tried by jury for robbery : and by a singular mixture of ecclesiastical (or rather Vicegerent) and English law he was examined further on Articles administered by Pollard, the Visitor. But he would accuse nobody but himself, nor make any confession beyond that he had made in the Tower. His trial occupied but one day : on the next he was taken from Wells to Glastonbury, drawn on a hurdle through the town : and on the tor, or hill, which overlooked the abbey, where still stands a magnificent tower which once crowned the subjacent structure, he suffered the full, the horrid penalties of treason. The fragments of his quartered body were set up at Wells, Bath, Ulchester, and Bridgewater : while his head was reserved for the abbey gate. Two monks, who were probably the defaulting treasurers, shared and increased the salutary terrors of his exe- cution : all three taking .their death with patience, and, according to the executioner, asking pardon of God and the King for their offences. Pollard, the Visitor,
I539-] Melanchthon on the Six Articles. 159
impetrated the surveyorship of Glastonbury for the brother of Pollard, the Visitor.*
The horror of the Protestants at the new develop- ment of orthodoxy in the Six Articles was expressed in a long epistle, in which the monitory Melanchthon addressed the King of England. " The pagan em- perors," said the anxious theologian, " listened benignly to the Christian Apologists ; and stayed their persecu- tions through their persuasions. Let a Christian prince, a theologic king, hear the complaints of the godly. There is a decree set forth in your realm : but no : it is not your decree, for you are wise and good : it is the decree of the bishops. I can detect them in the very phrase and style of writing. Oh, infamous bishops : oh, impudent Winchester, to think by your sophistications to blind the eyes of Christ and all the godly! How horrible is this decree, how subtly con- ceived ! It is the sophistication of Contarini, Sadolet, and Pole, of which I warned you before : the painting out of abuses in new colours. Nay, nay, it is of older date : it is the devil himself as an angrel of lis^ht !
o o
Confession, they say, is necessary, and ought to be observed. They say not, they dare not say that, according to the Word of God, enumeration of sins is necessary : but they mean the latter in the former. It
* Letters of the commissioners and of Russell.— H^;-z>///, 255-262 ; State Pap. i. 619, 621. The death of Whiting and the sack of Glaston- bury made a great sensation, and were long remembered. In a ballad of the next century we read : —
" I asked who took down the lead and the bells : And they told me a doctor that lived about Wells : In the seventh of Joshua pray bid them go look: I '11 be hanged if that same chapter be not out of his book. "For there you may read about Achans wedge, How that same golden thing did set teeth on edge : 'Tis an ominous thing how this church is abused: Remember how poor abbot Whiting was used."
Haliwell's Sovie7'set Ballads, ap. Wright.
i6o Melanchthon on the Six Articles, [ch. ix.
is the same in the other particulars : they foster an abuse under a general proposition : the abuses of private masses, vows, the single life of priests. But the most astonishing thing- in this decree is that the celibate of priests is made stricter than the vow of monks. The canon laws themselves only bind a priest to celibacy so long as he be in the ministry. I shuddered with horror when I read this Article, which prohibits and dissolves matrimony, and appoints for transgressors the punishment of death. Godly priests have been killed for marriage in more places than one : but no one made this the law before you.* I warn you that, if this cruel decree be not altered, the bishops will rage without mercy against the Church of Christ, for the devil uses them as the instruments of his fury against Christ : he stirs them up to kill Christ's members. Christ goeth about naked, hungry, thirsty, imprisoned, complaining of the fury of the bishops, and of the wrongful oppression and cruelty of divers kings and princes. Revoke that decree ; and become the Abimelech of Abraham, the Pharaoh of Joseph, the Darius of Daniel, the worthy son of the famous island which brought forth the first of Christian princes, the pious Constantine." f
* "Valde miratus sum votuni sacerdotum in Anglico decreto etiam arctius adstringi quam votum monachorum. Cum Canones ipsi tantum eatenus velint obligatum esse presbyterum si sit in ministerio : planeque cohorrui legens hunc articulum, qui prohibet matrimonio et contractum dissolvit, et addit pcenam capitalem. Etsi autem alicubi interfecti sunt sacerdotes pii propter conjugium, tamen legem banc scribere nemo adhuc ausus est."
t Melanch. Op iv. 837. He is evidently aiming at the King in hitting the bishops, the supposed advisers of the King. What he dared not say of the King, he said of them. Of how much obloquy that has been cast on inferiors has not this usual and prudent kind of circumlocution been the source ! He had also no doubt heard many of the heretic exiles abuse the bishops. A translation of the whole epistle, which is very long, may be seen in Fox.
1 539-] A Nameless Apologist of the King. i6i
On the other hand, the orthodoxy of England was defended by the enthusiasm of apologists, and defined in the frequent Proclamations of the royal promoter. Under the reassurincr Guidance of the unknown author
o o
of a remarkable vindication of the English Faith and Usages, we may retrace the history of the Reformation from the beginning, to the point at which it was now arrived ; and observe with accuracy what parts of the old system were fallen, and what parts were deemed, not unjustly, to be of Catholic note, and necessary to be preserved. " How can any sane man," exclaims he, "call Englishmen heretics, or schis- matics, or infidels ? Englishmen believe in the Creeds, and in the Holy Scriptures. They accept the holy Councils and doctors, where they be not contrary to God's Word. They detest the Anabaptists and all other Sacramentarians. They reverently solemnise the Holy Sacraments, and all the laudable ceremonies. They have daily Masses : they pay their tithes and offerings, as in time past. Their preachers preach the true doctrine of Christ more often than ever they did before. Indeed, Englishmen have forsaken darkness, and dedicate themselves to the works of light. They have the Bible in every church ; and almost every man has it in hand, instead of the old fantastical tales of the Table Round, of Launcelot of the Lake, or Guy of Warwick, with their vain fabulosity. The poor are sustained. The works of charity are ob- served as well or better than ever before. It is true that, by the advice and consent of the whole realm. Englishmen have put away abuses and usurpations, and reduced the exactions of the clergy. The sums demanded for Probate of Testament are moderated. Mortuaries are taken away. Priests are forbidden to traffic and farm, and plurality and non-residence are
VOL II. M
1 62 A Nameless Apologist [ch. ix.
limited. No Englishman needs go to Rome on appel- lation : all bishops are elected at home : and the fic- titious creations at Rome, of sees named after places in Barbary or Turkey, are abolished for suffragans appointed within the realm. Peter pence, annates, and all other papal dues are at an end. The whole clergy, by their free will and consent, have submitted to the King all manner of jurisdiction and goods, saving only such mere spiritualities as may be granted to them by the Gospel and the Holy Scriptures. They have acknowledged that without his consent they could pretend none other. They have affirmed that the King, having no superior in his realm, is Supreme Head, immediately under Christ, of the Church of England, as all imperial princes are of their own churches. The spiritual laws are to be reviewed by a body of thirty-two persons. The clergy have freely given to the King the tenths and firstfruits of their livings, for the maintenance of his authority, and to avoid burdening the people. As to the suppression of the monasteries, what fault can be found with that ? Some have been suppressed by the authority of Par- liament ; others, seeing the prosperity of the Word of God, and knowing that their religion was of man's institution, have besought the King to take them ; and some would have forsaken their houses, if the King had not taken them. He has given them ample pensions ; and yet fault must needs be found. May not the King, the chief Fundator, do what the popes used to do, in converting these houses to proper uses ? An outcry is made about the execution of religious persons without any previous degradation. But would }ou scrape the forehead of a Christian thief before you hanged him, to get rid of the chrism which he received in baptism ? Would you cut out the tongue
I539-] of the King. 163
of a traitor, whom you knew to have received the Eucharist, before you executed on him the last cere- monies of treason ? Sir Thomas More was a jester. Fisher was a glorious hypocrite. The Carthusians and the obstinate friars were wool-clothed wolves. The holy Maid of Kent, with her ecstasies and revela- tions, was a seditious prophetess. Exeter, Montague, and the rest of that sort were traitors. The Kino- has put no man to death but by ordinary process : none by his own absolute authority. As for the shrines, images, and relics, they were deceptions. There were statues of bishops dressed as virgins ; roods worked by machinery ; chalk exhibited for the milk of our Lady ; bits of red silk in bottles for the Holy Blood itself, and such like abominable impostures. Thomas Becket was a foul traitor. His head was found nearly whole with the rest of his bones in his shrine ; and yet there was exhibited in the church of Canterbury a. great skull of another head, three parts greater than the part that was lacking in his own ; and this passed for his true relic. The King refuses the Pope's Council. He is right ; it is no council, it is but a Roman conciliabule."* There can be no question that this vigorous vindication contains some truth. It exhibits the position of the Catholic Faith in England, after casting off the Roman jurisdiction. The value which
* Collier, Rec. No. XLVII. — The reader will have observed that I do not profess to transcribe documents into my text, nor to adhere to their words exactly, unless on a due occasion, which he will be able easily to perceive. It seems better to translate them, as it were, and condense them. Foisting in whole documents or lengthy extracts seems clumsy, and sometimes destructive of all spirit. It gives an appearance of great scrupulosity, but it is often the most inaccurate writers who are fond of doing it. Collier, who has given this curious defence of the King, charit- ably observes that it may have been written before the last session of Parliament : else how could the writer have said that all persons who had been executed had been tried ?
M 2
\6/^ Proclaination concerning Ceremonies, [ch. ix.
it may have as a justification of the King, it must be left to the reader to determine.*
Nor less the royal Proclamations bore that way, explaining and defining. At the beginning of the year the King issued an important ordinance, in which he allowed various ceremonies to be observed, since " as yet " they had not been abolished. Such were, holy water, holy bread, creeping to the Cross on Good Friday, setting up lights before the Corpus Christi on Easter Day, and others. But they were to be used without superstition. " Let the minister instruct the people on each day the right and godly use of every ceremony. On every Sunday let him declare that holy water is sprinkled in remembrance of our baptism, and of the sprinkling of the Blood of Christ. On every Sunday let holy bread be given, to remind men of the housel, or Eucharist, which in the beginning of the Christian Church was received more often than now : and in sign of unity : for as the bread is made of many grains, so are all Christian men one mystical body of Christ. Let candles be borne at Candlemas ; .but in memory of Christ, the spiritual light. On Ashwednes- day let ashes be given to every Christian man, to remind him that he is dust and ashes. On Palm
* Perhaps the reader may be guided in his judgment by one or two passages, i. The author says of monasteries, "The King caused visita- tions to be made of all states of the clergy, and enquired of their life and conversation : which, in the monks and friars, specially dwelling in small houses, was found so vicious. I will say no worse, though I could, that," &c. 2. Of the executions he says, " No person at all hath been con- demned but by twelve of his peers, irreprovable and indifferent : no noble lord without the special sentence of twenty-four lords at the least, and some of many more : and never put to execution till they had been indicted in their counties, and afterwards arraigned, heard, and declared at length, and as long as they would to the judges and their peers, all the excuses and reasons they could allege openly for themselves in the Hall of Westminster, and been by their peers found guilty, and by the judges condemned."
1 539-] Injunctions against Heretical Books. 165
Sunday let palms be borne, but let it be declared that it is in memory of Christ's entry into Jerusalem. Let it be declared, on Good Friday, that creeping to the Cross, and kissing the Cross, signify humility, and the memory of our redemption. They are signs and tokens : not the workers nor the works of our salvation." *
The same ordinations concerning ceremonies were repeated in some Royal Injunctions which came out after the Six Articles: and in these the Uniformity which the King strove to establish was fortified by the severe prohibition of heretical books. " Let no man," said the King, " bring in from foreign parts, let no man print or sell any manner of English books without special license, on pain of losing all his goods, and suffering imprisonment at his Majesty's pleasure. Let no man bring over English books with annotations and pro- logues, unless they have been examined by the Council, or some approved person. Let none put thereto the words Ctim privtlegio regali, without adding ad impri- mendum sohnn : nor imprint such works without the King's Privilege added in English, so that all may read it. No printer shall publish any English version of the Scriptures, unless it have been admitted by the King, or one of his council, or one of the bishops, whose name shall be therein : on pain of the King's most high displeasure, or loss of goods and chattels, and imprisonment at the pleasure of the King. The
* IVi/k. iii. 842. — This is the Proclamation which contains the pardon for Anabaptists before mentioned, p. 135. It seems to have been meant to supplement Crumwel's Injunctions of the previous November, to which it refers once or twice. The ceremonies mentioned will be seen hereafter to have been the same that were at first preserved and afterwards abro- gated at the beginning of Edward VI. Holy bread was not the Eucharist, but was given, or offered, every Sunday by the parish clerk to the congregation. It was a merry thing among the heretics to refuse it.
1 66 Great Bible made Standard Version, [ch. ix.
Anabaptists and such erroneous persons, and all who sell their books, shall be punished to the utmost extremity of the law. None of the King's subjects shall dispute concerning the Sacrament of the Altar on pain of losing their lives and goods without favour : except those that are learned in divinity ; and they are to dispute only in their schools and accustomed places." *
The royal control of the Bible was extended at the same time by another mandate for checking the pro- duction of new translations. Crumwel was appointed to the special charge of providing that no Bible should be printed in English in any manner of volume, except such as had been overseen and admitted by himself. The frailty of man was such, said the King, that in- convenience might easily ensue from having divers translations, t The Great Bible, of which numerous editions were now issuing from several presses, was made by Crumwel the standard version ; and the price was affixed. \ But the Great Bibles, holding this authoritative position, deprived of the attractive notes and prologues of former surreptitious versions, and furnished, some of them at least, with a preface by Cranmer against " inordinate reading, indiscreet speak- ing, contentious disputing, and licentious living," re- mained unsold. Those of them which escaped the doom of the shelf, and were set up in churches at the
* Fox, Strype, i. 530, IVilk. iii 847.— This is the Proclamation which contains the putting down of Backet's Day, above referred to, p. 70. The reader will remember the hints which Grafton the printer had made bold to give to Crumwel, alwve, p. 75. It is also to be noted that this Pro- clamation may have been the cause why the names of some of the bishops are found on the title-pages of some of the editions of the Great Bible, p. 78, note.
t Mandat. regium, 14th November, 1539. /?yw. xiv. 649, IVilk.m. 4.6, X Cranm. to Crumw. 14th November, 1539. Letl. p. 395.
1539-] ■ Bonner translated to London. 167
cost of parsons, parishes, or capitular bodies, were abused by rude license : and Cranmer, not less than his royal master, had to lament the indecency which scrupled not to choose the time of divine service for an exhibition of loud reading and conceited exposition.*
The appointment of Bonner to the see of London, vacant by the death of the able and consistent Stokesley, afforded a further illustration of the strength of the new loyalty. The rising favourite was inducted by a royal license for executing the episcopal juris- diction, which bore a striking resemblance to the commissions by which Crumwel had been appointed Vicar General or Vicegerent ; or to those by which in turn Crumwel was wont to appoint his own agents. " From the fountain of Supreme Head," Said the King in this comprehensive formulary, " flows all jurisdiction, all magistracy ecclesiastical and temporal within the realm. If we have conferred jurisdiction upon any persons, it is their duty to acknowledge it to be derived from us, and to resign it at our will. We have appointed our well loved commissary Thomas Crumwel to be our Vicegerent : and since Thomas Crumwel
* "As concerning such persons as in time of divine service do read the Bible, they do much abuse the King's grace's intent and meaning in his grace's Injunctions and Proclamations : which permitted the Bible to be read, not to allure great multitudes of people together, not thereby to interrupt the time of prayer, meditation, and thanks to be given to Almighty God ; which specially in divine service, is, and of congruence ought to be used : but that the same be done and read in tijne convenient, privately, for the condition and amendment of the lives both of the readers and of such hearers as cannot themselves read, ;:nd not in con- tempt or hindrance of any divine service or laudable cereir.ony used in the church ; nor that any such reading should be used in the church, as in a common school, expounding and interpreting Scriptures, unless it be by such as shall have authority to preach and read : but that all other readers of the Bible do no otherwise read thereupon, than the simple and plain text purporteth and lieth printed in the book." — Cranmer to Crumw. July> 1539, Lett.^. 391.
1 68 Bonner s Commission. [ch. ix.
cannot attend to all matters ecclesiastical in person, we commit our functions to thee, O Edmond, Bishop of London, at thy humble petition. We license thee to ordain fit persons, to present, to give institution, and to execute all other parts of episcopal authority, save those which are of divine bestowal. This license is to last only during our good pleasure. And we strictly charge thee to ordain only men of good conversation and learning : for the greatest corruptions of the Christian religion have proceeded from bad pastors : by good pastors we doubt not that the lives of Christian men and the doctrines of Christianity will be reformed." Under these auspices the new Bishop of London entered on his remarkable career, receiving by the irony of fate, in the absence of the Primate, the touch of consecration from the reluctant hand of Gardiner. *
* Bonner was consecrated April 4th, 1540, by commission by Gardiner, in a chapel of St. Paul's. Among the assistants were Sampson of Chi- chester, who therefore was not then yet put in the Tower : and Skip, Bonner's successor in Hereford, who thus consecrated his own prede- cessor.— {Strype's Cfanm. Bk. i. Chap. xxii.). As to the royal commission by which Bonner was appointed to his see, it has been a bone of controversy between Burnet (see it in his Rec. Bk. iii. No. xiv.), Harmer or Wharton (Specimen, p. 52), and Collier : the question being whether it reduced the English episcopate to a mere office of the State. On the whole con- troversy it may be observed: i. That there can be no reasonable doubt that this remarkable commission was composed by Cranmer. 2. That, as is not uncommon in the documents of that age, a saving clause is in- serted, which seems to limit or neutralise for polemical purposes, the rest of the commission. It is " Praeter et ultra ea quae tibi ex Sacris Litteris divinitus commissa esse dignoscuntur." 3. That Bonner was not the first who received this commission : but that it had been received, or taken out, by Cranmer himself, and by Lee, Stokesley, Gardiner, Longland, and Tunstall, all bishops of the Old Learning. 4. That Cranmer and the rest of the bishops renewed this commission on the accession of Edward VL : and this renewal of it has been mistaken for the first issue of it. 5. That this renewal has been the occasion of its celebrity, the bishops having been supposed to have thereby acknowledged themselves to be nothing but King's officers. Mr. Froude, e.g. says, " They were to regard themselves as possessed of no authority independent of the crown. They
I539-] Ireland. 169
To interweave the Irish episode into the compH- cated web of the EngUsh Reformation is a difficult, an ungrateful, but a necessary task. Ireland is England's opposite. Ireland is an England and Wales in one, with the proportion of every element reversed : of the one country the study sets in relief the history of the other : a rule which is not violated in the perturbations of relieion, or the destinies of the Church. Two not widely separated dates, at the latter of which we are now arrived, represent, in the weaker country, the one the artificial commencement, the other the military triumph of a revolution which was managed with ease by the directors of the contemporary movement in the stronger. In the year 1534 the young heir of the earldom of Kildare broke into a sudden, furious, and transient insurrection ; in the course of which the city of Dublin was besieged, and the Archbishop of Dublin was murdered. In the year 1539 a rebellion of the northern Irish, under the great chieftain O'Neal, was brought to an end by the decisive battle of Bellahoe. Between the rising of Kildare and the rebellion of O'Neal, the English Reformation, like the English con- stitution, was transported ready-made into an island hitherto ignorant of the religious agitations of the age, and was added in one mass to the miseries or the benefits of Ireland.
The former of these events, the rising of Kildare, has been represented in modern times as having been a religious movement : as a part of a Catholic resistance which was being organised throughout Europe against the cause of the English Reformation. The Irish, it is said, were inflamed to madness by the course which
were not successors of the Apostles, but merely ordinary officials : and, in evidence that they understood and submitted to their position, they were required to accept a renewal of their commissions."— Vol. v. lo.
1 70 Irelandindifferent totheRefoinnatioit. [ch. ix.
events were taking in England : under a rash but gallant leader they flew to arms : and in the murder of Archbishop Allen the blood of an heretical prelate sealed the dark compact in which they stood combined with the Pope and the Csesar against the heretic of E norland. The danoferous condition of Ireland is alleged among the reasons, hitherto unknown, which induced the Parliament of England to make to the King those vast concessions by which property, liberty and life were confided to his hands, and in which the Constitution seemed to be swallowed up by the Prerogative.* There is, however, nothing to support this novel theory. There is nothing to show that there were in Ireland at that time either Catholics who stood opposed to heretics, or heretics who attempted to disturb the faith of Catholics : or that the course of the Reformation in other countries had excited in Ireland alarm, indignation, or even curiosity. In the rash insurrection of the young Kildare there was nothingr that had not been seen before in Irish history. When he took the field he only followed the traditionary policy of Irish chieftains : a policy which had prevailed in his own family before the time of the Reformation and of Henry the Eighth. His grand- father had rebelled twice against Henry's father : his father had instigated two rebellions against Henry : and when he himself rebelled in turn, it was not because of religion, but because of a false rumour that his father, who was confined in the Tower of London for his former offences, had been put to death by Henry. In the course of his rebellion, an archbishop was murdered, but it was not because that archbishop was a heretic, for Allen was an ecclesiastic of the school of Wolsey :
* This view is advanced by Mr. Froude in several places of his History : see particularly the Irish chapter in his second volume.
I539-] Ireland indifferent to the Pope. 171
it was because Allen was caught on his way to the coast, conveying the intelligence of the revolt to England. The lives of ecclesiastics were held cheap in Ireland. The grandfather of this very youth, Thomas Fitzgerald, had burned the cathedral church of Cashel, in the unfounded expectation that the Archbishop might be within it. It may be true that, according to one report, the boyish traitor exclaimed against the heresy and lechery of the King of England : and avowed himself to be of the sect or party of the Pope. But neither these wild words nor the presence of the Emperor's confessor with one of the insurgent chieftains, impressed upon the last rising of the Geraldines the character of a holy war. In their former outbreaks that family had intrigued with the French king or the Emperor, or any other potentate who happened to be at variance with England. In this their final outbreak, if Thomas Fitzgerald used the name of the Pope, it was because he knew the Pope to have become one of the enemies of Henry : not because he embraced a venerable cause with the ardour of a crusader. And he spoke for himself alone. The name of the Pope could as yet awaken no enthusiasm in the Irish Church or people. In the annals of their chaotic past the Pope was known only as the patron and partisan of their English enemies. In the thirteenth century, the time of his highest domination, the Pope had sanctioned the enormous exactions of Henry the Third, by which the Irish clergy were impoverished ; and had followed these exactions by demands on his own account, which the very churches were stripped of their ornaments to satisfy. When the Irish clergy, both native and of English descent, endeavoured, by an ordinance which they passed, to stop the intrusion of men from England, the least
172 Ireland indifferent to the Pope. [ch. ix.
respected or the most neglected of the Enghsh clergy, into benefices to which they themselves were more justly entitled, the Pope rescinded their decree, with strong expressions of disapprobation. When the ill- fated Edward Bruce, assisted by his illustrious brother, invaded Ireland with the design of freeing her from the English yoke, and erecting an independent kingdom under his own sceptre, the sovereign pontiff thundered his excommunication against the Scottish prince, his brother, his adherents, and all the Irish clergy who raised their voices in favour of the enemies of England. On every occasion, in every crisis of history, the Pope had figured either as the staunch promoter of English interests, or at best in the neutral character of a medi- ator between a nation of outlawed tributaries, and their tottering, but occasionally vigorous and oppressive masters. It needed a generation or two to pass, after the breach of Henry the Eighth with the Holy See, before such memories as these could be effaced : before the Pope whom Ireland knew of old could be trans- formed into the modern idol of the Celtic heart.* Religious war M'as indeed the fatal dowry which the Tudors left to Ireland: but the beginning of the religious wars of Ireland was of later date than the rising of Kildare, perhaps of later date than the reign of Henry the Eighth : nor can the condition of Ireland be added to the invisible host of the perils which surrounded Henry in accomplishing the English Reformation.
* Thus it was possible for Henry to say with truth and confidence, in the middle of Kildare's rebellion, that " it was notorious and manifest that the abominable abuse and usurpation of the Bishop of Rome's juris- diction, by his provisions and otherwise, had not only destroyed the Church of Ireland, but also been the most occasion of the division and dissension among the people of the land, and the dissolution, ruin, and decay of the ?,z.vc\&"— Ordinances for Ireland, A. D. 1534, S/ate Pap. ii. 215,
I539-] Low Condition of the Country. 1 73
The great movement of the sixteenth century had aroused, in fact, no attention in Ireland : nor was the condition of that unhappy country such as to favour the diffusion of ideas. The ancient glory of civilisation and religion was long departed from her: an universal barbarism overspread and covered all. The land- was parcelled among toparchs, the leaders whether of the native Irish or of septs of degenerate English, whose continual feuds desolated the country, whose indepen- dence scarcely accepted, or whose insolence securely defied, the authority of a distant sovereign.* The lord deputy himself of that sovereign was in frequent rebellion arainst his master : and was treated ag-ain and again with the lenity of weakness, of contempt, or of indifference. In the course of a progressive decadence, by the end of the reign of Henry the Seventh, Ireland had become almost lost to the English. The English pale was contracted to the narrowest limits : while in civilisation and manners there was no difference between those who were within it and those who were without it. Time and intercourse, a general laxity and indolence appeared
* A single anecdote, of the date of Henr}' the Eighth, may illustrate the independent relations of the Irish toparchs towards their lord the King of England. Mac Gillapatrick, lord of Ossory, having received some offence from the lord deputy, Piers, Earl of Ormond, surnamed the Red, despatched his ambassador to the King of England to demand satisfaction. The representative of greatness, with a solemnity of deport- ment suitable to the importance of his office, accosted Henry, when he was going to prayers, at the door of his chapel. " Sta pedibus, Domine Rex," exclaimed he, " Dominus mens, Gillapatricius, me misit ad te, et jussit dicere, quod si non vis castigare Petrum Rufum, ipse faciet bellum contra te."— Gordon's Ireland, i. p. 232. The effect of this ultimatum on the mind of Henry is not known : but the submission of the brave but unlettered chieftain, signed with his mark, may be seen in the third volume of State Papers, p. 291. He came in with many others who were subjugated during Henry's so called conquest of Ireland in the latter part of his reign.
1 74 Low Condition of the Country, [ch. ix.
to have effaced alike the distinction of races and the pursuits of industry or of intellect. Religion and the Church, the noble institutions of the earlier piety, shared to the full in the depression of the country. The nobles and great men were remarkable above those of every other nation for the unhesitating ruthless- ness with which they oppressed and spoiled the pre- lates and priests. The numerous monasteries, churches, and colleores, were fallinof to ruin : the services were infrequent, the rites of religion were neglected : more than two-thirds of the population were born out of matrimony : nearly all the preaching that was done was by a few wandering friars. Resident vicars were un- known, and the numerous livings which were held in monastic hands were served only by chance from the monasteries. The bishops were hardly to be dis- tinguished from other chieftains : and frequently bore no discreditable part in the beggarly but bloody animosities of their neiofhbours.*
In such a state of society it was idle to expect any flash of the controversial flames which were desolatino- or enlightening every other part of Europe. In creed, as in manners, no difference could be discerned between
* The able State Paper of about 1 5 1 5, which contains a view of Ireland, should be consulted [State Pap. Vol. ii. p. i). The author of it ascribes a great part of the miseries of Ireland to the low state into which the Church had been brought ; and contrasts therewith the state of the Church and nation of England. The following sounds like a satire, considering the subsequent course of events. "All good fortune and grace follow always them that worship God, and honour the prelates, and support the Church. Where is the Church of Christ endowed with so rich and large possessions as by the kings and noble folk of England, wherein fortune, grace, and prosperity increaseth always above all other lands .' The noble folk of Ireland oppresseth, spoileth the primates of the Church of Christ of their possessions and liberties, and therefore they have ne fortune, ne grace in prosperity of body, ne soul. Who supporteth the Church of Christ in Ireland save the poor commons ? By whom the Church is most supported right well, by them most grace shall grow."
I539-] The Irish Reformation. 175
one part of the island and another. The Irish, whether of native or of Eno-hsh blood, all beloncred to the old faith : they held it in corruption and ignorance : they never questioned it. No Irish thinker contributed to the controversies of that aQ^e : no Irish heretic took fire from the torch of Luther or of Zwinglius : there was no Irish Frith, no Irish Tyndale, not even an Irish Tracy. The Irish Reformation (so far forth as there was one) was in no degree spontaneous or indigenous : it was brought about at a distinctly discernible date by the mandate of the Kino- of England : it was not attempted until the English Reformation had attained to a certain definite growth : and it consisted in the English Reformation, which was transplanted into the ill-fated country in one mass, in a single moment. If the quarrel of Henry with the Pope had excited no attention in Ireland, the measures by which it was followed in England had not affected her ; when those measures were all forced upon her together, with a rapidity unequalled in the history of nations, in three brief sessions of a Parliament convened in Dublin for the purpose. Even then there was no such opposition aroused as that which was ventured by the upholders of the Papal Primacy in England. Ireland produced neither a More, nor a Fisher, nor a Houghton, Her chief, almost her only boast, is Cromer. But the policy of Henry, nevertheless, sowed the seeds of the modern woes of Ireland. Into her midst he cast his Engrlish revolution, and left it there to ferment or to fester as it might. The monstrous, the insupportable, the incessant demands, by which he drained the country after the rising of Kildare, drove the chiefs into combination and hostility : and at length it was found that he had aroused into resistance the incurious indolence of the Catholic faith. He ^ave to Ireland the existence of her
176 Archbishop Browne. [ch. ix.
modern disaffection : an existence of which the breath appears to be religion, and the essence may be misery.
The rising of Kildare was arrested without great difficulty by a force tardily despatched from England. Gold assisted in the reduction of the stronghold to which the insurgents retired. Their young and un- fortunate leader surrendered in a state of destitution to his kinsman, Lord Leonard Grey, on the promise of a pardon, which Henry refused to observe ; and his five uncles, three of whom ' had opposed the insurrection, were seized at a banquet to which Grey invited them, and, with their nephew, handed over to long imprisonment and final execution in England.* The moment of victory was chosen by Henry to introduce his revolution into his western dominion : his legislative machinery was rapidly set to work : his ecclesiastical instrument he found in the Archbishop whom he now appointed to the vacant see of Dublin.
The name of George Browne has been discerned already among those who assisted in the monastic persecution in England. f Provincial of the Order of Austin Friars, he had accepted and discharged the office of imposing on his brethren the Oath of the Succession, in the middle of the year 1534. Within a year from that time he was rewarded for his services by the Archbishopric of Dublin, to which he was consecrated in the month of March, 1535. The Cranmer of Ireland, for such he may be termed in respect of the work set before him, was a man of activity and ability, who performed with tolerable skill a difficult task, amid the taunts of his employer, the insults of his associates, and the maledictions of his
* They were all six hanged at Tyburn in February, 28th year of Henry ; i.e. 1537. Hall and Grafton. t Vol. I. p. 214, hnjus op.
I539-] The Irish Reformation. 177
spiritual subjects or rivals. But, to him, in common with most of the English officials who were employed at the same time in the affairs of Ireland, there belongs a pettiness of character which deserves the contempt and might hurry the footsteps of history, were it not that the smallest creatures of a great tyrant may influence the destiny of nations. After his nomination to his new dignity, the promoted friar appears to have been treated as Henry and Crumwel treated bishops. No provision was made for his departure : he hung about, waiting in vain, while the laymen, with whom he was presently to be associated, posted prosperously backwards and forwards, to and from the island of their prey : till he exclaimed in the bitterness of his heart that it would have been better for him never to have been named bishop, than to be so shamed.* Not until more than a year had elapsed, not until the Parliament was already met which began the Irish Reformation, arrived Browne in Dublin. f There was the less reason to hurry with him, because that in the meantime the schemes were being matured, the bills prepared and drafted, by which the English revolu- tion was to be engraffed upon the wild dominion of the west. J
The Parliament met in Dublin, May i, 1536, and forthwith proceeded to the work for which it had been summoned. The most characteristic enactments of the great English assembly which had carried the
* Browne to Crum. Hamiltcm's Calcnd. of State Pap. for Ireland, p. 18.
+ He arrived on Saturday, 15 July, 1536. — lb. p. 21.
X "Articles or Heads of Acts to be passed by the Parliament of Ireland for the King's advantage, and for the common weal of the land and reformation." 16 June, 1535.— /<^. p. 15. Skeffington, the Lord Deputy, sent Allen, the Master of the Rolls, and Aylmer, the Chief Baron of the Exchequer, to England with these Articles. ^/i!^. p. 13. The Commission for holding the Parliament was issued 10 October. — lb. VOL. IL N
178 The Dublin Parliament. [ch. ix.
Reformation, were adapted to the dominion : and in the first session the EngHsh monarch found himself declared Supreme Head of the Church of Ireland, and invested with the firstfruits of the Irish bishops and parsons : his Acts of Succession and of Verbal Treason were extended to his western subjects and enemies : and appeals to the Bishop of Rome were abolished from among them. So zealous was the assembly for " the King's advantage " that they repealed or sus- pended the famous statute known as Poynings's Act, a measure originally framed to check the tyranny of deputies ; by which no Parliament could be held in Ireland without the formal consent of the King and Council of England. The previous certification of the bills to be submitted to the Irish Parliament, which by the same law it was requisite to make to the King, was omitted on this occasion. * As the statutes of West- minster were to be the model of Dublin, it was less troublesome to copy them on the spot with the necessary alterations of names and places, than to draw, certify, and transmit new statutes, and wait to receive them back from England. But the suspension of the law, if indeed it were meant to expedite matters, gave occasion to a certain amount of opposition, which may have surprised the prevailing faction. The zeal of those who suspended it " for the King's advantage," led them to express themselves ambiguously : and to couple that great object with the common weal of the country. In suspending the act of Poynings they
* Poynings's Law, at first invented to check the exactions of ra- pacious governors by the interposition of the English Crown, rendered, it is well known, the proceedings of Irish Parliaments all but formal. Bills were framed by the Lord Deputy and his council, and transmitted to England to be approved. When they were remitted from England in their final form, it was the business of the Irish Parliament to pass or reject them without alteration.
I539-] Opposition of the Clergy. 1 79
unfortunately stipulated that nothing should now be enacted but what should be expedient for " the King's honour, the increase of his revenue, and the common weal of his land and dominion of Ireland." ' Advantage was taken of a noble redundancy of phraseology by some malignants, who urged that these several branches ought to concur in any law that might now be made, and that if a measure seemed likely to increase the Kinof's honour or revenue, but not the common weal, it would for that reason be void and of none effect. And so far was this opposition carried, that it was necessary to pass another law, in a subsequent session, to declare the validity of all the enactments of the present Parliament, and make it felony to attempt to invalidate them.
The leaders of this opposition were the clergy ; and by a strange chance it happened that the clergy were not so powerless in an Irish Parliament as they were in England. A curious fragment of the original symmetry which the great father of parliaments, Edward the First, designed to have bestowed on the whole of his dominions may be conjectured to have survived up to this time in the legislative assemblies of Ireland. The proctors of the clergy, though they sat and voted in their own chamber, yet claimed and exercised the power of voting upon measures which had passed the House of the Commons.* In con- junction with the prelates in the Upper House of Parliament, the clerical proctors now exerted this power to the utmost to delay the bills which the King's party
* The Irish historians say that they sat with the Commons ; e.g. " The ecclesiastical proctors, of whom two from each diocese had usually sitten in parliamentary conventions, were (now) excluded from suffrage." ^Gordon's Irelatid, ii. p. 249. But Grey and Brabazon, in an important letter to Crumwel, seem to make it clear, that it was from their own house that the proctors exercised their suffrage. See next note.
N 2
1 80 The Irish Clergy and Parliament . [ch. ix.
were striving to hurry into law : and so vigorous were they in their obstructive policy that it was found necessary, before the dissolution of parliament, to deprive them of the privilege which they possessed or usurped.*
In their two subsequent sessions the Dublin legis- lature carried the remaining measures which were needed to place Ireland on the level of the Refor- mation of England. An Act for the Firstfruits of Abbeys was due, as he boasted, to the perspicuity of Browne, who observed that in the former Act (touching bishops and parsons) the abbots had escaped ; and the same diligent ecclesiastic followed this by another Act for granting the twentieth part of all spiritualities to the King.f Another Act, confirming the suppression
* On this curious point of the position of the proctors, it may be observed : i. That Grey and Brabazon wrote to Crumwel, May 17, 1537, to complain of the obstructive conduct both of them and the bishops and abbots. " After the assembly of the ParHament at this session, some bills were passed the Commons House, and by the speaker were deHvered to the High House, to be debated there. The spiritual lords thereupon made a general answer that they would not come, nor debate upon any bill till they knew whether the proctors in the Convocation House had a voice or not. Whereupon we perceived that by this mean they sought to deny all things that should be presented unto the Upper House, where they were the most in number : and at every other session divers of them either came not, or else within three or four days divers of them would ask license to depart : at this time nevertheless appearing, and having like license continued, of set course, wholly together, every day, in the Parliament House."— i'/rt/i? Pap. ii. 437. 2. On enquiry it was found that the consent of the proctors was not necessary ; for in the Rolls it was found written under several old Acts, " Procuratores cleri non consense- runt : " and hereupon it was agreed that bills which had passed the Commons should indeed be sent to the Convocation Houses ; but should proceed, whether they passed there or not. — lb. 3. This expedient was quickly followed by the law " Against proctors being any members of Parliament " {Ir. St. c. vii.), in which it was declared that they were merely councillors' assistants, " much like as the Convocation within the realm of England," and that it was an usurpation for them to take on them to be parcels of the body, and intolerable for them to be the stop and let against the discovery of the devilish ambushes of the Pope.
|- State Pap. ii. 512.
I539-] IrisJi Reformatory Statutes. i8i
of certain monasteries, was sufficient to open the way for a general dissolution : and another, against the power of the Bishop of Rome, defined the orthodoxy, while it exhibited the independence of the position into which the nation appeared about to step.*
The reader who has studied these various edicts in their English appearance, may be excused the familiarity of the Hibernian counterparts. But a few observations or anecdotes concerning the new adapta- tion of them may serve to explain the position of things, or to illustrate the temper of the times. Scarcely had
* The true order in which the Reformatory Statutes of this Parliament followed one another seems preserved in a letter of Brabazon's, State Pap. 526.
Acts passed at First Session, i May, 1536 —
Succession.
Supreme Head.
Firstfruits of Bishops and Parsons.
For lands of absentees.
Repeal of Poynings's Law.
Subsidy (not in Statute Book).
Slandering the King's Grace.
Against Appeals. Acts passed at Second Session, 15 Sept. 1536 —
Lordship of Lexlop into King's hands (not in Statute Book).
Confirming the Suppression of St. Woolston's (not in Statute Book).
Lands.
Lands. Acts passed at Final Session, 13th Oct. 1537 —
Succession in Queen Jane (not in Statute Book).
Firstfruits of Abbeys.
Against usurpation of Proctors,
Confirming pardons granted by commissioners (not in Statute Book).
Against the Bishop of Rome's power.
Twentieth part of all spiritualties for the King.
Confirming suppressions of certain abbeys.
Probate of testament.
Faculties.
Declaring the intent of repealing Poynings's Act.
For putting down of weirs.
1 82 Anecdotes and Observations. [ch. ix.
the loyal assembly limited the succession in Queen Anne, when the news of her disgrace compelled them to pass the sentence of attainder against her, and to confirm the succession in Queen Jane. When Henry was declared Supreme Head of the Church of Ireland, it must not be supposed that new authority accrued to him : the title was merely declaratory, as in England. In old times the papal bulls providing for Irish bishoprics had been usually directed to the King of England : and, on the other hand, the letters and man- dates of the King of England had been issued to the archbishops and bishops of Ireland. But the conjunc- tion of the Church of Ireland with the Church of England in documents, which seems to have been un- known before, was begun, apparently, from this time. In the Act for suppressing monasteries no pretence was made, or could be made, of evidence gathered by visitation. The " detestable lives " of the religious were simply assumed as a matter of course : though at the same time those monks who declined to receive capacities to leave religion were ordered to repair " to such honourable and great monasteries of the land wherein good religion was observed." Experience having shown, it may be, in England that monastic visitors might not be beyond infirmity, it was ordered in the Irish Act that no visitor should extort money from any religious house ; but only board and lodging. The Act seems limited to the houses expressed therein, twelve in number : but as soon as it was passed, one of Crumwel's creatures suggested a more general sup- pression, urging that it might be more safely done there than in England, and with better reason. A general suppression ensued.*
* Cowley suggested to Crumwel, 4th Oct., 1536, that "the same reasons that served to suppress the abbeys in England might suffice
I539-] The Reformation unwelcome. 183
This legal revolution was opposed, as it has been seen, v/ith considerable resolution by the prelates and clergy : nor were the temporal lords and commons less reluctant to accept it. AH was done by dint of the management of the servants of the King of England, of the Lord Deputy and the Council. But it would be a mistake to suppose that the opposition was caused by religious feeling. The fear, the just fear, of all was, lest the King of England should be let into the country, and begin to devour Ireland as he was devour- ing England. No country had ever offered a nobler field for a true reformation than that disordered island, in which every institute of religion and civility was in ruins. To rebuild, to restore : to compel justice, to revive public spirit and morality: these were objects of which the opportunity lay fair before the Lord of Ireland. Henry took indeed a few steps in the right direction in the course of his subsequent dealings with his unhappy dominion : but only so far as it happened to concur with his main design, which was to fill his purse. His Irish policy, if it deserve the name, was that of spoliation. His spoliation was as general as he dared to make it: he designed it to have been universal. The monastic possessions, a great part of the revenues of the Church, a mass of estates forfeited by rebellion, fell into his hands. It was much : but he soueht to have had more. However, as in the case of England, he was obliged to be content with less : for he was unable to retain all that he had seized. He
loving subjects to have them here suppressed. The abbeys here do not keep so good divine service as the abbeys, in England, being suppressed, did keep : the religious persons here be less continent or virtuous, keep- ing no hospitality, saving to themselves, their concubines, children, and to certain bellwethers, and to bear and pavess their detestable deeds," Sec—State Pap. ii. 370. This was before the suppressions really began in England.
184 Extraordinary Rapacity of Henry, [ch. ix.
was driven to bribe the chieftains with the wreck of reHgion and the Church.
Intimations of what was coming- reached Ireland as soon as the rising of Kildare was quelled. In his usual manner the King began to plead the great and importable charges which he had incurred for the defence of the country, as a reason for making extra- ordinary exactions. At the beginning of the year 1537, he wrote to the Irish commons a demand for a benevolence.* Soon afterwards he wrote again, in severe terms, to the new Lord Deputy Grey and the Council, bidding them, if they desired to remain in authority under him, to "lay their heads together" for the increase of his revenue. " It is much to our marvel," said he in his letter, which contains a whole scheme of augmen- tations, " that ye have not yet proceeded to the sup- pression of the monasteries, and that ye have had no more regard to our sundry letters written unto you for the alleviation of our charges there. If ye, that should be the advancers of our things there, will either in open Parliament hinder them, or be so remiss in the execution of them, when we be once entitled, that all men may see that ye proceed but for a form, against your mind, ye do your parts but evil toward us."t The prospect of Ireland inflamed the cupidity of the monarch to such an extraordinary height, that he meditated and proposed nothing less than the con- fiscation of the whole island. He had made, he argued, by the repulse of a single rebel, a new conquest of Ireland ; the cost and charges of so vast an expedition could be repaid only by the possession of all the lands which were held by any person, spiritual or temporal therein ; or at least by contributions to be levied on all owners, according to the value of their lands:
* State Pap. ii. 403. t State Pap. ii. 426.
I539-] Archbishop Browne in Ireland. 185
and the only question with him was, whether to attempt to get an act of parhament for the purpose, or simply to take the lands as the conquest of his sword.* But this glorious scheme, which was re- ferred to Crumwel and the English Council, may have appeared too great. The King was fain to content himself with forfeitures, with the firstfruits, the twen- tieths, the other subsidies of the spirituality or the temporality : and with all else that could be wrung out of religion and the Church by the familiar process of inquisition. As active a gang of commissioners as ever Crumwel got together, presently overran the country. This perpetual beggary of a prince, who enjoyed six times the revenue of any of his prede- cessors, is one of the marvels of history.
When Archbishop Browne arrived in Dublin, he found himself surrounded by such a set of officials as might be expected in men selected by Henry and Crumwel to do the work of revolution among bar- barians in a devastated colony. The Council, which enrolled the names of Agard, Allen, Aylmer, Braba- zon, and Cowper, were spies upon one another. Every member of it knew that his safety depended on the unscrupulous zeal with which he served the most exigent of masters. Their ignoble struggles for favour
* " His grace would, forasmuch as he hath now made a new conquest of Ireland, to his great cost and charge, that ye should devise an act of parhament, to be expressed within the same land, whereby his highness may have all such lands as any person, spiritual or temporal, holdeth within the same land of Ireland : or else that the said persons, so having the said land, shall become contributors and bearers with his grace, after the value of their said land ; as well for the charges his highness hath already been at about the said conquest, as if any such like chance (which God defend) may happen hereafter." On further reflection the King " was in doubt whether he were or might better take the said lands by reason of his said conquest, or else by act of parliament," and desired Crumwel to debate the matter with the Council. Fitzwilliam to Crum., Windsor, 7th July, 1536. State Pap. ii. 341. Comp. Gordon's Ireland, i. 239.
1 86 Archbishop Browne in Ireland, [ch.ix.
at home were equalled by their common suspicion of their ecclesiastical coadjutor : whilst all alike, the Archbishop not less than the rest, found it hard to keep on good terms with the new deputy, Lord Leonard Grey. Grey was a brave soldier, but a man of high and irritable temper : who hesitated not to show on every occasion his contempt for his subordi- nates, and his sympathy with the old religion. Among them all Browne fared somewhat hardly. Like Cran- mer in England, he had to bear the brunt of both parties ; and he seems to have lacked the equanimity of Cranmer. At one time, as he complained to Crum- wel, the Lord Deputy expelled him from his own house, and imprisoned him.* At another time, when he made mention of Pole, with the addition of " the popish Cardinal," the Lord Deputy retorted with the angry pun that he was "a polshorn friar" for his pains.f The chief friends of Browne were Brabazon and Allen, the Treasurer and the Master of the Rolls : but his friendship with them was grudged, and he was accused of treating the rest with an insane arrogance. Mur- murs arose even against Crumwel, for having put such a man in authority.t But the severest chastening that he received was from his royal master, to whom some informer appears to have written against him. Henry immediately threatened to disgrace him. " Before your promotion," said he, " you showed some appear- ance of zeal for the sincere word of God, the avoiding of superstition, and the furtherance of our affairs. But now our good opinion of you is utterly frustrate. You are light in behaviour, you glory in foolish ceremonies, you adopt the style of a prince ; you neither instruct the people, nor further our affairs : all virtue and
* State Pap. ii. 539. t lb. 206.
+ Staples to Saintleger. — State Pap. iii. 10.
I539-] His Difficulties. 187
honesty is almost banished from you." The Arch- bishop, in reply, trembhngly displayed his services, declared his zeal, and explained his alleged arrogance and lightness to be but the use of a customary style. In that wretched land, he cried, all were his malio^ners : but he humbly hoped that the ground might open and swallow him up, " if he said one thing before the King's face and another behind his back."* He was indeed so pressed on all sides, that he entreated Crumwel to divide his responsibility by appointing a Vicar General and a master of faculties for Ireland : or at least to put a layman of some sort over him, to help him to press others forward : desiring, it would seem, to be both under authority and in authority.! But there seems to have been little cause to complain of any want of zeal in Browne. His faults were of a kind more easily forgiven in that age : among them may be reckoned a certain capacity for bribes. He refused to confirm the election of a new Dean of St. Patrick's, unless he received a present of two hundred pounds. And this although Crumwel himself had made no more than sixty pounds out of the same transaction. J
With the open enemy the difficulties encountered by Browne were great and various. The revolution which he was sent to introduce was detested by all the Hibernicised English. The temporal lawyers especially signalised themselves by their opposition. Some of the officials imitated the contempt or indif- ference of the Lord Deputy : and Agard declared to Crumwel that except the Archbishop, Brabazon, Allen,
* State Pap. ii. 465 and 512. One of his offences was using the royal style of US and WE. But he explained that he had only done so in a paper written in the name of the two convents of St. Patrick and Christchurch.
1 lb. p. 339. X Hamilton's Cal. of State Pap. p. 39.
1 88 Archbishop Browne in Ireland, [ch. ix.
and Lord Butler, there were none in Dublin, from the highest to the lowest who would abide " hearing of the word of God, and due obedience to their prince." Of Crumwel himself disrespectful words were heard : and he was called " the blacksmith's son." Browne com- plained continually. " Neither by gentle exhortation, evangelical instruction, neither by oaths of them solemnly taken, nor yet by threats of sharp correc- tion, can I persuade any of the clergy, religious or secular, to preach the Word of God or the just title of my illustrious prince." The Friars Observants, as in England, were the most obstinate of all. " I can make them neither swear nor preach," said he. Un- less he sent his own servants to do it, he could not get the name of the Bishop of Rome erased from the Mass books.* No sooner was the destruction of monasteries begun, than a Greyfriar, Doctor Salt by name, preached against it in Waterford, saying that, " No man had authority to break or pull down churches, and make them profane places, as some did in those days: or else St, Paul was a liar."t Under the eyes of the King's commissioners in Dublin, a pardon arrived from Rome for those who chose to fast and receive the sacrament on a certain Sunday : this was hung up in some of the churches, and many availed themselves of it.| At Kilmainham Abbey, which seems to have been the chief centre of resistance, the stations and pardons continued to be used as solemnly as ever : and Browne could not prevent it, for Kilmainham was an exempt place.^ The bitterest opponents of the Arch- bishop, however, were one of his own chapter, and a neighbouring prelate. Humfreys, a prebendary of
* State Pap. ii. 539. Swear or preach Supreme Head.
+ lb. ii. 562. For this the friar was imprisoned in Dublin Castle.
+ /^. 539. § lb. iii. p. 8.
I539-] His Quarrel with Staples. 189
St. Patrick's, and incumbent of St. Owen's in Dublin, thought scorn to read a new order of bidding prayers which Browne had put forth : and when a more loyal priest went into the pulpit and began to read it, Hum- freys set the choir to sing him down. Browne put Humfreys in prison for this. Staples, the Bishop of Meath, a more formidable antagfonist, seems to have been moved more by personal hostility than by zeal for the old religion : but his own loyalty made him the more able to take the part of his inferior against his superior. Preaching in Humfreys's church of St. Owen's, he bade the people beware of seditious and false preachers who moved questions of Scripture : for that all misery came of moving questions : and they who moved questions of Scripture preached now this way and now that. Soon after, in a sermon at Christchurch, he inveio^hed ao;ainst Browne in the presence of the royal commissioners and the Council ; and aorain in Kilmainham Church, when Browne him- self was in the congregation, he called him heretic and beggar ; and raged against him " with such a stomach, that the three-mouthed Cerberus of hell could not have uttered it more viperously." Browne appears to have attempted some legal retaliation without success. Staples was stout ; and the dispute subsided without any decisive termination. To the prelates engaged the conflict appeared more tremendous than to the laymen who watched it : one of whom, Brabazon, reported to Crumwel that they had both set forward the Word of God in preaching, but that afterwards " the one had taunted the other with a little collation."* When these broils were at an end, the activity of Browne in the Kind's service could not have been questioned by the King himself. As soon as Parliament
* State Pap. iii. 5, 6, 65.
190 Browns s Activity in Ireland, [ch. ix.
was over, he put forth, in 1538, a Form of bidding Bedes, which had the distinction of being the first ecclesiastical document which declared the union of the two churches of England and Ireland, under the same Supreme Head.* In the Christmas vacation of the same year, he, in company with Brabazon, Allen, and Aylmer, made a journey into various parts, to publish the King's Injunctions, the King's Articles of the Faith, and the King's translation of the Paternoster and the Ave in English : and to collect the firstfruits and the twentieth. They went to Carlagh, to Kilkenny, to Ross, to Wexford, to Waterford, to Clonmel : and in every place the Archbishop preached a sermon, ad- vancing the King and diminishing the Pope. Every- where the bishops and clergy were summoned to attend : and at the last place, Clonmel, two archbishops and eight bishops, after the sermon, took the oaths of Suc- cession and Supreme Head in the open audience of the people. t He also proposed to travel the country as far as any English was understood : and where English was not understood, he had provided himself with a suffragan in the unfortunate Doctor Nangles, aforetime his brother of Ireland in the office of Pro- vincial of the Austin Friars, who had been nominated by the King to the see of Clonfert.J
Before the Parliament of Dublin had finished sitting, the sight familiar to England was seen there, of royal commissioners armed with extraordinary powers for the King's advantage. Before the end of 1537 these
* " Ye shall pray for the Universal Catholic Church, both quick and dead ; and especially for the Church of England and Ireland. First, for our Sovereign Lord the King, Supreme Head, immediately under God, of the said Church of England and Ireland ; and for the declaration of the truth thereof, ye shall understand that the unlawful jurisdiction, power, and authority, of long time usurped by the Bishop of Rome in Ireland and England," &c. — State Pap. ii. 504 ; Collier^ Rec. No. xl.
t lb. p. 16. X State Pap. iii. 122.
1539-] Ireland visited by Commissioners. 191
functionaries had perused Kildare, Carlow, Kilkenny, Tipperary, Waterford, and Wexford. They held in- quests concerning the state of the towns and counties which they visited ; and most of the presentments made by the juries still remain. Of their investiga- tions the result was, in brief, that everywhere the freeholders, lay and spiritual alike, were found burden- ing the tenantry with heavy and unlimited services : that in the towns the King's law was usually found to prevail, but out of the towns Irish law; amid the varieties of which the lord of the soil still contrived his own advantage ; that undue fees were exacted by the bishops and their officials for probate, matrimony, and other causes : and that various priests took extor- tionate sums for baptisms, weddings, burials, and other offices. Some parsons, abbots, and priors were prose- cuted for not singing mass : and the jury of Clonmel charged several regular priests with keeping lemen, and haviuQf wives and children,* The commissioners afterwards visited the counties of Meath, Dublin, Louth, and Uriel : at the end of this survey they had collected two thousand marks from fines ; a sum which seems less than their toils, but which may have been large for the exhausted north so soon after the ravages of Kildare.t These commissioners appear to have proceeded freely in the suppression of religious houses, and with less formality than was used in England. The melancholy minutes of the times afford examples of houses dissipated on the recommendation of members of the Council, of requests from ecclesiastics and laymen for grants and exchanges : and in particular a proposal from the Earl of Desmond to have all the houses in Munster suppressed, that he might take them to farm by his friends and servants, and so yield a great revenue * State Pap. ii. 510, note. t lb. 534.
192 The Pope and Ireland. [ch. ix.
to the King.* By the middle of the year 1539 it was understood to be the King's will that the suppression should be universal.! But if there was less formality observed than in England, it is probable that the King's gains were thereby the less ample. The alarm was given : the Irish monastics exercised a Celtic rapidity and expertness in concealing their goods. In antici- pation of the coming storm, they left their lands waste, they cut down their woods, and disappeared with all that they could take away. By one piece of neglect or ill fortune alone, Browne calculated that the King had lost five thousand marks.
The disturbance of the revolution inclined some of the northern chieftains to listen to the voice of the Pope. From the first the Holy See presented a bolder front of opposition to the Reformation in Ireland than it had ever ventured to display in England ; encouraged by the less decisive sway of the King, the weakness of the English colony, and the partial independence of the septs. This was seen most notably in the important matter of the appointment of bishops. From the time that Henry declared himself Supreme Head of the Hibernian Church, upon every vacancy of a see, when the King nominated one person, the Pope as regularly provided another.^ There thus ensued a struggle for possession, in which it sometimes happened that by the
* State Pap. iii. 136.
t The Irish Council wrote to Crumvvel, 21st May, 1539, that it was openly bruited that the King desired all monasteries in Ireland to be suppressed. They recommended six to be altered and spared, viz. St. Mary's, near Dublin ; Christchurch ; the Nunnery of Grace Dieu in the County of Dublin ; Connall in County Kildare ; Kenleys and Gerepont in Kilkenny ; because the Englishry children were brought up in them in virtue, learning, and the English tongue. Ih. 130.
X The Pope provided for every vacancy after 1536, the Archbishopric of Tuam among the rest. Alle?t to Critmivel, July, 1539; State Pap. iii. 137.
I539-] Confederacy tinder ONeal. 193
power of some toparch the King's bishop was extruded from the see, or harassed within it.* At the same time the clergy, headed by the Primate, Cromer of Armagh, not content with a vigorous padiamentary opposition, opened negotiations with Rome through envoys whom they despatched. They received from the Holy Father in return a private commission to absolve from their oath those who had sw-orn to the Supreme Head, to order them to confess their guilt within forty days, and to enter into new engagements with the Holy See.t But the activity of Grey in the field had more weight in deciding the conduct of the chieftains, than the promises or menaces of Rome. The Lord Deputy atoned for his favour towards the old religion by breaking the force of the King's Irish enemies. In successive expeditions he subdued the independence of the nearer septs, compelled the heads of them to renounce their pernicious privileges, and to sign in- dentures of peace and submission. The Lord Deputy was, in fact, the exact opposite in opinion of those whom he met in fight. He was sincerely attached to the old religion, but loyal to the King : they were independent or defiant of the King, but though they cared nothing about the old religion, they took it up as a pretext and a cry. At length an extensive con- federation was formed under the leadership of the powerful O'Neal, who proclaimed himself the cham- pion of the Pope. The northern chieftains led their
* The troubles of Richard Nangles, a promoted friar whom the King appointed to Clonfert, were very distressful. The Pope provided another person, who was supported by the toparch : and Nangles feared to go abroad lest he should be assaulted. After some years of misery he was moreover finally displaced : for the Pope's candidate, by making sub- mission and swearing fealty to the King, along with his protector the toparch, obtained the royal assent to hold the bishopric. State Pap. ii. 516.
t Leland, ii. 170, sq. VOL. II. O
194 Battle of Bellahoe. [ch. ix.
forces through Meath : and after committing many outrages, marched back again. The Lord Deputy- gathered a small army ; sought and encountered the superior but worse armed foe : and diffused among the septs, by the decisive victory of Bellahoe, although the precipitancy and persistency of flight prevented a very bloody field, a wide and lasting feeling of dismay. Whether this incursion of O'Neal, and the signal chas- tisement which it received, deserve to be dignified by the name of the first religious war of Ireland, I shall not pretend to determine : but if it were not the first, assuredly it was not the second.
CHAPTER X.
Henry VIII. a.d. 1540 — 1541.
The annual cloud which rose and sunk beyond the sea, with the distant menace of obscuration against the shining fortunes of Henry the Eighth, appeared once more, when, on the first day of the next year, the Emperor, traversing with the confidence of amity, the dominions of his rival, entered the capital as the guest of the Most Christian King. But irreconcileable interests cannot be united by the intercourse of princes : the Emperor had greater cause to fear lest the fourth matrimonial adventure of the King of England, his marriao-e with the daughter of the Lutheran Duke of Cleves, which befel at the same moment, should be followed by an alliance between England and the Protestants, than to hope that, if such an alliance were formed, it might be compensated by a closer conjunc- tion between himself and France. In truth there was neither hope, fear, nor prospect of either the one event or the other, though vague apprehension was felt on all sides. The marriage ended in separation : the visit came to an end and left all things as they had been. But Paris witnessed, not without delight, a rancorous and almost personal altercation between Charles and Henry, in which the advantage lay not with the Eng- lish sovereign, although the provocation came from him.
o 2
196 The Emperor in Paris. [ch. x.
Desirous of avenging himself on the Emperor for the extraordinary countenance which he was showing at this time to the detested Pole, the King ventured, by his ambassadors, upon acts and language which were not safe with an equal. Pole himself was out of reach in Spain : but in the train of the Emperor there was another of Henry's traitors, who had been of late in attendance upon the Cardinal. Henry ordered the arrest of this man : the English ambassador, Wyatt, procured a warrant from the French authorities, without informing them that it was against one of the Emperor's train : and Robert Brancetor was arrested at his lodg- ings. But the French, discovering the quality of the prisoner, refused to transfer him to the English embassy to be carried into England : and referred the matter to the Emperor himself. Wyatt sought the presence of the Cassar, and demanded that, in accordance with the existing treaties, a certain traitor should be delivered over to him. The Emperor asked who it might be, and on hearing the name, " What, Robert ! " exclaimed he ; " the man who has followed me ten or twelve years, and is now with me here, trusting in my word ? In Persia he has done me great service : he has fol- lowed me in Africa, in Provence, in Italy. All this time he has never been in England : nor has he done offence, except that he went with Cardinal Pole as in- terpreter to Spain." — " In Spain," answered Wyatt, " he solicited the King's subjects to depart from their duty." — " It is evil cone," returned Charles, "for you to make one of my train be taken here without first advertising me. Would you have me consent to the destruction of a man that has followed me upon my word ? I tell you plainly that if your master had me in the Tower of London, I would not so charge my con- science and mine honour. As to the treaties, I will
I540.] Quarrel with the Emperor. 197
answer you when I am on my own territory. It is evil done." Wyatt, skilled in the doctrine of the divided responsibility, said that it was not done by him, but by the French provost. " I shall do my best," answered Charles, " to set him at liberty again." The English ambassador then turned to another point in dispute, the severities which had been exercised of late upon some English merchants by the Inquisition in Spain. He urged that the King of England was at one with the Emperor in faith, that he kept laudable ceremonies, punished Anabaptists, and only differed concerning the Bishop of Rome. " The King is of one opinion and I am of another," retorted Charles ; '' the primacy of the Bishop of Rome toucheth our faith. It is de jure di'vino, and by canon and civil law." — " The popes themselves will scarce say that it is de jure divinol' said Wyatt. " Are we to dispute of the Tibi dabo clavesf cried the Emperor. "If English mer- chants bring novelties into Spain, I will not alter nor let my Inquisition ; I will write, however, to ascertain what has been done in this case." Wyatt then brought forward another complaint : that preachers were set up and allowed in the Emperor's dominions to defame the English King and nation. " Kings be not kings of tongues," exclaimed Charles disdainfully, not per- haps without an allusion to Henry's laws of verbal treason ; " if men give cause to be spoken of, they will be spoken of : there is no remedy." Brancetor was set at liberty, and went home to his lodging, without advice or notice being given to the English.*
Henry, for the matter could not end there, com- manded his ambassador to seek the Emperor again with a stronof remonstrance, couched, it would seem, in that noble exuberance of phrases which in England
* Wyatt to Henry, State Pap. viii. 219.
198 Quarrel with the Emperor. [ch. x.
had beaten back myriads of half-drawn swords. But the second interview was even less pleasant than the first. In opening his instructions, Wyatt found and used the word ingrate. " It is too much," interrupted Charles, " to use that term to me. There can be no ingratitude only from an inferior to a superior. The term is scant sufferable. But peradventure you mis- take it, because it is not in your natural tongue, but comes from Latin or French." The English envoy pleaded that he was but using the word that he was commanded to use. " Then I tell it you," said the Emperor, " to the end that your master may know it, and ye how to utter his commandments." Wyatt ex- plained that in Latin the word had no respect to the rank of persons, and was not used offensively, nor meant to charge his majesty in evil part. " Nay," was the answer, " I am not so charged, I warrant you : nor will be." Wyatt replied that it was thus that the King his master took the affair of Brancetor. " Kings opinions be not always the best," said Charles. '' My master," retorted Wyatt, with spirit, " is a prince to give reason to God and the world sufficient for his opinions." — " It may be," said Charles. After this there was a quarrel at every step : the matters of Brancetor and the merchants remained as they were : and when Wyatt offered, as a sort of pacification, the good offices of Henry as a mediator between his new father-in-law, the Duke of Cleves, and the Emperor, in that quarrel which ended afterwards so disastrously for the smaller potentate, the reply of Charles was that he could manage his own business without assistance.*
Enra2:ed at these rebuffs, the Encrlish monarch next despatched the Duke of Norfolk to Paris on a special mission, with particular instructions for dissolving the
* Wyatt to Henry, State Pap. viii. 240.
I540.] Quarrel with the Emperor. 199
intimacy of Charles and Francis. He was ordered to remind the French king of the old griefs between him and the Emperor, and of the doubtful and humiliating settlement of the Italian dispute : the capture and liberation of Brancetor were to be rehearsed by him, and the Emperor's repudiation of the term ingratitude, "which," said Henry, "was so haughty, and to us in- tolerable well to bear, that we thought we could no less do, trusting so much to our good brother's amity and love, than to break the same unto him." But there was more passion than skill in the breaking of the matter to King Francis. " Tell him," exclaimed Henry, " that the Emperor means to bring Christendom to a monarchy, and to have no peer: whereas the King of England feels himself to be imperial, and his ancestors to have been imperial in times past. Add, that if he will consent to join me in a strict alliance, I will forgive him half of his debt to me." If France, England, and the Protestants closed around the Emperor, then, added the irate King, " it would be easy enough to talk with him." * But the bait was too coarse to be swal- lowed : in a dispute of emperors the Parisian monarch might have sunk below the equality which he de- manded from the Kings of England and of Germany : the calamitous, though glorious, history both of a remote past and of his own former years was recalled by these stipulations. The envoy was well enter- tained ; but the reply of Francis to Henry was, that he could not break w4th the Emperor without reason.f
* Instructions to Norfolk, State Pap. viii. 245.
t State Pap. viii. 254 — 330. The Brancetor business appears to have been dropped, perhaps altogether. The tail of the ingratitude story was equally poor. Norfolk brought it before the French king, who listened politely, and requested that it should be put in writing for his considera- tion, but Norfolk feared to put it in writing, lest it should be posted to the
200 The Suppression : Londoiis Career, [ch. x.
The monastic suppression was now nearly accom- plished : and the champions of virtue and loyalty began to withdraw themselves from the victorious contest which they had waged with innocence and wealth, with poverty and guilt : but several of the most memorable captures were reserved to decorate the end. Upon the second day of the year, Doctor London effected the surrender of the magnificent Benedictine abbey of Gloucester, of the annual return of near two thousand pounds : and a few days afterwards he concluded a visitatorial career, which may be pronounced, though with some hesitation, to have been matchless for the time that it lasted, by the dissolution of Tewkesbury, an abbey of the like importance, of the same order, and of equal riches. The staunch and tireless Layton might have been seen perhaps below himself in the destruction of St. Bartholomew's in Newcastle, a poor Benedictine nunnery, where ten sisters shared an income of thirty-six pounds : and of the Prsemonstra- tensian Egleston in Yorkshire, which was worth no more. But soon, rising to his own stature, he smote the abbey of Carlisle, of the Black or Austin canons, governed by Lancelot Salkeld the Prior, defamed in the Comperta, and valued at five hundred pounds
Emperor. He had a subsequent interview with the French chancellor, who was all for peace, and seemed to see very little in the matter. " Great princes sometimes spoke words suddenly, whereof they were afterwards sorry," and the King of England should not have been told of them. Norfolk " aggravated the words as much as he could, yet he perceived that he was not bent to make much of them." Crumwel then wrote to the other ambassador, Wallop, to see the king himself, and say that the King of England desired his advice about the words, for that "they sounded so evil " that they could not be left unanswered (p. 279). Nothing more seems known of the matter. Mr Froude, who has partly related these incidents, seems to think that Henry had the best of the verbal dispute, though his policy failed (iv. 452). It is difficult to see this, Henry had a fervent admirer in the Queen of Navarre, and her conversations with Norfolk are worth reading.
I540.] Lay tons Career and End. 201
a year. The Praemonstratensian or White canons of Shap in Westmoreland were twenty in number : their income was not more than one hundred and sixty pounds. This may seem, at the first view, the inadequate termination of so distinguished a career : but on the other hand it may be argued, not without force, that by this final stroke Layton deprived a whole county of the only religious institution that it possessed above the revenue of twelve pounds or the rank of an hospital. In the remote and necessitous Westmoreland there was not an abbey or a priory besides : nor above six religious foundations in all. The greatest of the Visitors, for so he must be considered in respect both of the length and efficiency of his services, retired to the well earned promotion of the Deanery of York : where, if virtue be best rewarded by the prospect of her deeds, he reposed in view of the ruins of St. Mary's and St. Leonard's. In his dignified retreat he was not wholly unmindful of his former skill. He destroyed in his own minster the silver shrine which former piety had raised to the memory of St. William : and in the course of the summer the surrender of the college of Southwell was conducted by him. But neither the repose nor the life of Layton lasted long. Within three years he was appointed to the arduous post of ambassador at the court of Flanders : and there he died in the following year, protesting to the last his zeal for the service of the King.* Doctor Legh, the great competitor of Layton,
* Layton was at first appointed to succeed Paget in Paris : but the war with France in 1543 rendering this unnecessary, he was transferred to Flanders, where he died of dropsy in the summer of 1544. "The man, God help him," wrote Paget to the King, " is so weak and so low, that he is not able to stir, and yet ceaseth not to serve you, as he is able. His illness is the worst kind of dropsy. The man hath a great heart to serve you ; and is wonderful loth to die, and yet death appeareth in his face." 22 May, 1544. State Pap. ix. 681.
202 The Career of LegJi finished. [ch. x.
sank from the scene amid the splendour of some mighty dissolutions. He dissolved the Benedictines of Chester, both monks and nuns : of whom the former, who were above one thousand pounds a year, com- pensated the poverty of the latter, who were below one hundred. He dissolved the Benedictines of Shrews- bury, and the Cluniacs of Wenlock ; both of them among the foundations of the great Roger de Mont- gomery, and worth five hundred pounds apiece. In due course he was raised, like several others of the monastic Visitors, to the honour of knighthood, and received the substantial reward of three monastic sites.*
The superb and venerable foundations of West- minster, Waltham, and Canterbury, by a simultaneous fall, kindled into a last flash of splendour the expiring sacrifice of the abbeys. Westminster, the great founda- tion of the East Saxons, second perhaps in antiquity to Canterbury alone, refounded on the Benedictine model by Edward the Confessor, yielded to the touch of dissolution a brotherhood of twenty-eight religious, and a revenue of near four thousand pounds. Waltham, the rival secular foundation of the heroic Harold, which had been changed by the last of the purely Norman kings into a convent of Austin
* He seems, from one of Cranmer's letters, to have acted as Commis- sary of Canterbury for some time after the suppression. The grants which he got were Calder in Cumberland, Nostell in Yorkshire, and the small cell of Tockwith, in the same county. He got another in Bedford- shire, Caldwell, in Elizabeth's time.
Uvedale was less eminent among Visitors, but it may as well be re- corded of him that in the next reign he was paymaster or treasurer for the garrisons in the north. As great sums of money were entrusted to him, and came from him rather slowly, while the soldiers were starving, the Lord Lieutenant, William Grey, sent him a letter with a pair of gallows drawn on the outside of it. He took this very ill, and according to his own account was shamefully treated. Calendar, Domestic, Adderida of Edw. VI. p. 383.
I540.] Close of the Monastic Suppression. 203
regulars, an order which rivalled the Benedictines in extent and wealth, consisted of eighteen persons, and was valued at one-fourth of the same large sum. The mother monastery of England, Christchurch in Canter- bury, though marked to have fallen among the first, had struck the awe of caution into the breast of the spoiler : and it was by careful degrees that the dissolu- tion of so renowned a place was managed. It had been visited aeain and acjain : it had been defamed with peculiar diligence : it had been even formally sur- rendered several times before the final commission was given to Cranmer to take the surrender.* With it fell the subsidiary Rochester, the second foundation of the Kentish Ethelbert, of the annual return of five hundred pounds : and Canterbury College in Oxford was dissolved at the same time. To these oreat catastrophes are to be added Thetford in Norfolk, a Cluniac priory of fourteen persons and three or four hundred pounds ; which came by exchange to the Duke of Norfolk, who had the intention of refounding it for secular priests : and Walton, the last Gilbertine priory, in Yorkshire, about the same value, which we have already seen visited by Uvedale.f
* Mr. Cayley, in his Dugdale, i. 87, observes that the surrender of Christchurch was gradually prepared, and that Cranmer's action of eating flesh in Lent was meant to further it. There were three visitations and apparently three surrenders, one in 1538, July ii, Rym. xiv. 606 ; another in 1539, Feb. 4, Rym. 616 ; and a third in 1540, "^ov. 20, Btirnet, cf. Cran- mer's Lett. p. 396. The same solicitude attended the dissolution of St. Augustine's in the same city, which was apparently surrendered twice, on July I, 1538, Rym. 607 ; and on December 4, 1539, Rym. 592. t The Monastic Suppression in 1540.
London. 2nd Jan. St. Peter's, Gloucester, Bened. Burnet, Wright, 237. 9th — Tewkesbury, Bened. Bitrnet, Wright, 237.
Layton. 3rd Jan. St. Bartholemew, Newcastle, Ben. nun. Rym. xiv. 663. 5th — Egleston, Yorks., Praemons. /<^. 671. [9th
204 Magnitude of the Revolutmt. [ch. x.
I may now claim to have laid before the student of history, for the first time, as I believe, a connected and particular account of the suppression of the English monasteries In such an account there must be many things defective ; and I have written with the feeling that there is much still unpublished and unconsulted concerning them which might have confirmed, ampli- fied, or corrected my narrative. It is an uninviting field, which has been left by historians to the vigorous gambols of the theorist. The magnitude of the revolution by which the nation changed landlords, and by which the liberty of private ownership was substituted for the prescribed duties of corporate possession, can scarcely be estimated even now. The rapidity with which it was effected has been considered to counterbalance the misery which attended it : but the rapidity might with more truth be affirmed to have caused the misery. Revolution always impleads a defaulter in the court of history. That which has been destroyed is not there to speak for itself. But because the sun arises the next day and the world
The Monastic Suppression in 1540 -(Continued) —
9th Jan, Carlisle, Aust. lb. 668.
14th — Shap, Westm., Prcemons. lb. 663.
1 5th Aug. Southwell Coll., Notts. lb. 674.
Legh.
20th Jan. St. Werbergh, Chester, Bened. Ryin. 669. 2 1 St — St. Mary, Chester, Bened. nun. lb. 662. 24th — Shrewsbury, Bened. lb. 659. 26th — Wenlock, Salop, Clun. lb. 659.
Others.
16th Jan. Westminster, Bened. Burnet.
16th Feb. Thetford, Norf., Clun. Rym. 666.
20th Mar. Ch, Ch. Cant, Burnet.
20th — Rochester. lb.
23rd — Waltham, Essex, Aust. lb.
2£th — Walton, York., Gilb, lb. (See above, p, 153,)
I540.] // caused Great Distress 205
goes on again somehow, revolution points triumphantly to heaven, declares that there is no loss, and that all the good that is done upon earth is done by herself. From her airy vindication it is well to turn to the certainty of things. It is certain that this revolution in property caused a great deal of what is known b)- the euphemistic name of temporary distress. Through the diversion of trade, towns and cities fell into decay. Whole tracts of country were impoverished and un- peopled ; and the poor and homeless thronged the roads. It was necessary to make a collection for the poor for several years.* The condition of the poor became a pressing question from the time of the fall of the monasteries. The old monastics had been the best of landlords, or at least the easiest. They were always in residence : they encouraged production by taking their rent and tithes in kind. Their successors, the new monastics, racked the rents, and often doubled the income of the estates, which they had received for nothing or next to nothing from a generous monarch. Many of the lesser monasteries required only the change of masters to entitle them to have taken high rank among the greater.
The face of the kingdom was changed by this memorable event ; foreio^n nations stood at g-aze to behold the course of England. The land was strewn with hundreds of ruins. Stately buildings, churches, halls, chambers, and cloisters — a whole architecture, into which the oenius of aees and of races had been breathed, — were laid in dust and rubbish. Vast libraries, the priceless records of antiquity, the
* Anno 29, i.e., 1538 : "And in this year began the collection for the poor; and a great number cured of many grievous diseases through the charity thereof." Anno 32, i.e., 1541 : "And in this year the collection for the poor people ceased." Fabian.
2o6 Manner in which the [ch. x.
illuminated treasures of the middle ages, were ravished with a waste so sordid as to have wrung a cry of ano-uish even from the rabid ribald Bale.* A cele- brated Italian, it is true, had pronounced, a century before, an unfavourable opinion of the English con- ventual libraries : but we know not exactly how far his researches were carried : and Poggio would seek only for the manuscripts of the classics.! We cannot tell what we have lost.
In the foregoing narrative we have grasped the skirts of some distinguished visitor, and been carried hither and thither. The name of the chief visitor generally appears alone indeed in the deeds of sur- render : but it must not be supposed therefore that he went alone. Layton, Legh, or London were often accompanied by their brethren of the trade ; they acted in commission with the local magnates ; they were attended by bands of workmen or by routs of
* Bale's just lamentation is well known through Fuller [Abbeys, 335). The successors of the monks, he says, " reserved of those library books, some to serve their jakes, some to scour their candlesticks, and some to rub their boots. Some they sold to the grocers and soap-sellers, and some they sent over sea to the book-binders, not in small numbers, but at times whole ships full. Yea, the Universities are not all clear in this detestable fact. But cursed is that belly which seeketh to be fed with so ungodly gains, and so deeply shameth his natural country. I know a merchantman (which shall at this time be nameless) that bought the contents of two noble libraries for forty shillings a-piece, a shame it is to be spoken. This stuff hath he occupied, instead of grey paper, by the space of more than these ten years, and yet he hath store enough for as many years to come." Declaration upon LelaJtcVs Journal, 1549.
t " I visited many convents : they were all full of books of modern doctors, whom we should not think worthy so much as to be heard. They have few works of the ancients, and those are much better with us. Nearly all the convents of this island have been founded within four hundred years, but that was not a period in which either learned men, or such books as we seek, could be expected, for they had been lost before." Poggio in 1440 : Epist. p. 43. He complains much of the false informa- tion which had induced him to stay so long in so barbarous a region ; p. 50, Ed. Flor, 1 83 1. He stayed mostly in London.
[540.] Suppression was Conducted.
207
the idlers about the neighbourhood. It was sometimes the pastime of the dissolute gentry to assist in the reduction of nunneries. The mode of proceeding among the visitors seems to have been the same everywhere. They hastened the departure of the convent by unroofing or dismantling the house : they squandered, sold, embezzled, or confiscated everything on which they could lay their hands. Nevertheless the revolution, being conducted by license and signet, by the authority of the King and with the smile of Parliament, had some of the advantages of order over mere mobbish violence. The monks who yielded quietly received pensions which were not illiberal : and there is no reason to think that faith was not kept with them in the payment.* The ledgers of the Augmentation Office disclose that these necessary deductions from the glorious booty arose in seven years from a sum of two thousand to a sum of four thousand pounds : which was hard, considering that the whole amount of money that passed annually through the office showed no increase in the same period, by reason of the vigorous participation of the new monastics.!
* At least during the reign of Henry the pensions seem to have been paid without difficulty. But in the confusions which immediately followed his death, they were detained in many instances, and the wrong had to be met by a royal proclamation in the first year of Edward VI. Fuller^ 387. See also the end of this volume.
t The table and extracts from the Ledgers of the Augmentation Office, which were published by Mr. Cole {Henry s Scheme of Bishoprics, &^c.) show the variations for seven years. The first row is the pensions of monks and nuns ; the second, the total payments made by the office.
|
1540. |
1541- |
1542. |
1543- |
1544 |
1545- |
1546. |
|
2,536 141,888 |
3,438 74,709 |
No Ledger. |
152,250 |
£ 3,706 225,401 |
£ 3,08 1 163,378 |
4,463 143,826 |
The other items were " Payment of Annuities granted out of divers late
2o8 Manner of the Suppression. [ch. x.
But cases of hardship are know nevertheless to have occurred, especially among the religious women, who were flung destitute upon the world. As for the friars, they seldom got pensions. Being beggars already, they were tumbled out to ply their trade without their coats, if they chose to run the hazard of the whipping- post. They may perhaps have thought it hard to leave at least the shelter of their homes for the benefit of persons richer than themselves. The distinction between monastic property and church property was strictly maintained. While the monastic colleges in the Universities were destroyed or converted, the colleges which had been founded by the benefactors of the Church of Eng^land remained untouched beside them : and here and there throughout the country there still remains some splendid monastic church, a Lanercost, a Cartmel, a Tewkesbury, a St. Albans, which has been preserved because the parish in which it stands succeeded in establishing a claim to worship in it. The end of all was, the enrichment of the rich, the enlargement of the gentry, the founding of new families, the creation of a new nobility. But It may perhaps be questioned whether this had been the purpose of the King.
To follow the devolution of the monastic property
Monasteries," chiefly to courtiers ; " Annuities by the King's Majesty," chiefly to courtiers ; " Payment of fees of Officers," which decreased from ^2,000 to ^1,000 in the period ; " Payments of Warrants by the Council," to expenses connected with the dissolution, as carriage of lead, way-bills of visitors ; " Payments by decrees," the same ; " Payments by the King's Warrants." This last item was infinitely the largest, consisting in the first year of ;^i4i,888, and so on. It consisted of all sorts of things: fees of privy councillors and of lawyers ; pay of plumbers, bird-cage makers, barbers, and ambassadors ; pay of soldiers and labourers, and, among them, of some Spaniards and some " Strangers that served in the North parts;" large sums for the Royal household; some hundreds of pounds for " The exhibition of the King's Scholars in Oxford and Cambridge."
I540-] Destination of Monastic Propei'ty. 209
would demand the devotion of a life : nor would the fruit repay the toil. When the corporations were dissolved and their common seals destroyed, the scattering of their possessions followed : their lands, manors, hereditaments, appropriations, tenements, passed in every conceivable manner to indistinguish- able beneficiaries.* It would be easier to trace the history of the monastic sites and houses themselves ; but the task would be irksome : and the reader may be not unwilling to accept some illustrative examples and general observations in the place of a catalogue of grants and benefactions.
The King held to the spoil as long as he could. He parted with it copiously, and pretty regularly, it is true : but this was only through the constant neces- sity of gratifying his courtiers, and keeping them in good humour. The reader may have observed that I have noted the monasteries which were granted to any person immediately on the surrender : and that these were few in comparison of the whole number that surrendered. They mostly belonged to the class of the greater monasteries. Of the little monasteries also, which had been given to him by Parliament three years before, a considerable number remained in his hands, and were given away only in his last years. Even after his death there was a great deal left. During the last eight years of his life he gave away about four hundred and twenty monasteries or
* A great mass of particulars relating to the possessions of the religious houses is to be found in the Ministers' Accounts, or accounts given in by the bailiffs appointed by the King to return annual computations of the possessions of the dissolved houses. These go down to Charles II.; so that the changes of ownership, &c., might be traced by them. They have been partly worked by Dugdale, but only in a summary manner. No other writer has much used them. For much information on these subjects I am indebted to W. D. Selby, Esq., of the Record Office. VOL. II. p
2IO The Various Beneficiaries [ch. x.
sites of monasteries.* Of these about one hundred and eighty were httle, though the Httle ones had fallen in one mass into his hands some years before the great ones. If with them be computed about sixty friaries, which fell with the rest, though friaries were not named in the Act for destroying little houses, it will be seen that in the total sum of his direct grants made during his last years there were more little houses than great ones. From this it must not be concluded that his grants were of two classes of un- equal value : for of a large monastery the site only was usually given : the gift of a little monastery often included the domains, or some of them. But to both these rules there were many exceptions. The mean yearly sum of his benefits lay between fifty and sixty : but the fluxion was not quite regular. In his most generous year, 1543, he gave away one hundred and ten houses and sites : but in his last year only twenty.f His bounty was not bestowed, it must be confessed, according to public virtue or service : the palace got much of it : every cook who could please his palate with a dish, every ruffler who spread a finer cloak before his eyes might look to have. His gaming debts are said to have made away with a great deal : and, besides the creatures of the palace, there were land-
* By site is to be understood not only the ground, but the ruin that was left when all the wood, portable stone, lead, brass, glass, and every- thing else that would fetch a penny had been sold for the King. This seems to have been always done immediately. What sort of a process it was may be seen from the Accounts of Scudamore, one of the King's Collectors. Take one instance. At Bordesley Abbey, in Worcestershire, there were sold to one party " the iron and glass in the windows of the north side of the cloister": to another, "a little table and the paving stone there " : to a third person, " a little bell." The bishop sent his servant to buy the pavement of the east side of the cloister: another person bought the glass of the east side of the cloister : another a stone buttress at the east end of the church, &c. — Wriglit, 366.
t But then he was giving away chantries at that time.
I540.] of the Monastic Property. 2 1 1
jobbers and bloodsuckers of every kind, who made their names, claims, and inducements known to him. He created a new kind of pluralists ; of whom some were absolutely saturated with the prodigality of his bounty : others received not more donations than two, the smallest number of wings with which a pluralist can fly. But as great favour was shown to others who were not allowed to become pluralists : and in a single gift some received more than some who had more gifts than one. In the army of beneficiaries, again, there were those who got less even than a single gift, who had to divide a single gift with others : there were partners in houses, partners in sites. But, once more, some of these, who might be deemed the least fortunate, were partners in more than one house or site : and the same pair may be observed sometimes joining hands over the altars of several priories, or issuing content from the gates of several friaries. The appetite for spoil was not confined to any party : the Old Learning shared it with the New : and a Norfolk or a Wriothesley was as eager and capacious as a Seymour or a Rich.
Of the great pluralists the earliest perhaps was Charles Brandon, the Duke of Suffolk : upon whom a deluge of benefactions began to descend before the suppression was fully ended. The lot of his in- heritance comprehended about thirty sites and houses, great and little, most of them in Lincolnshire. The Duke of Norfolk about the same time accumulated about half that number : and the Earl of Rutland about ten. The extraordinary prosperity of the Seymours and of the Dudleys began a year or two later, and reached the height in the following reign : but in this reign Edward Seymour acquired about ten places, his brother Thomas two or three, and John Dudley
P 2
212 The Various Beneficiaries [ch. x.
three or four. Sir Richard Crumwel amassed six : and among the other well known names of the court, for the hst might be easily lengthened, may be com- memorated the acute Sir Ralph Sadler, and Sir Thomas Wyatt, the poet, each of whom received at least four grants from Henry. The labours of the more eminent of the monastic visitors were rewarded, not inaptly, by sites and ruins. Thus Tregonwell got Middleton, in Dorsetshire : the three Heneages had nine places among them. John Williams, who was knighted, got Elsing Hospital in London, and parcels of other places : Richard Pollard got Ford, in Devon- shire : the two Southwells, Richard and Robert, divided between them the honour of knighthood and four sites, the most considerable of which was Bermondsey. The nunnery of Maryke, in Yorkshire, fell to Uvedale. By the force of nature it happened that in various counties one or two men, hitherto unknown, displayed a power of acquisition beyond their fellows. The north was ravaged by Thomas Holcroft, a very active man, who rose to knighthood, and acquired six places in Lancashire and Cheshire. In Yorkshire Thomas Culpepper got four, and one in Kent. Sir Richard Gresham obtained six or seven in Yorkshire : while in Norfolk his brother, the celebrated Sir Thomas, re- ceived two, and in Wales another. Of the monastic partnerships, there was not a more conspicuous example than Richard Andrews, who shared with Nicholas Temple eight monastic sites, with Leonard Chamber- lain four, two with John Howe, with two other partners two others, and who had another all to himself John Bellow was scarcely less fortunate, a worthy who shared with John Broxholme in the possession of nine places, with Michael Stanhope in four, and with three other men in three other places.
I540.] of the Monastic P/opei'ty. 2.1 '^
Nor must the names of Roofer and Thomas Barlow be omitted, who happened to flourish in the diocese of their namesake, the noted Bishop Barlow of St. David's, where they acquired conjunctively four priories and friaries, with all the possessions thereof
Throughout this great triumph of private owner- ship, amidst these rich gifts and profitable bargains, in which laymen were so largely concerned, two eccle- siastics only are known to have acquired something as private men. To Lee, the Bishop of Coventry, was granted the Austin priory of Stafford, less than two hundred a year: and Holgate, being Bishop of Llandaff, got one of the Yorkshire houses of his old order of the Gilbertines, and a little nunnery. The grants which were made to bishoprics and chapters were very few : not twenty in all. Thus the Chapter of Durham was presented with the two little houses of Fame Island and Lindesfarne : the Chapter of Worcester with St. Oswald's Hospital : the Chapter of Carlisle received the Priory of Wetheral : and the Chapter of Westminster seven or eight little houses, some of them old alien priories. Such gifts were a niggard provision for the new deans and chapters, or a shame- less compensation for the forced exchanges and ruinous seizures to which the older corporations were sub- jected. Some even of them were of no long con- tinuance. In November, 1541, the old Benedictine abbey of Burton-upon-Trent was made into a college of a dean and canons to the honour of Jesus Christ and his Mother Mary : and for the maintenance of the new establishment fourteen manors were allotted. It was dissolved in January, 1545 ; and all made over to Sir William Paget. Brecknock, a small Benedictine priory, was given to the see of St. David's in 1542 : in the next year it was transferred to John Ap Rice, the
214 The New Monastics. [ch. x.
well known monastic visitor, who thus got his reward. For the public benefit not much more was done. A few little houses, mostly friaries, were given to the cities or towns in which they stood : and in this respect Worcester and Warwick were somewhat more for- tunate than most other places : perhaps through the remembrance of the intercessions of Bishop Latimer.* It was observed, even from the first, that the riches acquired from the monasteries seldom remained long in the same hands. Many of the families that were founded on their ruins became extinct in a generation or two. The throne of David fell not by war or rebellion, not even in the punishment of idolatry, but through an act of sacrilege : and it has been believed that the curse of childlessness, originally pronounced by the prophet Jeremiah upon the im- pious Jehoiakim, was renewed and executed upon Henry and his courtiers. The fact of the extinction of many of the sacrilegious families, from the Tudors downwards, in the second or third generation is remarkable : but it would require a wide and careful induction to prove a divine judgment. It would be futile to detect a monstrous villain in every one who secured a parcel of the abbey lands, when they were all flung into the lottery of chance. Ordinary men have ordinary consciences : and it is the authors of revolution that history arraigns, not the casual bene- ficiaries. But the alteration wrought in society by the new occupation of the estates which had been given in perpetuity to religion was prodigious.
The new monastics were not divided, like their
* These examples and illustrations are chiefly inferred from Tanner, or gathered from the Ninth Record Report, app. ii. p. 148, which contains the " Inventory of Particulars for Grants preserved among the Records of the late Augmentation Office."
I540.] The New Monastics. 215
predecessors, into several orders : nor bound by the vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience. They had no ceremonial rules : and, being free from the burden of the canonical hours, they observed no particular times of worship, and were not known to rise in the dead of night, or at the cold dawn of day for the purposes of a stated devotion. Indeed, they disliked the practices of their predecessors in these respects, and often declaimed against hypocrisy and unfruitful works. They wore no particular garb : no tonsure severed them from the rest of the world. They were rather remarkable for fashion and variety in their apparel than for severity : and, if they wore black, white, or grey, it was not by regulation, but according to taste. They seem to have regarded themselves as free from all obligation to respect the wills of founders : and, though they were bound by Act of Parliament to maintain the ancient virtue of hospitality, it was not perceived that they were more hospitable than their neighbours : or that they differed from their neighbours in calling to their feasts that part of the community which was unlikely to have recompensed them. They kept no regular residence, but often transported themselves at the rotation of the seasons from country to town, and from town to country. They were further distinguished from those who had been before them by the new uses to which they put old things. Thus, the sacred buildings of a monastery, which indeed had usually been unroofed by the Visitors, would be turned into farm offices : a chapel or a vault would become a wine cellar : the holy furniture was often found in the kitchen : and the cloth which had covered the altar might be observed to serve as a counterpane for the bed. If they resembled their predecessors at all, it was more in
2i6 The New Monastics. [ch. x.
certain points of property than In religion. Like them, they were free of tithe: they held impropriations, which they showed no disposition to restore to the parishes on which they had been originally settled: and they followed their example in supplying the churches, of which they were become patrons, out of their own households. On the other hand, It may be said that they had not their households like a flock of sheep, or seminary of pastors : it was noticed that the ministers whom they appointed were often men of small learning and ability : nay, they were sometimes detected to be none other than the bailiffs, gamekeepers, or farm-servants of the new monastics, who took orders and accepted with o-ratitude a more slender stipend than the old vicars had received, the new monastics pocketing the differ- ence. In the case of the old monastics, the practice of providing out of their own number had been stopped by law a hundred years before : although they had been able to provide men of long training and ability. I n short, the new monastics, warned by the fate of their predecessors, appeared to avoid hypocrisy by making no profession, and failure in religion by attempting nothing.
The observant reader has seen in the preceding narrative that the numbers of the convents bore no certain proportion to their wealth. And extreme examples of small societies with large revenues have been collected by several writers In proof of the luxury of the religious : as if they generally admitted as few on their foundations as they could, because the less the number the greater the shares to be divided. It would be as easy to collect examples of numerous convents with small revenues : and it may be advanced with equal probability that the
I540.] Reflect ioiis on the Suppression. 217
deficient numbers of others came from the difficulty of finding persons wilHng to embrace, or to cause their relations to embrace, the monastic life. The monastic institute, however extensively it prevailed, was still foreign to England, and contrary to the English nature. Of all the orders which we have surveyed, there was but one of English origin. That one, in the most striking feature of its original rule, the ad- mission of both sexes into one house, was the reverse of the other orders. Some of the more severe, and, it may be added, the more disgusting, forms of asceti- cism, which were known upon the continent, found no welcome here. But the ascetic life was here : and so far forth as it violated the rights of human nature : so far forth as it was founded in the wrong interpre- tation of Christianity, it was well abolished. It was the process of abolition that was abominable : the defamation, the injustice, the cruelty, the false pretences, the cant, the amazing greed, the flaunting impudence, the awful waste. If one-half of the monasteries, if one-quarter, the sixth, the tenth part of them had been converted to colleges, schools, or hospitals, how much higher would the nation be now ! If buildings had been spared because of their grandeur and beauty: if, where there was so much formality ob- served, the libraries had been removed to convenient central places, and there bestowed, Avith the same assiduous care with which the grold and silver were carted to London : then art and literature would have had less cause to curse the names which bigotry has blessed. If a few of the monasteries had been kept as they were, and filled with those of the religious who desired of their own free will to keep that life, the revolution would have had a more honest appearance.
2i8 General Reflections [ch. x.
In tracing in a single country the course of a more extensive revolution, it is inadmissible to indulge in a speculation of wider and remoter causes. It is the humble office of the historian to prepare the way for the historical philosophers and theorists (not so rare a race), whose touch makes darkness light. The histo- rian must not desert the region of his facts : nor expatiate in the necessitarian heaven, when the motives and characters of the men with whom he deals are sufficient to explain the events which he relates. A theoretic framework is dangerous to him : he must not spread the canvas which is to be coloured by the glow of the principles that mould the ages, and govern the development of the race. Nevertheless, at the end of an institution which had lasted a thousand years in the country where it perished in a day ; of an institution which coincided in duration with one of the great human ages, it may not be unbecoming to attempt a general reflection. Popular instinct has infallibly decided that man, so far as he is historical, has had but three ages : the ancient, the middle, and the modern, or that which now is. But more advanced research appears to have been unable to fix in an authoritative manner the limits which divide the three ; nor are there wanting signs of an impatience which would obliterate the middle period altogether, making it but the evening of the former and the morning of the latter of the human days. And yet the middle age should neither be abolished nor curtailed of her full dimension, and confined, in the popular apprehension, to a few centuries : for it lasted a thousand years, and was of equal duration with the age of historical antiquity which went before it. It began with an event sufficiently distinct and great : when the Teutonic races entered the field of history,
1540.] on the Monastic Supp7'ession. 219
and cast the Latin races into the second place. The Teutonic conquest of Rome, which it took four hundred years to accompHsh, was the origin of the middle age : the middle age ought to be dated from the first contact of the Romans with the Germans. It was terminated when the Teutonic races cast off the Roman ideas of society, at the time of the Reformation. The Roman ideas, the civil and even the canon law, which were formulated during the heat of the struggle with the barbarians, had more force than the Roman arms. But, strange to say, the aera which terminated the middle age was that in which the form of dead antiquit}^ itself, not the living and struggling, the legal and official antiquity which the barbarians knew, arose from burial, and appeared to the light of day. The true antiquity : the statue which sings : song and beauty, the last, the imperishable residue of man, awoke from sleep. The Muses broke their silence, the Graces smiled more divinely. The enchanted nations have followed ever since : and no man can think, or speak, or write, with- out the reminiscence of antiquity. The prolongation of antiquity in society in a new race was the essence of the middle aee : of the modern aee the constituent difference is the renascence, or irresistible influence of literary antiquity. The channel by which the ancient was poured into the middle age was Christianity. Christianity remained the link which united the middle age to the modern.
Of all the Teutonic countries, England had received the least tincture of the mediaeval continuation of antiquity. The civil law made no impression upon English law. The canon law existed side by side with English law. Monasticism, the most characteristic of the mediaeval institutions, was exactly commensurate
220 Eff^^ct of the Suppression [ch. x.
in England with the middle age itself. It came all perfect from abroad, it perished in a moment altogether. Nothing made way into the English system that was not vital enough to live in the strongest soil. Nothing was admitted that was not able to contribute to the life of the whole : and it may be concluded that what still remains is both vital and necessary. The Church remains : the Christian Faith remains, and is stronger in England than in any other country in the world.
The Church of Eno^land was now left to balance her loss or gain in the destruction of the monastic institute. The spiritualty were diminished in Parliament, and in the Convocations, by the disappearance of the abbots and priors. But a far more serious loss than this was the diminution both of the ministers of religion and of the clerical orders. The professed religious, most of whom were laymen, but not ordinary laymen, held an intermediate position between the secular clergy and the laity proper. Henceforth there was a gulf between the clergy and the laity. The inferior clerical orders were abolished at the same time with the monks and friars : and the nation grew accustomed to think that there could be no other clergy but bishops, priests, and deacons. This is a modern and restricted concep- tion, which has wrought calamitously on the fortunes of the Church. By the dissolution of the monasteries, ao^ain, an occasion was offered and lost of restorinor to the Church a great number of endowments which had been once her own. A great number of her benefices, not less, it is said, than one-half, had become appropriated by the monasteries, which held the en- dowments, and put in vicars of their own. If the endowments had been restored to the parishes on which they were first bestowed by the benefactors of the Church, there would have been decent main-
I540.] on the Clmrch of Englmid. 221
tenance everywhere for the clergy : and clerical pauperism, that scandal of the Reformation, would have remained unknown. But nothine was further from the minds of the men who destroyed the monasteries than to restore the appropriations : and the incumbents of their benefices, instead of being- better off, found themselves sunk in a penury which grew greater with every successive generation. Both by the law of England and by the authority of the bishops, which was exerted in sequestrations and censures, the monks had been compelled to grant a decent maintenance to their vicars, and to augment it from time to time according to the alteration in the value of money. But in passing into the hands of laymen, the endowments, it was argued, had changed their nature, and become lay fees. Their new holders, or detainers, were not held to be subject, on account of their occupation, to the jurisdiction of the bishops : and the stipends, which were paid in the first half of the sixteenth century, have been considered ever since to be all that can be legally demanded.*
However, something was done for the Church. Having armed, or pretended to arm, his kingdom against an invisible foe, the King designed, or pre- tended to design, to double the number of the bishop- rics out of the wreck of the monasteries. Thirteen new sees, according to the royal scheme, were to have been founded : the see of Essex at Waltham, of Buck- ingham at Newnham, of Oxford by combining Osney and Tame, of Nottingham by joining Welbeck, Work- sop, and Thurgarton, of Cornwall by the union of Lanceston, Bodmin, and another of the late monasteries :
* A luminous exposition of this painful subject is contained in one of the charges of the late Bishop Philpot of Exeter: for 1833. To this I would refer the reader.
222 Scheme for erecting [ch. x.
the see of Lancaster at Fountains with the arch- desiconry of Richmond : the sees of Westminster, Peterborough, Gloucester, St. Albans, Dunstable, Leicester, and Shrewsbury. In this manner, the loss sustained by the spiritual estate would have been partly repaired : and an expansion given to the frame- work of the Church, which it has not even yet attained. But of the sees enumerated, only four were erected, of which Westminster was dissolved ao^ain in a few years. To these are to be added two others, Chester and Bristol, which were not in the scheme at first. Thus, out of fifteen dioceses in all which were proposed, six were created, of which five remain. At the same time, those of the cathedral sees already existing, which had monkish chapters, were refounded as secular chapters with deans at their head : each of them received from the Supreme Head a code of new statutes : and, losing the names of their tutelary saints, they were rededicated, or most of them, to the Holy and Undivided Trinity, or to Christ and the Blessed Virgin. These conventual establishments were Canter- bury, Rochester, Winchester, Worcester, Ely, Durham, and Carlisle : to which may be added Norwich, which was converted a few years before. Together with the new created sees, they are known as the Cathedral Churches of the New F^oundation.*
* This scheme of " Bishopricks to be made" in the handwriting of the King himself is in Cleopatra E. 4, p. 304. On the same page, in the same hand, is another list of " Places to be altered, according to our device, which have sees in them." Under this are given Canterbury, St. Swithin's (Winchester), Durham, Rochester, and Worcester : and then the royal hand added, " and all other having sees in them." The scheme was first printed by Burnet (Bk. iii.) ; it is also given by Strype (ii. 406). The whole refers, it will be observed, both to the new and the refounded cathedrals, which together constitute those of the New Foundation. It was printed again, in facsimile, in the scarce and curious volume entitled Henry the Eighth's Scheme of Bishopricks, which was edited in 1838 by
I540-] New Bishoprics. 223
The history of these new and converted foundations gave the final proof either of the worthlessness of the
Henry Cole. But Cole has also printed a long composite manuscript, preserved in the Augmentation Office, having the title, The Names of the Bishopricks and Colleges newly to be erected by the King's Highness. This appears to be the King's scheme drawn out in full by others, with particulars under each see. The editor says of it, " The writing is in various hands, and the whole has the appearance of rough drafts prepared by several persons at various periods." The names of the places come twice over with particulars which are very different each time. First, the enumeration is, Christchurch in Canterbury, Rochester, Westminster, Essex, Winchester, Worcester, Gloucester, St. Albans, Oxford, Peter- borough, Ely, Burton (college), Chester, Shrewsbury, Carlisle, Durham. The second enumeration, which is much fuller, runs, Westminster, Worcester, Peterborough, Gisburne, Gloucester, Thornton, Burton, Christ- church in Canterbury, Rechester, Carlisle, Waltham, Osney and Tame, Ely, Chester, Dunstable, Colchester, St. Austin's in Bristol, Shrewsbur\', Bodmin, Lanceston, St. Jermin (all together), Fountain cum Archidiaconatu Richmond, St. Albans. At the back of this is written, " The bookes of the erections of all the newe houses, as they cam from the busshop of Winchester." We may therefore conclude that this latter enumeration was made by Gardiner. The MS. ends with a third enumeration without particulars. As a specimen of the particulars I will give Carlisle according to the two former enumerations.
" Carlisle cum monasterio de Rupe.
First, a provost of the College, 50^
Item, vi prebendaries, & the most part of them preachers, every of them
10 £ by the year : 1 10 £, Item, a reader in divinity 20^ Item, 4 students in divinity to be found 2 at O.xenford and 2 at Cambridge,
every of them by the year lO;^ 40^^ Item, 20 scholars to be taught grammar and logic in the Greek and Latin
tongue, every of them 3/ 6s. 8d. by year, 66^ 13s. 4d. Item, a schoolmaster for the same scholars 20^ Item, an usher, 10^ Item, 4 petit canons to sing in the quire, every of them 8^ by the year.
Item, 6 laymen to sing & serve also in the quire every of them 6^ 13s. 4d.
by the year ^o£ Item, 8 choristers every of them 3^ 6s. 8d. by the year 26^ 13s. 4d. Item, a master of the children lo^^ Item, a gospeller, 6^ Item, an Epistoler 5^ Item, 2 sextons 6£ 13s. 4d.
224 Proposed New Foundations. [ch. x.
charges broiicrht against the monasteries or of the worth- lessness of the men who brought them. As a rule, whether the house were defamed or not, the last abbot
Item, 6 poor men being old serving men decayed in wars or in the King's
service, every of them by the year 6^ 13s. 4d. 40/ Item, to be distributed yearly in alms among poor householders 20^ Item, to yearly reparations 26^ 13s. 4d.
Item, to be employed yearly in making & mending of highways 20^ Item, to a steward of the lands yearly 5^ 6s. 8d. Item, to an Auditor 6^
Item, to 2 porters to keep the gates & shave the company 6£ 13s. 4d. Item, to a butler for his diet & wages 4^ 13s. 4d. Item, to a master Cook for his wages & diet 4^ 13s. 4d. Item, to an under Cook for his wages & diet 3^ 6s. 8d. Item, for the provost's expenses in receiving the rents and surveying the
lands yearly 6^ 13s. 4d. Item, to a Cator to buy their diets for his wages and diet & making his books of accompts yearly 6^ 13s. 4d.
Carlisle 418^ 3s. 4d. ob, qr.
et hie desunt pecuniae ad onus.
Portiones descript. 603^ 13s. 4d.
Monasterium de Rupe val. 224^ 2s. 5d.
Remanent 38^ 12s. 5d. ob. qr."
" Carl el.
First, a dean for the corps of his prebend whereof he shall pay the tenths
& firstfruits 2o£ Item, to the dean for his daily divident and distribution by the day 5^ 6s.
100^ 7s. 6d. Item, to four prebendaries each one in the corps 4^, 16^ Item, to each prebendary for his daily divident I2d. 73^ Item, to a schoolmaster for a grammar school 13^ 6s. 8d. Item, to eight pety-canons to sing in the quire each one 8^ by year, 64^ Item, to four lay singing men each one 6£ 13s. 4d. by year, 26^ 13s. 4d. Item, to six queresters each one 4/ 6s. 8d. by year 20^ 13s. 4d. Item, to a Master of the queresters, 10^ Item, to two sextons 6^^ 13s. 4d. Item, to six poor serving men decayed in wars and otherwise 5^ yearly
each of them 30^ Item, to be distribute yearly in deeds of pity and mending of highways,
Item, to yearly reparations 100^ Item, to Steward of the Lands 26^ 8s, Item, to a learned Steward 26^ Ss. Item, to an Auditor 4^
I540.] filled by the old Religious. 225
or prior of it, even if he himself were defamed, became the first dean of the new corporation. The last abbot of Durham, Hugh Whitehead, became the first dean of Durham. Basing, or Kingsmill, the last prior of Win- chester, became the first dean. Latimer's suffragan, Holbeach, was the last prior and the first dean of Wor- cester. The last prior and the first dean of Rochester was Philips. At Carlisle, Salkeld, a man defamed in the Comperta ; at Ely, Willis or Steward, was the last prior and the first dean. Of the houses which were turned into the new chapters of Chester, Peterborough, and Westminster, the last priors, Clark, Alrey, and Boston, were the first deans. I n like manner many of the new canonries and prebends were filled with converted monks : and the exchequer was relieved of the burden of their pensions. Many cures of souls, for the same reason, were committed without hesitation to the late denizens of the late dens of vice. Most of the new bishoprics also, Oxford, Peterborough, Gloucester, Bristol, were filled by late abbots, priors, or provin- cials. To these g^eneral rules I will notice three exceptions. The last abbot of Bristol, the defamed
Item, to a Porter 3^ 6s. 8d.
Item, to a baker &; a brewer 5^
Item, to a butler for his diet & wages 4^ 13s. 4d.
Item, to a master Cook for his diet & wages A,£ 13s. 6d.
Item, to an under Cook for his diet & wages 3^ 6s. 8d.
Item, for receiving the rents and surveying the lands 6£ 13s. 4d.
Item, to a Cater for his wages & diet 6^ 13s. 4d.
Item, for extraordinary expenses 20;,^
Sum of all the charges 571^ 13s. 6d.
Sum of the deductions not charged with tenths in the common possession 200^ 13s. 4d.
For the tenths 55^ 13s. ob.
For the fruits 27^ los. 6d. ob. qr. And so to bear the charges and to pay tenths and firstfruits it may please the King's Majesty to endow the church with 653^ 12s. 9d. qr." The charters of the new sees are in Rymer, vol. xiv. VOL. II. Q
226 E-fff^ct of the Siippressioji [ch. x.
Mororan William,* was not made the first dean of Bristol, but one Snow. Of Christchurch, the new cathe- dral church of Oxford, the first dean was the eminent Doctor London. Christchurch, in Canterbury, under the long rule of Prior Goldwell, was, according to the fragmentary allegations which remain, one of the most abandoned places in the kingdom. On the conversion of the house some very curious measures were taken. Goldwell himself, a man of unstained reputation, the last survivor of the circle of Warham, More, and Colet, was displaced : and the first dean of Can- terbury was Doctor Nicholas Wotton. On the other hand, no less than twenty-nine of the depraved convent were admitted to the prebendal stalls, the clerkships, and other offices of the new foundation : and all the rest received pensions or promotions.!
One of the most momentous consequences of the revolution, but one which it is difficult to ascertain, was the effect upon education. By most of the religious corporations throughout the country schools were maintained, in which, while the children of the rich might find a ready and accessible training, the prero- gative of the poor in alms was never forgotten. In- struction was given gratuitously in these seminaries in singing, reading, and writing, and perhaps in some of the more advanced arts of the age : and the generosity with which they were conducted seems to have war- ranted the name by which they were generally known, the name of Free Schools.^ When the monasteries
* He figures in Bale's Fragment of the Comperta, apiid Speed or Fuller.
+ Buttelefs Catiterb. pt. i. 119; HooFs Cratifn.W. 2\. Goldwell de- clined to accept a prebendal stall instead of the deanery ; but it is fair to add that he retired on an ample pension.
+ Cole, in his book already referred to — Henry's Scheme of Bishop- ricks- — gives some curious particulars on this subject. " The popular
1540.] tipon Education. 227
were falling, many petitions are said to have been received that the Free Schools inio-ht stand.* But the better promotion of solid learning was one of the chief pretexts of the revolution : and while Henry, Crumwel, and his fellows were destroying these monastic schools, which used to maintain at the Uni- versities the more promising of their pupils, and seizing their funds, they were enjoining the clergy to provide out of their own stipends for the maintenance of scholars at the Universities. The loss of the monastic schools, though they diffused perhaps but an humble learning, was most serious in itself: but it was rendered more serious by reason of the change of which it was partly the symptom and partly the cause. If every class in the community had suffered equally from the loss of these schools, the calamity would have been lessened. But if it had been appre- hended that every class in the community would have suffered equally, the calamity would never have hap- pened. The calamity fell most heavily upon the poor : and it caused or marked a diversion of education from one class to another, which it is important to observe. Up to this time, as I believe, the educated class, the cleric class of every grade, was recruited chiefly from the independent poor, the yeomen, the small tenants. Many even of the great clerks of this age, from Wolsey
schools," he says, " appear to have been termed Free Schools. At these, various degrees of instruction were afforded ; a Free School for the benefit of the surrounding neighbourhood was attached to almost every rehgious corporation " (p. xiii). He adds that " probably some distinc- tion existed between the Free School and the Free Grammar School " : and that in the former " the staple of instruction appears universally to have been reading, writing, and singing " (p. xix).
* "The Government obtained evidence of schools already existing, and received addresses from the people, who, when the Monasteries were dissolved, craved and petitioned that the old free schools should remain, and also for the establishment of others." — Cole, p. xviii.
Q 2
228 Effect of the Siippressioii [ch. x.
to Latimer, were the sons of poor men.* The Uni- versities were crowded with poor scholars. It was not, I think, the custom that the sons of the gentry should go to college. They passed in general from the monastic seminaries to the court or the castle, and entered on the life of their station without a prelimi- nary residence on the banks of the Isis or the Cam. The famous school of Glastonbury, under Abbot Whitinor, was divided into two grades : of which the poorer furnished the students who proceeded to the nurseries of the order in the Universities : while the richer, consistincj of grentlemen's sons, ended their education on the spot, and then went home. But after this orreat revolution, the Universities were orraced more and more by the residence of the higher classes : who have been found at times not reluctant to occupy the scholarships and exhibitions which might have maintained their more necessitous rivals.
The impulse of this great change, of mingled good and evil, was given by the rise of the great middle class in this age : and the change itself was announced in a striking manner by an incident which occurred at the alteration of the old monastic school of Canterbury : which was one of the few that were spared and re- modelled. When the commission was sitting which turned the monastery of Christchurch Into a capitular body, the business came before it of electing children to the orrammar school. To some of the commis- sioners (one of whom was the remarkable Sir Richard Rich) it seemed good that none should be elected but sons or younger brothers of gentlemen. '' The
* Out of about seventy bishops of this reign, whose lives I have examined, fourteen only were certainly men of family. Out of the same number, twelve certainly were men who received their rudiments in some free monastic school, and then were sent to the monastic college of their order in one or other of the Universities.
I540-] Upon Education. 12.C)
children of husbandmen," said they, '* are meeter for the plough, or to be artificers, than to occupy the place of the learned sort. Let none be put to school but gentlemen's sons." Cranmer, to his honour, testified proper indignation at this manifestation of the spirit of the revolution. " Poor men's children," he ex- claimed, "are many times endued with more singular gifts of nature, which are also the gifts of God ; they are often more diligent to apply their study than the gentleman's son, delicately educated. Is the plough- man's son, or the poor man's son, unworthy to receive the gifts of the Holy Ghost ? Are we to appoint them to be employed according to our fancy, not according to the gifts of Almighty God ? To shut up the bountiful grace of the Holy Ghost in a corner, and attempt to build thereon our fancies, is to build the tower of Babel. None of us all here, but had our beginning from a low and base parentage. All gentlemen, for the most part, ascend to their estate through learning." It was answered that the most part of the nobility were made by feats of arms. " As though," said the Archbishop, " the noble captain was always unfurnished of good learning! If the gentleman's son be apt, let him be admitted : if not, let the poor man's child, that is apt, enter his room."* The poor had less chance of education after the Reformation than they had before it. The burden of educating them was, by the loss of the monastic schools, flung entirely upon the Church. Voluntary schools, the gradual and painful creations of the piety of sons of the Church, have spread themselves over the face of the country. They have been maintained and directed from generation to generation by the efforts of thousands of unpretending and unrequited
* Cranmer's speech is given at large in Strype's Life of him.
230 Institution of the Jesuits. [ch. x.
incumbents : and still remain the chief dependence of the nation, even amid the educational experiments of the present age.*
The year in which the English monasteries finally disappeared was marked by the rising of a new re- ligious order which was destined to exercise a s^reater influence on the course of human events than any similar organisation in the world, but less in England than in any other country. In 1540 Ignatius Loyola obtained from the Pope the institution of the Society of Jesus. The enthusiastic founder, it is probable, had no conception, when he chose the name, of a design which should be far wider than any that had inspired the founder of any previous order. But his society was moulded by followers who added to en- thusiasm a profound knowledge of the wants of their cause and of the age : and the ancient fraternities, with their saintly denominations, their limited objects, their sectarian appearance, seemed to be but the par- tial forerunners of a vast and ubiquitous body, which came adapting itself to every form of life and culture. The genius of the new institution lay in the combina- tion of severity with freedom : it reduced the regular religious life to rationality. The Jesuit was not confined of necessity, like the monk, to the contem- plative life of the cloister, nor to the local limits of the
* I cannot better take leave of the whole subject of the fall of the monasteries than in the eloquent lament of the noble antiquarian Dugdale : in whose days their ruins offered a more extensive and pitiable spectacle than now. "Jamdudum diem fatalem obierunt Monasteria nostra: nee prEeter semirutos parietes et deploranda rudera supersunt nobis avitaa pietatis indicia. Minus impendiosa hodie cordi est religio : et dictum vetus obtinet, Religenteni esse oporlet, religiosiaii nefas. Videmus nos, heu, videmus augustissima Templa et stupenda sterno dicata Deo monumenta (quibus nihil hodie spoliatius) sub specioso eruendae super- stitionis obtentu, sordidissimo conspurcari vituperio, extremamque manere internecionem. Ad altaria Christi stabulati equi, martyrum effossa; reliquise," SLC.—Pre/. ad Monast.
I540.] Instittition of the Jesuits. 23 1
more active friar : the dress of the secular clergy contented him without a peculiar habit : he was set free from the intolerable burden of the canonical hours. But he was under the three vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience : to which was added an oblioation to eo whithersoever he misrht be bidden. Severe trials and discipline tested his sincerity and capacity : while, his obedience being confined to things permitted, the freewill of the individual was left in some measure unchecked. Thus liberated from the constraints, but preserving the essentials of the regular life, the new society became the militia of the Papacy. No service was too arduous, no duty too humble, for the devotion of the Jesuit: but his chief employ- ment was the maintenance of Catholic doctrine by the direction of consciences and in the education of youth. His institute encouraged the development of the most various talents. Ignorance, the reproach which Eras- mus hurled ao^ainst the monks, was never laid to the charge of an association which repeated, on the side of Christianity, the experiment of the Pantheon. No art, no science was unwelcome here. One member of the Society of Jesus became, in Latin poetry, the Virgil of France: another the Horace of Germany. Another was the rival of Scaliger in the field of ancient chronology : and another of Bossuet in the art of rhetoric. Others were worthy to be named in political philosophy beside Bodin or Montesquieu. But it has been remarked with truth that the Jesuits, with all their culture, cannot boast the greatest names in any department. Their system consumed them : and, after all, the end of their system was active and political, not intellectual. Literature owes far less to them than to the later Benedictines. Theology owes far less to them than to the Franciscans, though they filled
232 Parliamejtt. [ch. x.
innumerable folios with their tractates, and seemed to aim at supplying a new set of doctors and fathers to the Catholic world. At the same time their reputation never suffered the prolonged scandals which were aggravated against the ancient orders. Their relaxed discipline never invited the genial but fatal mirth of an Erasmus : the immorality which was destined to perish under the learning of Perrault and the irony of Pascal was the incredible and inhonest subtlety of casuists who, however severe to themselves, strove to be all things to all men, and to maintain the Catholic system by making it fashionable and easy. This memorable order combined the forces of an open with those of a secret society. It furnished to Rome an exhaustless legion of the most intrepid combatants : in the contest with Protestants, kings, and national bishops, it conjoined Fabius with Hannibal : and brought back at least a partial victory to the reeling banners of the Papacy. But to do this it drew a smaller circle within the mighty round of Catholicity : a circle of which the whole circumference was visible from every point : and of which the centre was the Pope. The spirit of the modern Papacy was now engendered.
The parliamentary session of this year was opened, April 12, with an exhortation from the Lord Chancellor to imitate the royal example in professing and pro- viding all that tended to the divine glory, the honour of the royal estate, and the good of the realm. The peers applauded this preface : and Crumwel arose for the last time to address the assembly which he had tuned into so perfect an organ of accommodating acquiescence. The powerful favourite, involved in the double failure of Anne of Cleves and the attempt to browbeat the Emperor, of neither of which the
I540-] CrmnweVs Speech. 233
blame belonged to him, was now on the verge alike of his highest advancement and of his ruin. The same session beheld him created Earl of Essex and attainted of treason : invested with the Garter and carried to the block. But he betrayed by no sign that he was aware of any danger; and trod the floor in front of the machine of perfect loyalty, as if it had not waited but the touch of another hand to start into action and crush its own artificer. "Concord," said he, "is, in the apprehension of his Majesty, the very bond of the republic : let the head and the members of the body politic of England be as one. But he who loves concord hates discord, and marks them that create it. In how many is not the harvest spoiled by tares! In some there is temerity and carnal liberty : in others an inveterate corruption and obstinacy. Hence arise quarrels and commotions most detestable to all sfood Christians. They call one another papist and heretic : some to heresy and others to superstition, they pervert the gift of the King, and abuse the liberty of reading the Bible. The Kinij favours neither, but is erieved with both. He proposed pure Christianity, turning neither to the right hand nor the left ; but keeping in view one object, the pure Word of God, the Gospel. For this end he studied first to set forth true doctrine ; then to separate pious from impious ceremonies, and to teach the true use of them : and lastly to draw English- men of all conditions from the impious and irreverent use of the Bible, from their shameful twistings and audacious interpretations, by heavy penalties. For the further promotion of these designs I now announce that his Majesty has chosen certain bishops and doctors, who are to deliberate what is requisite for the institution of a Christian man. These he has divided
234
Commission for Religion.
CH. X.
into two sets : the first, who are to treat of doctrines, are the two Archbishops, the Bishops of London, Durham, Winchester, Rochester, Hereford, and St. David's, and Doctors Thirlby, Robinson, Cox, Wilson, Day, Oglethorpe, Redmayn, Edgeworth, Crawford, Symonds, Perkins, and Tresham. For the determina- tion and rationale of ceremonies he has appointed the Bishops of Bath, Ely, Salisbury, Chichester, Worcester, and Llandaff: and to neither party shall be lacking the aid of his own determinations, of his own sincere and exact opinion.* Meanwhile all transgressors must be punished with the full severity of the laws by all justices and commissioners. How manifold," concluded Crumwel, "are the gifts of the royal mind ! They can never be expressed. Neither my tongue, nor the tongue of a far more eloquent orator, could worthily extol them, I protest."! Thus, by the last words of the minister, was appointed that important Commission, of which the one part produced the third great formulary of Henry the Eighth, the Necessary Doctrine and Erudition of a Christian Man : the other part drew up (it may be conjectured) a remarkable explication of ceremonies, which is still extant, but which for some curious reason was not
|
* Commission Doctrines. |
of |
1540. |
Thirlby. Robertson. |
Perkins. Tresham. |
||
|
Canterbury. York. |
Cox. Wilson. |
Ceremonies. |
||||
|
London. Durham. Winchester. Rochester. Hereford. |
Day. Oglethorpe. Redman. Edgeworth. Crawford. |
Bath. Ely. Salisbury. Chichester. Worcester. |
||||
|
St. David's. t " Protestatus |
nee satis |
Symonds. esse suam nee multo |
Llandaff. elegantioris linguam et |
|||
|
ingenium ad indicibiles regias ejus dotes Lords' Journal. |
pro |
meritis commendendas."— |
I540.] The Hospitallers Dissolved. 235
published at the time.* The lords, invoking the divine aid upon the momentous undertakincr^f agreed to devote the first three days of the week, and the afternoons of the other days, to the settlement of religion. The punctuality with which at the exact moment the Vicegerent remembered that it was the design of the Supreme Head to follow the former formulary, the Institution of a Christian Man, or Bishops' Book, by a new Confession within three years, ought not to escape observation, but the composition of the new formulary occupied three years more.|
The next business that occupied Parliament was the reduction of the Knights Hospitallers to the King's hand. The extinction of a military order was deemed to deserve a separate Act : and it was duly declared that the Knights drew large sums out of the kingdom for the defence of Rhodes, an island which was in the possession of the Turks : that they were unnatural subjects, holding the Pope to be " supreme and chief head of the Christian church," and slandering the godly proceedings of the King and his realm. The unnatural subjects bowed de- murely to the formal stroke. Their single establish- ment in Ireland, the important Kilmainham, was dissolved : their single English establishment,^ the priory of Clerkenwell, was dissolved, and the vast buildings were turned into a storehouse for the King's hunting gear.|| But they themselves received pensions
* On this very important point see next chapter.
t "Assensere omnes, et bene inchoatis bonum successum precantur." — Lords' Journal. % Cf. Vol. I. p. 528, hiij. op.
§ Except Buckland, in Somerset, already dissolved, where there is said to have been at one time a preceptory, and where the nuns of the order are said to have been collected.
11 Stowe's Survey.
236 Act for Decay of Towns. [ch. x.
of unexampled munificence, the amount of which was regulated by Parliament Itself, not by the Court of Augmentations. This generosity may not be abso- lutely unconnected with the fact that the whole order were laymen, except a couple of chaplains. The head of the order was the first lay baron of the realm.*
From this the legislature proceeded to some other enactments, which were made necessary by the late proceedings. In many great towns, especially, it would seem, where many monasteries had been destroyed, depopulation and decay had set in to an alarming extent. In London itself it was necessary to take order for the paving of some of the streets in the heart of the City. In a great number of other towns large and beautiful houses were fallen down decayed : and It was expedient to order them to be repaired by the owners or the corporations.! In others It was
* 32 H. VIII. 24. The pension of Sir William Weston, the prior, was a thousand pounds, equal to ten thousand now. The rest were in propor- tion : those of the confraternity who had no certain living received ten pounds a year. — Willis or Fuller. This Weston must have been an ancient incumbent : there was an Act about him in the first year of Henry VII. See Statutes of Realm.
t 32 H. VIII. 17, 18, 19. The towns enumerated in these Acts are York, Lincoln, Canterbury, Coventry, Bath, Chichester, Salisbury, Winchester, Bristol, Scarborough, Hereford, Colchester, Rochester, Portsmouth, Poole, Lyme, Feversham, Worcester, Stafford, Buckingham, Pomfret, Grantham, Exeter, Ipswich, Southampton, Great Yarmouth, Oxford, Great Wycombe, Guildford, Stretford, Kingston-on-Hull, Newcastle-on- Tyne, Beverley, Bedford, Leicester, Berwick, Shaftesbury, Sherbourne, Bridport, Dorchester, Weymouth, Plynton, Barnstable, Tavistock, Dart- mouth, Lanceston, Liskeard, Lestuthiel, Bodmin, Truro, Hilston, Bridge- water, Taunton, Somerton, Ilchester, Maldon, Warwick. What a stu- pendous amount of simultaneous desolation ! And we have been at nearly all these places in company with the monastic visitors ! It was Collier who first suggested that this legislation of desolation might have something to do with the fall of the monasteries. Others have passed over these Acts without observing the connection : and Mr. Froude has boldly cited them, and indeed put them in the forefront of his battle, as a proof of the stagnant and unprogressive character of mediaeval civilisa- tion, as if they were remedies applied at last to a decay that had been
I540.] Act for Payfnenf of Tithes. 237
necessary to begin the process called union of parishes : so that where there had been two, three, or even five parishes, there should be only one : and this was the commencement of another new kind of laws.*
For the rest, the Parliament made a new Act for the payment of tithes. It appeared that many persons now refused to pay those ancient customary offerings, arguing that tithes belonging to parsonages and vicar- ages which had passed into the hands of laymen ought to be paid no longer : the disability of the new owners to sue in the ecclesiastical courts afforded a pretext for this opinion : but the newborn evil was most prompdy redressed by Parliament.! They softened the severe penalty of death for incontinency, which the zeal of the previous session had enacted against priests and women offending with them. It was now
going on for ages (Introd. Chap, in vol. i.). They might rather seem a proof of the decay caused by the process by which mediaeval civilisation was ended. For (i) they were not passed till the dissolution of monas- teries was complete. (2) They were passed as soon as the dissolution was complete, after going on for four or five years, or long enough for decay to have supervened. (3) They belong to a class of laws which were very rare before the dissolution, but not uncommon after it. For instance, there were two more such in the next two sessions. In fact, I believe that laws about decay of towns were unknown before Henry VIII., and even in his reign there were none that gave lists of decayed towns till the Reformation was begun. The only one that does this, previously to this session, is 27 H. VIII. i, of the year 1536, which has a list of six towns. And this, which was after the Reformation had begun, resembles the Acts that we are considering, in speaking of beautiful houses fallen to decay, and in assigning no cause. The other Acts of the reign of Henry (which were passed before the Reformation) all speak of decay without giving par- ticular places, and assigti the cause that pasturage was taking the place of tillage; an intelligible reason enough. See, e.g., 6 H. VIII. 5. I think there is only one Act of this latter sort (speaking of tillage, &c.) which comes after the beginning of the Reformation : it is 27 H. VIII. 22.
* Royston, an extreme case certainly, had five parishes, which were now reduced to one, the inhabitants being allowed to purchase the priory church there, a little monastery of Austins, of which the site was granted to a courtier named Chester. — 32 H. VIII, 44.
t Chap. 7.
238 other Acts. [ch. x.
loss of goods, partial or total : and imprisonment for life for the third offence.* They utterly extinguished all sanctuaries, except parish churches and churchyards, cathedral and collegiate churches, and hospitals, which might afford refuge for forty days, as heretofore : and to these were added certain privileged places or terri- tories, which might protect their fugitives for life, provided that they were not the most violent of malefactors, such as murderers or highwaymen, and that their number should not exceed twenty in each place. Wells, Westminster, Manchester, Norwich, Northampton, York, Derby, and Lancaster were the places which received, or rather retained, this distinc- tlon.f A person taking sanctuary in a church was to be visited by the coroner within the forty days : and then allowed to abjure to any of these territories : he was to be passed from constable to constable until he reached the haven where he was safe for life. All the sanctuary men were to be mustered daily : and by three successive absences the privilege was forfeited.;}: They wisely ordered that in all commissions issued to the bishops concerning the Christian religion the archdeacons also should be named. § The collection of the tenths for the Crown was an odious duty which had been flung upon the bishops: and the difficulty of discharging it was doubled by the suppression of the monasteries. The monasteries were not in being to pay their tenths : and, besides this, there were many smaller promotions, such as chantries, which were gone to nothing, and left without priests through the con- cussion of the late events. The difficulty was felt
* Chap. 10.
t Two years afterwards the privilege of sanctuary was transferred from Manchester to Westchester, in Cheshire, by 33 H. VIII. 15. X Chap. 12. § Chap. 15.
I540.] New Subsidy Demanded. 239
and acknowledged : die bishops were allowed in such cases to make oadi that they could not collect the tenths ; or commissioners might be appointed to in- vestigate the matter.* At the same time another of Henry's courts of record was erected for this business : by the side of the Court of Augmentations arose, equipped with officials from chancellor to usher, the Court of Firstfruits and Tenths : t and a scrutiny of the clergy was begun anon, with a view to the more rigorous collection of the royal dues.|
The most fantastic schemes for the common good had been put forth to colour the suppression of the religious houses. The exchequer was to be supplied with an inexhaustible spring of wealth, which would extinofulsh the necessity of taxation. The defence of the realm, and the other great purposes to which the subject of a state contributes, were to be pro- vided by an everlasting revenue : and aids, subsidies, and loans were never to be required again.§ The Parliament, who In their late Act for surrendering all monasteries had left the way open for the King to impart those perpetual treasures to themselves, cannot have believed these pretences : but they were filled nevertheless with a just indignation on receiving from the ever necessitous monarch a demand for a new and most exorbitant subsidy. It seemed to add to the injury when he alleged for the reason of his demand the o-feat charges which he had incurred in
* Chap. 22.
t Chap. 45. It may be observed that Henry also got now that pledge of confidence, his Court of Wards : ch. 46. — Cf. Vol. I. p. 74, hi/J. op.
X In 1541 the bishops received from the new Court of Firstfruits and Tenths a royal breve ordering them to return the names of benefices and beneficiaries, with the time of presentation, duration of vacancy, names of those who had taken profits during vacancy, and so on. — Wilkins.
§ See the remarkable paper by Coke, given in Hume, Note I.
240 Fall of Criimwel. [ch. x.
fortifying the kingdom : for it was supposed then, and the modern historians still assert, that the monastic money had paid for that at least. There was a bitter debate before the assembly, so prodigal of liberty and life, consented to the grant of four fifteenths and tenths, payable in four years.* The corresponding gift of the clergy was four shillings in the pound, payable in two years. The Southern Convocation alone appears to have met this year : but it was attended by many of the bishops and doctors of the North. It did no more than pass this subsidy, and declare the nullity of the last marriage of the King.t
The knot of the dismal comedy of Anne of Cleves was solved by the divine machine of Henry in the manner in which it had ended his other complications : and he was now already embarking in his fifth matri- monial adventure. How far these domestic affairs were connected with the tragedy of Crumwel, it is beyond my province to enquire : but it is certain that they were not the sole cause of his disgrace. For some time past signs had not been wanting that the King had used him enough, and could now dispense with his services. There were whispers of scenes behind the curtains in which he had been treated with personal violence by his brutal master. It was said that he was not in favour with the King as he had been : that the King fell out with him in the Privy Chamber, sometimes calling him villain and knave, and striking him. It was said that on these occasions of choler the Vicegerent, after having been well "bobbed about the head" by the Supreme Head, would issue forth into the great chamber among the lords, wearing as high, fresh, and cheerful a countenance
* 32 H. VIII. 50.
t Wilkins, iii. 850. A full account of this convocation is given by Strype, i. 553.
I540-] His Arrest. 241
as if all had been well within,* Such reports, even if they were slanderous, could not fail to encourage the old nobilit}^ to exhibit in rough fashion their detestation of the plebeian adventurer. High words were exchanged at the council board : where on one occasion the Marquess of Exeter is said to have drawn his dagger on the Privy Seal, who escaped through the hidden corselet that he wore. The Duke of Nor- folk, his bitterest enemy, called him to his face, at Cranmer's table, Wolsey's servant, and a liar. Such outrages as these would hardly have been ventured if it had not been perceived that Crumwel's day was over. At length the doom fell. On the loth of June the once formidable minister appeared in his place, as usual, at the council, when the Duke of Norfolk suddenly arose, " My lord of Essex," said he, " I arrest you of high treason." Crumwel appears to have been taken completely by surprise. The charges that were laid against him, and, it was said, justified to his face on the spot by competent witnesses, appear at first sight to be of the most preposterous absurdity. He was afifirmed to have deserted the mean and in- different way of religion which the King was labouring to establish, and to have striven to advance one of the extremes : and that not only in a secret and indirect
* These reports were treated as slanders. Powlet, one of the com- missioners in Ireland, was the chief author of them. He was accused by Allen of saying that the King called the Privy Seal villain and knave, bobbed him about the head, and thrust him out of the Privy Chamber. " I would not," said Powlet, " be in his case for all that ever he hath : for the King beknaveth him twice a week, and sometimes knocketh him well about the pate; and yet, when he hath been well pommelled about the head, and shaken up as it were a dog, he will come out into the great chamber, shaking of the bush, with as merry a countenance as though he might rule all the roost." — State Papers, ii. 551. This was said in 1538. Lord Grey wrote to the King about the same words next year. — lb. iii. 130.
VOL. IL R
242 Fall of Crumwel. [ch. x.
manner, but by a traitorous device. He had been heard to say that if the King and all his realm were to turn and vary from his opinions, he would fight in the field with his sword in his hand agrainst him and all other : and that within a year or two he hoped to bring things to that pass that it should not be in the King's power to resist or let the further revolution which he meditated. These speeches he accompanied with oaths, and such gesticulations as proved his fixed intention.* Other enormities were alleged against him at the same time : and he was carried from the council board to the Tower, amid the wild rejoicings of the City of London.
Such were the extraordinary accusations which were immediately notified to the English ambassadors abroad, and by them reported to the courts of Europe. The witnesses by whom they were first attested are not certainly known, but may be presumed to have been the same two who afterwards furnished the matter of the bill of attainder.! But on what their evidence rested, whether they spoke of their own knowledge, or some of the light and licensed pens whom Crumwel admitted to his intimacy had betrayed the deep confidence of unguarded moments : whether any of his own police or spies had turned against him : whether the charges were mere trifles aa"2:ravated by his enemies : whether they were utter fabrications ; or the King were genuinely surprised to find his throne menaced by the embryon of a conspiracy of heretics headed by his own Vicegerent : these are questions which appear to be insoluble. But there were one or two circumstances (on which little stress has been laid
* State Papers, viii. 349,
t Namely, Nicholas Throgmorton, and the Chancellor of the Court of Augmentations. See below, p. 248.
I540.] The Charges laid against Him. 243
b)^ modern writers) which tend to the behef that the charges, however aggravated, were true in substance : and that the undoubted capacity, keenness, and caution of Crumwel could not restrain him from the perilous sallies of a braggart humour.
When the answers of the various ambassadors
came to hand, conveying the indifference or pleasure
with which the sovereigns of Europe regarded the fall
of the English Vicegerent, a new charge was brought
against him in one of the letters ; a charge which was
more astounding than all the rest. Sir John Wallop,
who had succeeded Bonner in Paris, wrote that, in a
conversation which he held with the French Cardinal
Bellay, he had been informed, on the authority of
Catillion, that Crumwel meant to make himself King
of England. Catillion, a man who had been in
England, told the Cardinal that he had received this
information from two credible witnesses. The same
story was repeated to Wallop by the ambassador
of Portugal : with the addition that Crumwel designed
to marry the Lady Mary.* Upon this the King
sent instructions for further enquiry to be made.
Wallop saw again both Bellay and the ambassador
of Portugal : by Bellay he was told that the marriage
of the Lady Mary with Crumwel had been much
debated between the French kins: and himself for the
last three-quarters of a year : and that the French
king presumed from the favour which Henry showed
to Crumwel that he was minded to make him a duke
or an earl, and give him his daughter in marriage.
The ambassador of Portugal declared that the same
thing had been debated among ambassadors for years
past.f Soon after this the Constable said to Wallop
that all Christendom was well rid of such a ribald,
* State Pap. viii. 362. t State Pap. viii. 379.
244 Fall of Crumwel. [en. x.
who thought to have the Lady Mary in marriage.* The amazing rise of Crumwel from the depth of obscurity and lowHness, " from the dunghill," as his contemporaries named it t, to the second place in the kingdom, had turned even his cool and sagacious head. He aspired, it would seem, still further; ignorant that it is easier in all human things to step from the bottom to the second place than from the second place to the first.J
Of all the men whom the convenient qualities of the Vicegerent had served, of all those whom he had enriched or advanced, of all who had been intimately associated with him in offices, councils, and parliaments, not one is known to have raised a voice to plead for him in his extremity except the Archbishop of Canterbury. Cranmer had been treated by him at times with insolence or neglect : but he
* Sia/e Papers, viii. 390. The whole story of Cramwel's fall will never perhaps be known. Lingard says that his treasons abroad were alleged by Marillac, the French ambassador : for which he refers to Le Grand. Le Grand says, " On se saisit de tous ses papiers, parmi lesquels on trouve pleusieurs lettres qu'il ecrivait au princes d'AUemagne, et qu'il recevait d'eux, par lesquelles on reconnut qu'il entretenoit en ce pais la de grandes intelligences a I'inscu du roi, et ce fut particulierement sur ces lettres qu'on luy fit son proems.'' Part i. s.f. At the end of his third volume there is a note in which he promises to issue the letters of Marillac, but whether he ever did, I cannot say.
t So Pace, the ambassador to the Emperor, had it. State Pap. viii.
364-
+ It seems necessary to give the evidence of these aspiring projects, because of the modern view that Crumwel was a great man, who perished from being in advance of his age. Rather, he was a very good example of commonplace qualities. All that about his being a statesman of the Italian model seems to come out of Pole's mistaken assertion that he was a student of Machiavelii. All that about his being a sort of Napoleon, a man of iron, dealing the strokes of a relentless but unimpassioned fate, seems another false analogy. He was a servant : he had all the abilities of a servant : and he had the most unscrupulous of masters. It was the King who struck and stabbed behind him. Declamatio fiat ! It might be a fine subject for a debating society, What would have followed if Crumwel had married Mary .'
I540-] Cranmev intercedes for Him. 245
could not forget the familiarity of ten years : and he was prompt, if not decided, in his intercession. " Who cannot be sorrowful and amazed," thus he wrote to the King four days after the arrest, " that he should be a traitor against your Majesty, that was so advanced by your Majesty : he whose surety was only by your Majesty : he who loved your Majesty (as I ever thought) no less than God : he who studied always to set forward whatever was your Majesty's will and pleasure : he that cared for no man's displeasure to serve your Majesty : he that was such a servant (in my judgment) in wisdom, diligence, faithfulness, and experience, as no prince in this realm ever had : he that was so diligent to preserve your Majesty from all treasons, that few could be so exactly conceived but he detected the same in the bemnnino-. If the noble princes of memory, King John, Henry the Second, and Richard the Second, had had such a councillor about them, I suppose that they should never have been so traitorously abandoned and overthrown as those good princes were. I loved him as my friend, for so I took him to be ; but I chiefly loved him for the love which I thought I saw him bear ever towards your Grace, singularly above all other." Such was the true portrait of Crumwel, drawn by the hand of a fellow servant. But, as in his intercession for Anne Boleyn, Cranmer spoiled a pathetic protestation by a weak and dissonant conclusion. " But now, if he be a traitor, I am sorry that ever I loved or trusted him, and I am very glad that his treason is discovered in time : but yet again I am very sorrowful, for who shall your Grace trust hereafter, if you might not trust him ? Alas, I bewail and lament your Grace's chance herein : I wot not whom your Grace may trust. But I pray God continually, night and day, to send such
246 Fall of Crtmiwel. [ch. x.
a counsellor in his place whom your Grace may trust, and who, for all his qualities, can and will serve your Grace like to him, and that will have as much solicitude and care to preserve your Grace from all dangers, as I ever thought he had." *
Attainder, the terrible engine which the fallen favourite had brought to perfection, was working well and smoothly now. Ten days before his arrest, a bill had been brought against Abel, Fetherstone, and Powell, three priests of the Old Learning, who had been in prison since the days of More and Fisher.f With them were joined in condemnation a yeoman named William Home, who denied Prince Edward to be heir to the throne ; and Lawrence Cook, a friar of Doncaster, who had been some time in Newgate. Another bill had been brought against Gregory Butolph, Adam Damplip, and Edward Brindeholme, clerks, and against Clement Philpot, gentleman, for corresponding with Pole, and for a curious and obscure plot to surprise Calais.J In the same bill were included three noted priests of the New Learning, who were attainted of heresy, a new offence against the King's Majesty. A third bill had been drawn against Lord Hungerford, and his chaplain William Bird, for taking the King's nativity or some such necromantic freak.^ All these persons had been condemned unheard : and lay at this moment under sentence of death. It was now the turn of Crumwel himself to pass through the same process of legal slaughter. His bill was brought
* Herbert ; or Cranmer's Remains and Lett. p. 401.
+ Vol. I. p. 236, huj. op.
X The particulars of this obscure bit of history, into which I am not inclined to enter, may be seen in Fox, and in Cranmer's Letters, p. 372, &c.
§ 32 Heniy VIII. 57, 58, 59. See also the excellent observations of Burnet, at the end of his third book.
I540-] His Attainder. 247
into the Lords when he had been in prison a week." Through the Lords it passed rapidly enough : but it was detained in the Commons ten days. The charges which it contained were most of them vague and in- definite, consisting of that which the ungenerous monarch had sanctioned in the case of Wolsey, heap- incr on the minister the blame of things in which he himself had acquiesced. Crumwel had received com- missions of the most enormous scope : and had wielded for ten years an unquestioned authority. It was easy, now that the King would have it so, to select a few points in which he had broken the laws. The general burden was, that he had abused the Kind's confidence. He had let traitors and heretics out of prison : he had granted all kinds of licenses for bribes : he had ap- pointed commissioners without the knowledge of the King : he had granted passports without search : he had dispersed secretly vast numbers of erroneous and seditious books, many of them printed beyond seas. He had abused his office as overseer of translations, and let heretical books pass, even when their errors were pointed out to him. He was both a maintainer of heretics and himself a detestable heretic, holding that any Christian man might administer the Sacrament of the Altar as well as a priest. In fact, said the bill, it was too longf and tedious to write all his offences. In every part of the country he had his heretical followers and confederates. He had enriched himself beyond measure : and held the nobles of the kingdom in great disdain, derision, and detestation. As for his words, he had often said that " he was sure of the King," or could do what he would with him. The violent expressions which had been witnessed against him on his arrest were repeated, with the addition of a dagger brandished with an oath, and of
248 Fall of Criimwel. [ch. x.
the date, thirteen months before. And it was further deposed that within the last six months he had furiously declared that if the Lords were minded to handle him as they did, he would give them such a breakfast as was never made in England. All this was pronounced to have been proved by credible witnesses : the unfortunate man was attainted both of heresy and treason, and left suspended between the fire and the block. At one time it was believed that he would have been burned.* It appears from his own letters that the chief witnesses against him were Nicholas Throgmorton, and the remarkable Sir Richard Rich, his ancient comrade, Chancellor of the Court of Augmentations, celebrated already for his share in the trial of More.f
The unhappy attainted, thus condemned without trial or defence, without even being present at the proceedings against him, no sooner heard of the doom pronounced on him, than he addressed to the King
* Burnet, Collec. bk. iii. No. 16. See also his Hist., supplementary part iii. bk. iii. Richard Hilles, the voluminous correspondent of Bul- linger, confirms the rumour that Crumwel was to have been burned, and says that the milder doom of the traitor was granted to him on condition of his speaking well of the King and admitting the justice of his execu- tion. " There are, moreover, other parties who assert, with what truth God knows, that Crumwel was threatened to be burned at the stake, and not to die by the axe, unless at the time of execution he would acknow- ledge his crimes against the King ; and that he then said, ' I am altogether a miserable sinner, I have sinned against my good and gracious God, and have offended the King.' But what he said concerning the king was carelessly and coldly pronounced by him." — Orig. Lett. p. 203. If this were all that Crumwel said, the other stories of his speech and prayer in Hall and Fox are unfounded. See below, p. 250.
t Burnet says that Sir Richard Baker was Chancellor of Augmenta- tions, and was the person meant by Crumwel : and certainly Baker soon afterwards succeeded Rich there, fhe latter being promoted to be Chancellor of the Exchequer. But it was Rich who was now Chancellor of Augmentations, for he appears as such in the list of the Privy Council a fortnight after Crumwel's death. Acts of Council, vii. 4. Baker was at this time Chancellor of the new Court of Firstfruits and Tenths.
I540.] His Letters to tJie King. 249
a miserable letter full of oaths, imprecations, and protestations of innocence. God knew, said he, that he had never in all his life done, said, or thought, anything that might displease his Majesty. What labours, perils, and troubles he had taken in his Majesty's service, Heaven knew. If any faction or affection had made him a traitor, might all the devils in hell confound him, and the venoreance of God lii^ht upon him. The King, if his Majesty would not be offended, had been to him more like a dear father than a master. As for what Throgmorton and the Chancellor of Augmentations said against him, he had never spoken to them together in all his life. What they were, the King knew. For the bulk of the accusations, he admitted that he had not always done as he should have done : but, he added, not without pathos, " I have meddled in so many matters under your Majesty that I am not able to answer them all." He desired that God mio^ht confound him if he had ever willingly had any retainers or partisans beyond his own household. He wished that he were in hell if he had ever made any revelation about Anne of Cleves, but only to the Lord Admiral : and he appealed to the King for mercy, grace, and pardon.* The King required of him in return one last service. Sending to him Audley, Norfolk, and Southampton, he requested him, as a man condemned by Parliament, to say what he knew of the marriage with Anne of Cleves, and not to damn his soul by saying other than the truth. The message, conceived in such terms, must have sounded like a knell in the ears of the unhappy prisoner, who knew so well the working of the divided responsibility. When the dexterous manager of that device talked about the condemnation being parliamentary, as if he
* Burnet, Collect, to supplementary part, No. 67.
250 Execufio?! of Cmmwel. [ch. x.
himself had no power to stay the course of a justice which he might deplore, it was plain that all was over. Nevertheless, Crumwel seized with eagerness the opportunity of addressing his sovereign once more. Concerning the unfortunate marriage of the King, he said all that could be desired : and concluded a pitiful letter with a wild cry for " Mercy, mercy, mercy."* The King enjoyed to the utmost the last appeal of his former intimate. He had it read to him three times ; he appeared affected by it : and he gave it no answer. But he granted to the heretic the mercy of the block : and after several more weeks of suspense, Thomas Crumwel was led out to Tower Hill, July 28, and decollated there with butcherly barbarity.f Such was the end of the Vicegerent of the Supreme Head. He owed his fall in some part to the temporary resolution of the King to stop where he was. A revolutionist who is nothing but a revolutionist, like a conqueror who depends only on his sword, must go on or perish. With him was executed Lord Hungerford, who seems to have been a man of unsound mind.
Two days after the death of Crumwel, six of the untried attainted, who had been condemned before his fall, were drawn on hurdles from the Tower to Smith- field : Abel, Fetherstone, and Powell, Barnes, Garret, and Jerome. The three former ascended a scaffold, on which they were hanged, drawn, and quartered : the three others advanced to a stake, and were burned together thereat for heresy. The tendency of the
* Burnet, Collect, iii. No. 17.
+ According to the last speech given in Hall, Crumwel died in the Catholic faith : from which, as Collier observes, it is absurd to suppose that he died a Roman Catholic. But the speech was manufactured. Pole told a correspondent that the words which were printed as his last were very different from those that he really uttered. Epist. iii. 62. Fox and Froude give a long prayer which he is said to have made on the scaffold.
I540.] Six Executed for Treason and Heresy. 251
arts is often seen to be towards separation. In the former example of Forest, the various penalties of treason and heresy had been combined in a single person. It was now found more convenient to mul- tiply the persons and divide the penalties.* This was a striking demonstration of the even orthodoxy of the sovereign prince. The former group of sufferers was composed of the survivors of the early recusants who had stood on the validity of the King's first marriage. Abel had been the confessor of Queen Katharine, and Fetherstone her chaplain : Abel and Powell were both writers in the Queen's cause : Powell, the most distinguished of the three, had been also one of the champions who defended the King against the on- slaught of Luther.t The others were among the remaining members of that early band of Gospellers who had been moved in Cambridge and Oxford to assail the abuses of the Church. Jerome, the vicar of Stepney, was a vigorous and fearless preacher. On the passing of the Six Articles, he had inveighed against the Parliament, denying their authority to make laws binding on the conscience, and fixing on the Commons the opprobrious epithet of " butterflies " ; to which he added "fools and knaves."| He was seized
* Hilles is not therefore perfectly correct in his observation that Smithfield was now used for the first time for the punishment of others besides heretics. Orig. Lett. 309.
t The name of Abel's book was Tractatus de non dissolvendo Henrici et Katharinse rnatrimonio. 1534. The works of Powell were — i. Propugnuculum summi Sacerdotii Evangelici, ac Septenarii Sacramen- torum Numeri, adversus M. Lutherum Fratrem famosum et Wicklifistam insignem. Lond. 1523. 2. Tractatus de non dissolvendo Henrici et Katharine Matrimonio. He was selected by the King himself to answer Luther, and his work was publicly extolled by the University of Oxford, to which he belonged. Dodd, Ch. Hist, of Eng. i. 209.
X The Commons took these epithets extremely ill, showing the same sensibility to criticism which they had formerly manifested in the case of Bishop Fisher. " What ado was there made in London at a certain man,
252 Previous Histoiy of [ch. x.
by the zealous commissioners of Mercers' Hall : but the King, as Supreme Ordinary, took the matter into his own hands, sent for the preacher, convinced him by friendly argument, and induced him to recant his sermons. In complying, however, Jerome contrived to recant his recantation, by declaring at the end that though he was compelled to deny himself, it was but like giving up his own will in case of necessity or trouble, and saying, ''Fiat vohintas tjia'/"^ Garret, his fellow sufferer, originally a curate in London, had taken to selling Tyndale's versions and other forbidden books in Oxford in the days of Wolsey, and had undergone some rapid adventures in the pursuit of that calling. After getting many into trouble to whom he sold his books, he had abjured, and carried a faggot from St. Mary's to Frideswolde College, wearing his red hood of a master on his back ; and then he had been imprisoned in Osney Abbey. After this he appears to have entered the train of Crumwel : and was employed by him in the capacity of a preacher in Calais, at the time of the obscure heretical seditions in that town, in which Butulph and Damplip were concerned. t But the most remarkable of the three was Barnes. This martyr had been prior of the Austin friars of Cambridge, where he was known among the early humanists as a friend of polite learning before he became conspicuous for evangelical zeal. But soon joining the early Gospellers, he be- came the friend and associate of Stafford, Bilney, and the rest. He was also the acquaintance and companion of Gardiner : who has drawn his portrait in colours
because he said (and indeed at that time on a just cause), ' Burgesses,' quoth he, ' nay, butterflies.' Lord, what ado there was for that word ! " — Latimer s Plough Sermoti.
* Ellis, iii. 3, 258 ; Froude, iii. 404. t Fox.
I540.] Jerome, Garret, and Barnes. 253
not the most favourable.* He was a man of sincere religious zeal : but somewhat light and heady, and perhaps not very gifted. His first reputation was gained by an attack on prelatical pomp, as exhibited in the splendours of Cardinal Wolsey. This is the ordinary outlet of an ordinary mind. The great Cardinal asked him with some contempt whether " he had not sufficient scope in the Scriptures to teach the people, without falling foul on his golden shoes, his poleaxes, his pillars, and his crosses, which represented the King's Majesty." Barnes recanted, and walked round a fire at St. Paul's, bearing a faggot in company with four other abjurers. He was put in the Fleet for half a year, enjoying however the liberties of the prison ; and then was committed as " a free prisoner " to the keeping of the Austin friars of London. Being brought into trouble again by those " caterpillars and bloody beasts " (I quote the figurative language of Fox), he was sent to the house of the same order in Northampton : whence he escaped by pretending to be dead, and fled over seas to more congenial companions in Wittenberg. In his exile he wrote books : one of which called forth no less an adversary than Sir Thomas More, who exhausted upon " Friar Barnes " the quiver of his wit. Returning to England at the epoch of Anne Boleyn, he received the patron- age of Crumwel and the favour of the King : he
* " Barnes, whom I knew first at Cambridge, a trim minion frere Augustine, was a merry scoffing wit, friarlike ; and as a good fellow in company was beloved of many : a doctor of divinity he was, but never like to have proved either martyr or confessor in Christ's religion : and yet he began there to exercise railing (which among such as newly profess Christ is a great piece of cunning, and a great forwardness to reputation, especially if he rail of bishops, as Barnes began, and to please such of the lower sort as envieth our authority) chiefly against my Lord Cardinal, then, under the King's Majesty, having the high administration of the realm." — Declaration against Joye.
254 Jerome, Garret, and Barnes. [ch. x.
became a preacher in the City, and was employed more than once in the King's foreign affairs. We have seen him on the conference which was held with the German orators. His last appointment was ambassador into Germany in the matter of Anne of Cleves : and this he obtained against the opposition of Gardiner.*
Such was the previous history of these three men, who by their common suffering for unproved heresies were to vindicate the orthodoxy of the Supreme Head. The occasion which took them to the fire was found in the Lent of the previous year,t and the sermons at Paul's Cross. The first sermon, which was preached by the Bishop of Winchester, had inflamed the zeal of the Gospellers by an attack on their abuse of the Scrip- tures. " By the abuse of Scripture," exclaimed the preacher, " Satan tempted Christ : he tempts men to this day by the abuse of Scripture. He bids men go back from all that is necessary : from confession, from the Sacraments, from prayer and fasting. The Romish pardons are gone, by which Heaven was to
* An attempt has been made to connect Gardiner with the fall of Crmiiwel on account of this embassy of Barnes to the court of Cleves. Gardiner opposed the appointment of Barnes, a man suspected of heresy. Crumwel hereupon, who found in Barnes an emissary for his own purposes not less than a public ambassador, got Gardiner excluded from the Privy Council (Froude, iii. 445). It does not follow that Gardiner had any par- ticular share in Crumwel's fall : perhaps he had rather less than he would have had if he had not been excluded from the Council.
t The historians speak as if the whole of the troubles of Barnes and his fellows happened together in this year, 1540. But Wriothesley (p.' 114) says that Barnes's sermon against Gardiner was preached "in the mid Lent Sunday of last year," i.e. in 1539. This is confirmed by the letter of Barnes to y^pinus, in which he describes himself as engaged in a tremendous controversy with Gardiner and the Bishop of London. Orig. Lett. p. 616. That letter is dated May 21, and the editors have conjecturally added the year 1540. But as Barnes was in the Tower by the beginning of April in that year, he could hardly have written that letter afterwards, in which he speaks as if he were at large ; even if he could have written a letter at all. I have no doubt that the troubles of Garret and Jerome also began in 1539.
I540.] Barnes s Dispiite with Gardiner. 255
be purchased for a little money. The friars, who were the devil's ministers in that merchandise, are gone, with all their trumpery.* But the devil is not yet gone." Barnes, who was one of the appointed preachers, delivered, when his turn came, from the same text a violent attack on the bishop, whom he likened to a fighting cock, and himself to another. "The garden cock," said he, "has bad spurs. He is no grammarian ; and deserves to be whipped like a schoolboy for his performance," Of this affront Gardiner appeared insensible and negligent, but some of his friends complained to the King : who sent for Barnes and re- buked him sternly.f The indiscreet preacher offered, like Lambert, to submit to his Majesty : but who ever avoided personal responsibility like Henry? Rather than not divide responsibility with any, he would divide it with Heaven. " Yield not to me," said he; "I am a mortal man." Then, turning to the Sacrament, which stood on an altar beside, he took off his bonnet, and said, " Yonder is the Master of us all, the Author of truth. Yield in truth to Him, and that Truth will I defend : and otherwise yield thee not unto me.'' However, he wisely directed him to confer with Gardiner for the settlement of their differences. Barnes repaired to the bishop : and after a disputation of two hours was reduced to silence and humility by the arguments of his antagonist. He was then, by order of the King, received into the bishop's house, in free custody, for further instruction. The bishop began by administering a gentle purgative in the form of some exceedingly mild Articles to be signed by his
* "White, black, and grey, with all their trumpery." Milton would know Gardiner's sermon through his Fox.
t Fox says that Gardiner himself complained to the King : Burnet and Collier that his friends did it.
256 Recantations of the Three Martyrs, [ch. x.
guest : whereupon the latter, on the second day of his sojourn, suddenly left the house, saying that he came to confer with the bishop, and would stay for no other reason. This conduct grievously incensed the King : who now commanded Barnes, and with him Garret and Jerome, to make three sermons at St. Mary's, Spital ; and openly to recant the doctrines which they had taught before. At the first sermon, which fell to the lot of Barnes, Gardiner was present, whom Barnes, observing, requested to give him a token of forgiveness by holding up his hand. This the bishop did, with some slowness, it is said.* The preacher then read his recantation : but followed it by a sermon in which he affirmed again all that he had just re- nounced. The same course was taken, in their turn, by Garret and Jerome.f After this there was no more dallying with them. They were committed to the Tower, attainted of unspecified heresies, and con- demned to Smithfield. As in the case of Friar Forest, a simple declaration on the part of the authorities, of their errors and their obstinacy, made in the place which was to have witnessed their sincere recantation, seems to have been deemed sufficient in the place of a trial, or of the further proof of guilt. On the Sunday following their committal, April 4, Doctor Wilson delivered at Paul's Cross a summary of their offensive prelections : and, by the King's command- ment, exhibited and read aloud their submission.
* Fox. Perhaps the bishop was taken by surprise, as Wriothesley says that his asking him for pardon was " of his own mind, not by no com- pulsion nor commandment of the King" (p. 114). Gardiner himself says that Barnes did it " out of wantonness." See Declar. ag. Joyc, which gives many curious particulars about Barnes, in fact a biography of him.
t Their recantation is given by Burnet, Coll. iii. 22. Gardiner says that Barnes " preached the contrary of that he had recanted so ardently, that the Mayor himself asked whether he should from the pulpit send him to ward, to be forthcoming to answer for his contemptuous behaviour."
I540.] The Burning of Them. 257
Taking some of the articles to which they had sub- scribed, he showed how craftily in their sermons they had coloured them by false exposition, violating the sense of Scripture, and evading the intention of the King. " My song," exclaimed the preacher in con- clusion, " shall be of mercy and judgment : unto thee, O Lord, will I sing ! So sang David, and so says his Majesty. I therefore bid you all beware hence- forth of seditious doctrine on pain of punishment ; for his Majesty is bound by God's Word to chastise transgressors." *
Barnes, Garret, and Jerome died with unshaken firmness, exhorting the people to leave off their evil customs of profane swearing, profligate living, and, above all, of leaving their wives for every cause or no cause. They declared with truth that they were ignorant of the reason why their lives were taken from them ; for no reason was assigned in their attainder beyond the general charge of heresy. t They died martyrs to that excess of tyranny which now made
* Wriothesley. They were kept in prison four months after this, to the end of July, but nothing more seems to have been done to bring them round.
t Hall says that he read their attainder, but could find in it no reason why they were burned. Mr. Froude has transcribed a page of it, but it contains only general accusations (iii. 518). He says that their names were put into the bill of attainder " by the friends of the bishops," which is one of those unproved assertions which falsify history. Collier's obser- vation is just : '' By the Act of Attainder Parliament had for ever taken the cognisance of religious belief out of the bishops' courts, and made themselves judges of heresy" (ii. 183). The dying words of these three mart^TS are in Fox. They are all entirely free from anything that could be called heretical, and they protest their detestation of the Anabaptists and other heretics. The protestation of Barnes was the longest and seems to have acquired some celebrity at the time. It was printed immediately, and was attacked by John Standish of Whittington College, London (Strype, i. 570), to whom Coverdale replied (Coverdale's Reuiains, Park. Soc. p. 320). It is a very touching and noble declaration of innocence and a most orthodox confession of faith. VOL. IL S
258 The Privy Cowicil. [ch. x.
heresy a crime against the royal majesty ; and their death hes at the door, not of the bishops and clergy, but of the King and Parliament of England.*
The fall of Crumwel was an event which neither shook Europe nor retarded the operation of the new loyalty. The business powers which he had assumed, the offices which he had accumulated on himself, were arranged and distributed among the other high officers of the court and the crown : and under the powerful control of the King all seemed to go as smoothly and prosperously as before. The Privy Council took in a manner the place of the late Privy Seal and Vice- gerent : and though perhaps it found much new and curious business thrown upon it, yet it proved itself equal to the discharge of every duty. Crumwel had not been dead a fortnight before a clerk was appointed to record the acts of the diligent body which thus suc- ceeded him: although no clerk, no register had recorded
* Great efforts have been made by Hall, Fox, and others, to fix the blame of this triple execution on Gardiner, or at least to saddle him with the death of Barnes. Gardiner himself denied that he had any share in the tragedy beyond being in Parliament when they were attainted. He said that he never attempted indirectly to procure their death, and had no access to the King or Council while Crumwel lived. They were attainted, it will be remembered, before Crumwel was. As for Barnes, though he had not the highest opinion of him, yet his relations with him seem to have been uniformly friendly, i. He stood bail for him, when he first got into trouble with Wolsey. 2. He seems not to have complained to the King when Barnes attacked him in the pulpit ; and afterwards, when at the end of their two hov;rs' disputation Barnes begged him to forgive him, and take him for his scholar, Gardiner replied that he would take him, not as his scholar, but as his companion, and offered to allow him sixty pounds a year out of his own living. 3. When Barnes walked off, and left the Bishop's house, it was not Gardiner who told the King, but certain "popish sycophants." 4. Nor was it Gardiner who made the final report to the King of the behaviour of all three in the Spittal church ; but cer- tain informers whom the King set on watch. All these particulars, except one, are gathered out of Fox himself, so that Hall's bitter remark seems untrue, that Gardiner made Barnes his scholar, and put him in a school- house called the Tower, and whipped him with a whip of fire till he had
I540.] Its Extraordinary Activity. 259
the acts of the Privy Council for a hundred years.* A great destiny seems to have been expected : and the affairs which devolved on the Privy Council demanded official regularity. Henceforth for several years of this reign, and through the reign which followed, we have the minutes of the most extraordinary inquisition that ever sat in England. f We may see the inner working of the machinery of the revolution : and witness at our will the mutual animosities or the resolute unanimity of the terrible conclave which governed England immediately under the great tyrant : and which, after his death, developed itself into the vilest of cabals. The Acts of the Privy Council take the place of the curious Memoranda, through which Crumwel assisted his memory, or recorded his achievements.!
Any man or woman, living anywhere in England, needed to feel no surprise at receiving any day " a
pounded him to ashes. In his dying protestation Barnes said that if Gardiner had sought his death, he prayed God to forgive him, freely and without feigning. Standish remarks on this that it was " feigned charity." Coverdale repHes that the one was reconciled to the other at the Spital. Confut. of SiandisJi, 435.
* Not since the reign of Henry the Sixth, and the year 1435. See Sir Harris Nicolas's Preface to Proceedings of Ihe P?'ivy Council, vol. vii. The new clerk was William Paget, who was appointed August 10.
t The Council Book was kept regularly for three years, down to 1543 ; and has been edited by Sir H. Nicolas. It was then intermitted to the end of Henry's reign, or at least it is not preserved in the Council Office. On the accession of Edward the Sixth it was resumed, but no more of it has been printed. It is to be regretted that a series of documents so essential to the history of the sixteenth century should still remain in manuscript. [It is now imprinted.]
+ I must not be understood to say that the Council began its great activity at this time, though it may have increased it through Crumwel's fall. No doubt it was active enough before, and this is the explanation of many things. For instance, this was probably the reason why informa- tion was given to the King of the sermons of Barnes and Garret, and the reason why Barnes had an interview with the King.
S 2
26o The Privy Coimcil. [ch. x.
privy seal," or writ, summoning him before the Council. Part of the Council was always in London, often in the Star Chamber : part of it accompanied the King whithersoever he went : and besides this, there was a " Council of the North," a " Council of Wales," and a " Council of Calais : " which seem to have been constituted on the model of the Privy Council itself. Before any of these Boards the suspected delinquent might be cited to appear. He might find himself accused by his brother or his son, by his neighbour or his friend, or by some of the paid spies and informers who abounded everywhere. The matter alleged against him might be of any conceivable kind, from his demeanour towards the authorities to his behaviour towards his humblest acquaintances : of any degree of importance, from high treason to a quarrel about a boundary stone. Nothing was beneath the cognisance of the Council : but they seem to have aimed above all things to suppress the slightest manifestation of public feeling. With this view they made themselves arbiters in all kinds of private dis- putes, lest private disputes should spread further. For the crimes of sedition and treason, or anything that could be construed into those crimes, they had no mercy. The least whisper against the doings of the King, that might be breathed by the meanest beggar, the poorest priest, the humblest woman, was heard by that high court, where sat the archbishop, several of the ablest prelates, the two dukes, three or four earls, all the Kino^'s chancellors, and the chief officers of the royal household. The rack in the Tower, which Crumwel had used, was not always forgotten in the examinations, which were conducted by his multifarious representatives : in their punishments they were not always unmindful of the pillory, the nails, and the red-
1
I540.] Grafton brought before it. 261
hot irons. If the case were made out, the accused, according to the offence, was sent to the Tower, returned to his county to be tried, or sentenced summarily at the discretion of the court. But, on the other hand, if the charge were deemed frivolous, or insufficiently supported, the informer was sharply reprimanded and compelled on his knees to ask pardon of the accused, to retract the accusation before the Council, and to repeat his retractation in some public place, often in his parish church. The innocent person was then free to go : but he got no compensation for his detention and annoyance. He was often indeed compelled to enter into recognisances to a large amount to obey any command which the Council might impose. On the one hand, this strange tribunal interfered in private affairs, which were no proper subject for public measures : on the other hand, it sometimes overrode the course of law, and decided questions which ought to have gone before a jury. At the same time it multiplied Royal Proclamations, which had the force of laws of Parliament : and thus drew to itself part of the legislative power. And yet the Parliament, which had remedied with such indignant vigour the incon- veniences of the spiritual courts, will be found anon struggling to facilitate the operations of the Privy Council.*
Melanchthon's expostulation against the Six Articles had roused the ire of the King. To translate, to imprint, or publish that eloquent Epistle was made
* All that I have said may be confirmed from the able preface of Sir Harris Nicolas, who spares not his indignation at what he relates. The Privy Council, he says, " exercised a despotic control over the free- dom and property of every man in the realm.'' " Its vigilance was unre- mitting, and its resentment was fatal." " The number of persons accused before it of sedition and treason was astonishing." In pursuing these charges the conduct of the Council was " perfectly frightful."
262 The Privy Council and Grafton, [ch. x.
matter of sedition : and the attempt to do so brought Grafton to sudden disgrace, the enterprising publisher, the indulged of Crumwel ; who now followed his patron in a softer fall from a lower elevation. His heaviness, which happily endured but for a time, was involved with the further fortunes of the Great Bible : and will enable us to behold the paternal but formidable asses- sors of the throne of Henry in their daily work. They had heard with concern that two men named Smith and Gray, one of them a. late servant in Crumwel's household, and perhaps one of his discoursing wits and pregnant ballad-mongers, were engaged in a paper war, and were publishing "invectives" against one another. They summoned the two combatants, along with Banks, the reputed publisher of their " invectives," to appear before them in the first days of the year 1 541 : when Banks threw the blame on Grafton. The latter, for he had been summoned also, owned that he was the printer of the invectives : and then he was examined of a still more serious matter. The alarming intelligence had been received that Melanchthon's Epistle had been translated into English : and Grafton was asked what he knew about that. He acknow- ledged that he had the edition in stock : whereupon he was committed to the porter's ward.
It would have been useless for Grafton to have attempted denial or concealment. The vigilant Board had already arrested Thomas Walpole, the translator of the Epistle, who lived in the diocese of Norwich. They had arrested Mrs. Blage, a grocer's wife in Chepe, who had given a copy of the book to Cottiswood, a priest. They had arrested Cottiswood, a priest, chaplain of the Bishop of Ely, who had given the same copy to Derrick, a priest : and they had arrested Derrick, who was a priest, a Fleming,
1540-] The Great Bible. 263
and servant to the Bishop of Ely. Mrs. Blage confessed that it was Grafton who gave her the copy. She and Derrick were dismissed : but Smith, Gray, Walpole, Cottiswood, and Grafton were sent to the Fleet : where Grafton lay six weeks.
The enterprising publisher seems to have been questioned, in the course of his examinations, concern- ing his whole career as a Biblical printer : and it would appear that an annotated edition of the Great Bible which he was thought to be preparing, caused a severe restraint to be laid upon him by the court.* Convinced therefore that the Bible was not likely to remain a good commodity, he seems to have disposed of his existing stock to another merchant ; and turned himself into a more promising path of ecclesiastical publication. Another person, Anthony Marler, a merchant or haberdasher of London, was appointed by order, April 25, to sell the Great Bibles. f But Marler seems to have repented of the bargain very speedily, and, like Grafton before him, considered that compulsion, applied to parsons and parishes, would be a thing that would greatly assist the sale. He re-
* Fox has preserved the circumstances : " Then Grafton was called and first charged with the printing of Matthew's Bible, but he, being fearful of trouble, made excuses for himself in all things. Then he was examined of the Great Bible, and what Notes he was proposed to make, to which he answered that he knew none. For his purpose was to have retained learned men to have made the Notes, but when he perceived the King's Majesty and his clergy not willing to have any, he proceeded no further. But for all these excuses Grafton was sent to the Fleet, and there remained six weeks, and before he came out, was bound in three hundred pounds that he should neither sell, nor imprint, or cause to be imprinted, any more Bibles, until the King and the clergy should agree upon a translation. And thus was the Bible from that time stayed, during the reign of King Henry the Eighth."
t " It was agreed that Anthony Marler, of London, merchant, might sell the Bibles of the great volume unbound for ten shillings sterling, and bound, being trimmed with bullions for twelve shillings sterling'." Acts of Pi'ivy Council, vii. i8i.
264 Second Persecution under Six Articles [ch. x.
quested to have a Royal Proclamation to enforce all churches yet unprovided to buy a Bible by some appointed da}' : otherwise he said that he should be undone for ever, being " charged with an importune sum of the said Books now lying on his hands."* He obtained his request ; and a stringent Proclamation was issued, May 6, enjoining every church to have a Great Bible by All Saints' Day, on pain of a fine of forty shillings a month, four times the value of the book, to be paid half to the King and half to the informer. In this edict there were the usual, the necessary admonitions against reading the Bible " with loud and high voices in time of the celebration of the holy Mass, and other divine services used in the church," and against common disputations, arguments, and expositions. t It may have assisted Marler in getting rid of his stock : and he seems to have been encouraged to think of printing more : for a Royal Breve a year later gave him the privilege of sole printer of the Bible for four years to come.| But the times were changed : the patent was useless ; no Biblical enterprise could now succeed, and Grafton's last edition of the Great Bible remained the last edition of any Bible, great or small, that was printed in this reio^n.
* Acts of Privy Council, vii. 185. Marler presented the King with a magnificent vellum copy of the Great Bible, of Grafton's edition of 1540, in three volumes. It is now in the British Museum. There seems no reason to think that Marler had any previous connection with this edition or any other of the editions of 1540, 1541 ; or that he "defrayed the expense" of them (Westcott, p. 79, from whom I differ with hesitancy on a minute point). He seems to have bought the stock, and made the King a present out of it.
t Wilkins, iii. 856.
+ "We have given and granted to our well beloved subject Anthony Marler, citizen and haberdasher of our city of London, only to print the Bible in our English tongue, authorised, or hereafter to be authorised by us" 12 Mar. (1542). Rymer, xiv. 745.
I540-] Boiiners Alleged Brutality. 265
At the beginning of the year 1541, commissions were again issued to the bishops and other officials, lay and clerical, to proceed against the heretics : and the second persecution under the Six Articles broke out. In the diocese of London, where it chiefly raged, a collection of more than two hundred offenders was rapidly secured by the same active agents who had figured in the first persecution : two juries were impanelled to try them : and all things seem to have been conducted on the model of the former proceed- inors. But once more the zeal of the new ordinaries was defeated in the end, though one or two notable examples of barbarity occurred. A boy of fifteen years, named Richard Mekins, was accused of participating in the unknown heresies of Barnes : and was burned or hanged in Smithfield.* The blame of this atrocity has been cast by the consent of history upon the Bishop of London : and it is at this time that the legendary Bonner, the inconceivable brute of the later martyrology, leaps suddenly into perfect life. The adroit prelate, who had climbed into eminence through the patronage of Crumwel, had begun his episcopate by the zealous promotion of the New Learning. In his vast cathedral church of St. Paul he had set up no less than six Great Bibles for the use of the people. But no sooner was his patron fallen, than all was changed. With the indecency which formed part of the strange character that has been delineated by hatred or indignation, he is said to have expressed regret that the benefactor, whose favours he had acknowledged by the humblest adu- lation, had not fallen sooner: and a strong inhibition which he issued against unlicensed heretical preachers
* Fox says that he was burned ; Wriothesley that he was hanged.
266 Second Persecution tinder Six Articles, [ch. x.
proclaimed the new direction of his zeal* Such was the beginning of the opportune change which is said to have manifested a ripe perfection now that the powers of an inquisitor were granted to him, among others, by the commission of the King. He opens the session at the Guildhall for the trial of heretics. He animates the juries by an exhortation to spare none. Informations are laid, and presentments made by the score and the hundred : but the juries, warned by the miscarriage of the former year, will find nothing. Then Bonner chafes and rages, thirsting for blood. He browbeats both the juries and the Recorder: he swears and curses. Thus it is that he obtains the condemnation of the boy Mekins, who is said to have been treated very harshly during his imprisonment. And yet it is hard to discover even from the pages which convey these serious imputations that this sanguinary monster exceeded his official duty. The exhortation to spare none appears on examination to be an exhortation to be impartial to all.f The boy Mekins died lamenting that he had ever known Barnes ; and, for heretics do strange things, speaking " much good of Bonner, and of the charity that he showed him." And it is in the words which Bonner let fall during these proceedings that we may find the
* Wilkins, iii. 855. It is dated October 22, 1540.
t It is the honest Strype, such is the power of prejudice, who in his version of Fox's narrative makes Bonner exhort the jury simply to " spare none" (i. 566). This is harder on the Bishop than Fox himself, who adds, " of whatsoever degree they were." What Bonner did, as Fox tells us, was to relate to the jury a story of the Greek Anacharsis conveying the above moral of impartiality. This story of Anacharsis must have been, as Maitland observes, the well known saying of the sage, that laws were like cobwebs, which held flies, but were broken by bigger insects. — Essays^ 273. Bonner's commission, with the oath which he was to administer, and the names of the commissioners whom he was to appoint, is preserved in Fox. They seem all to have been laymen except the Bishop's commissary or official.
I540.] Case of John Porter. 267
hitherto unnoticed shred of evidence, which proves that the clergy of his diocese laid no informations, made no presentments, and had no more to do with the second persecution under the Six Articles than they had to do with the first*
Another victim of the rage of the bloody bishop was John Porter, a young man who used to frequent St. Paul's, and read to the people out of the great Bibles which Bonner had set up. He was presented, not however for reading, but for expounding also, contrary to the king's proclamations and to the admonition which Bonner had posted up over the Bibles : and not only expounding, but gathering great multitudes about him to make tumult.f For these offences he was committed, not to the Bishop's prison, but to the King's prison of Newgate : and died
* The juries, remembering how their findings had been quashed in the first persecution, at first found nothing, to the disappointment of Bonner. One of the jurors then reminded him how they had erred on that occasion for want of instruction from the clergy, which had been denied them. This we have seen already. The Recorder confirmed the juror, and added that as they were still without the help of the clergy, they had resolved to give no information of heresy to the Bishop by their verdicts. His words have been given above, p. 136. Bonner then explained that the reason why the clergy had been forbidden to give information was lest they should be supposed to have betrayed the secrets of confession. He said, " Nay, nay, this was the cause : If the Parson or Curate should give information according to his knowledge, then what will they say ? ' I must tell my confession to Knave-Priest ; and he shall go by and by, and open it.' " The Lord Mayor exclaimed that no man would speak so. " Yes," said Bonner, " Knave-Priest, Knave-Priegt." The Lord Mayor smiled and said that some priests were slippery fellows, and men spoke as they found them. The Bishop, not seeming to relish this, began to speak of Mekins. — Fox.
t The admonition which Bonner put up over the Great Bibles was, that " Whosoever repaireth hither to read this book, or any such like in any other place, bring with him humility and discretion, avoid vainglory and hypocrisy, disturb not others, make no multitude, make no exposition other than it is declared in the Book itself, and use no reading with noise in time of divine service or sermon." — Burnet, Coll. iii. 25 ; or JVz'lkJns, iii. 863.
268 Second Persecution midev Six Articles, [ch. x.
there, oppressed, it is said, by the weight of his irons.* For the rest, the persecution in London was more extensive than severe. Of the collection of above two hundred persons who were presented, no more than three were imprisoned : the rest were not punished at all. The zeal of the new ordinaries of the Church, whether instigated b}^ the Bishop or not, was found arain to have outrun moderation : and for the second time a release of the prisoners was issued by Audley from the Star Chamber. They were allowed to stand surety for one another ; and were all discharged, being bound to appear in the Star Chamber on the day after All Saints', if they should be called. The day came : nobody was called, and nobody appeared. The offences for which these persons were presented, on the information apparently of laymen, might be divided between a candid in- decency, an unaffected profanity, and a steady neglect of those observances which it was the strength or the weakness of the old system to demand from all. Some of them had disturbed the services in churches by loud reading of the English Bible; by "brabbling" of the New Testament ; by walking in with their caps on at the time when they judged that the elements were being consecrated ; by sitting ostentatiously at their doors, while sermons were in the church ; or by " withstanding the curate," when he was performing
* Fox ; compare Maitland's observations on the case, s Essays, p. 286. Maitland seems to have missed his mark in this part of his valuable work. He tries to prove, against Fox, that many of the cases did not fall under the Six Articles. He has not much success in this ; and if he wanted to defend the clergy (as he did), he should have gone on the other tack. In point of fact, the distinction which he makes between one case and another is worth nothing. All the cases came before commissioners, who were appointed by the King's commission, according to the Six Articles ; and the clergy had nothing to do with any of them.
1541 •] Character of the Presented Heretics. 269
the ceremonies of divine worship. Others were merry jesters, who dehghted in repeating the same rudimentary jokes ; as, that the mass was called a miss in foreio^n countries because of all that was amiss in it : or, that the priest, when he prepared the mass, went a masking. Others had expressed their scorn of the ceremonies of the Church by emblematical actions ; as he that put holy bread into the throat of a bitch, or he that imitated mass amonof his neisfhbours with a piece of bread and a cup of wine. Others had maintained boys to sing against the Sacrament, or had procured interludes to be played, in which priests were reviled and called knaves. Others were presented for not coming to church, not receiving at Easter, never being confessed in Lent, working on holy days, or " despising " the saints and Our Lady : there were both men and women among these martyrs ; and some of the women were famous readers in church. Besides them, there were some priests, most of them city clergy, who were dealt with a little more sharply, several of them being made to recant, and two or three being clapped into the counter or the Fleet. There was Doctor Taylor, priest of St. Peter's, Corn- hill, who had been concerned against Lambert, who preached that it was as profitable to kiss Judas's mouth as to hear mass and see the Sacrament. There was Thomas Becon and two or three others, who were fond of heretical books. There was another who used to make holy water, leaving out the general exorcism : there was an unfortunate friar who had married a wife, contrary to the king's commandment. There were three Scottish friars, who had become preachers and curates in London. One of them preached against good works; another preached that priests might have wives ; the third used to send the beadle round to
270 The Countess of Salisbury. [ch. x.
summon selected persons to his sermons without ring- ing the bell, and, without the knowledge of his parson, would thus entertain a secret assembly with a savoury discourse. He was known as " the Scot of St. Katharine's," being curate of that church.*
Besides London, there were three men burned in Salisbury, for matter spoken against the Sacrament : one of them a priest, who had married a wife and become a player of interludes. In Lincoln there w^ere two more burned ; the blame of whose death is cast on Bishop Longland, though the cause which is assigned for it is manifestly insufficient.! Such was the second persecution under the Six Articles.
A small and insane attempt at insurrection, made in the city of York by Sir John Neville, ended in the further proscription of his own race, and the extinction of the line of Plahtacrenet. The knigrht was executed in the rebellious city : three of his companions expiated their guilt at Tyburn ; the rest, five priests included, gave in various places a demonstration of the unshaken power of the legal revolution. | The day of the death of the leader, and of those of his followers who suffered in London, May 17, w^as judiciously
* Fox.
t Fox says that one of them was burned for teaching the Lord's Prayer in English ; which the King had enjoined to be done. The other was burned for having St. James's Epistle in English. Their names were Thomas Bernard and James Morton. But all this seems to rest on Fox alone. The Revd. A. R. Maddison of the Cathedral Church of Lincoln informs me : " I have never been able to verify Fox's quotations from Bishop Longland's Register. - Either he never saw the Register, and listened to tales which he too credulously believed, or he saw a register which does not now exist. I searched the Register very carefully, as I particularly wished to find, if possible, some account of Longland's prosecutions ; but I found none. Some renunciations of heresies occur."
The three who were executed in Salisbury were Richard Spenser, a priest, one Ramsey, and one Hewet. + Hall.
I54I-] The Kings Northern Progress. 271
chosen for the execution of the long-imprisoned Margaret of Salisbury. But the reigning monarch might complain that the daughter of kings and the mother of traitors contrived to add an extraordinary horror to an ordinary event by her unexpected de- meanour on the scaffold. The spectacle of an untried prisoner brought to execution was common ; the spectacle of an aged woman refusing to yield her life, and pursued over the scaffold by the blows of the headsman, awoke a just and lasting feeling of disgust. After this, the king at length made that long- promised progress to the Northwhich hadbeenexpected and delayed from the end of the Pilgrimage of Grace. He passed through Lincolnshire and Yorkshire, re- ceiving the submissions, the acclamations, and, above all, the presents of the various towns which he visited. The town of Stanford gave him twenty pounds. Lincoln presented forty : and, for the gifts and sub- sidies of the clergy ever exceeded those of the laity, the church of Lincoln offered fifty. The donation of Keston was the same ; and the region of Linsey contributed three hundred more. His entrance into Yorkshire was distinguished by the presence and the presents of two hundred gentlemen in velvet coats, and four thousand tall yeomen well horsed. These fell on their knees, having nine hundred pounds in their hands. At Barnesdale he was met by the Arch- bishop of York, at the head of more than three hundred priests, with an oblation of six hundred pounds. The Mayors of York, of Newcastle, and of Hull, made the like submission, presenting each of them the gift of one hundred.* At York the monarch
o
* Hall. To read the modern account of this progress one might suppose that the gentry, yeomen, and clergy came out of pure enthusi- astic loyalty ; and that there was no such thing as giving of money in the whole manifestation.
272 Ireland. [ch. x.
abode twelve days ; there he devised some fortifications, and lodged in the stately manor-house v/hich had been erected for him from the buildings of the Abbey of St. Mary. An interview with the King of Scotland, which was proposed at York, was declined, though the English safe-conducts were prepared. At Hull he issued a Royal Breve or letter missive to the bishops for the more complete destruction of shrines, the coverings of shrines, tables, or any other monument, which micrht foster the belief in miracles and the continuance of pilgrimages.* Concerning the Parlia- ment of the North, which had been promised five years before to settle the Northern discontents, nothing was said and nothing was done.
By this time the unfortunate Catherine Howard was in the midst of her troubles ; and the year was ended in Eno-land with the trial and execution of her lovers and
o
accomplices.
Soon after the important victory of Bellahoe, Lord Leonard Grey, the Deputy of Ireland, was carried to England and the Tower on charges as paltry as were ever blown into high treason. In disdain or despair, the brave soldier pleaded guilty, threw himself on the mercy of the King, and was sent to the block. His successor, St. Leger, appeared to reap the benefit of his activity in the emulous submission of the Irish chiefs. The late rebels and malcontents crowded to the capital : courtesies and smiles were interchanged : and the new loyalty spread like an infection through * the country. The chiefs abandoned cheerfully some of their ancient dignities, to acquire new and imposing titles from England. Desmond valued no longer his ancestral exemption from attending any parliament or council. The other great chiefs, ceasing to avoid
* Wilkins, iii. 857.
I54I-] The Kings Style Altered. 273
Dublin, accepted the gift of houses in the city, for their accommodation in time of session. The ardour of O'Neal himself, of O' Brian, and De Burgo carried them across the Channel to the presence of the King : they returned sworn liegemen, and Earls respectively of Tyrone, Clanricard, and Thomond. The new created nobles, the Irish council, the tranquil Pale, felt the sentiment of gratitude, and breathed the request that the sovereign Lord who honoured them would receive from their country the loftier title of King.* The suggestion was good : for the higher title added to the dignity of the territory from which it was derived. But the real cause of this enthusiasm was that the Kino- was dealing^ forth the monastic lands among- the chiefs and nobles with a prodigality for which a parallel could scarcely be found even in the annals of the English suppression. After the memorable Irish session of 1536, the destruction of the religious houses seems to have proceeded without even the pretence of formality. No scheme of alienation was too exten- sive to be proposed. The operations of landlords and jobbers were aided by distance and obscurity : and by the time that the Irish Parliament met again, in 1541, the suppression appears to have been complete.!
* In December, 1540, the Council advised Henry to take the title of King of Ireland ; alleging a foolish opinion among the Irish that the Pope was king. — State Pap. iii. 278.
t In March, 1 541, three months before the meeting of the Parliament at Dublin, the King wrote to the Deputy and Council that he would have true surveys made of all lands that had come to him by attainders, sur- renders, or suppressions, that he might dispose of some of them to Englishmen ; that the late friars' houses should be surveyed, and either reserved to his commodity or sold to honest men, or to the townships where they were situate. Any three of the Council were to have authority to sell, provided that the due reservation of the twentieth part were made. — lb. 295. Dr. Miller, however, says that the ordinances for suppressing monasteries were imperfectly executed, and that the abbeys of three northern counties, Tyrone, Donegal, and Fermanagh, subsisted till the reign of James I. — Philos. of Hist. iii. 284. VOL. II. T
274 Ireland. [ch. x.
The Parliament met in June, to sanction the revolu- tion. Amid the rejoicing and bonfires of Dublin, it invested the English monarch with the title of King of Ireland. Against clerical incontinency it passed an act founded on the last piece of English legislation on that subject. It empowered the Deputy and Council to establish some vicars or parsons in the parson- ages lately appropriated to religious houses, with endowments not to exceed fourteen pounds a year. And, like the English Parliament, by a retrospective statute it ensured the suppressed lands of the monas- teries to the King and his heirs for ever.*
Such was the boasted pacification, or Second Con- quest of Ireland by Henry the Eighth. It is difficult to discern the noble features of enlightenment, and zeal for the public good which have been alleged to be easily apparent therein : and it is certain that the success which it had was more specious than solid. To the English sovereign there was ofiered, by the victories of Grey and the conciliation of the Irish chiefs, the fairest opportunity which had ever yet occurred of affecting a beneficent revolution in the country. The Irish chiefs were conciliated, it is true, by unexampled robbery and bribery. But robbery and bribery have received fairer names, when it has been imagined that anything of public advantage has come out of them. Where can any provision for the public advantage be perceived in Henry's Irish transactions ? He never rose in any action of his life beyond personal interest to a oreneral view. So far as the new title could consolidate the unity of the kingdom, so far as the new tenure of military service could bind the fickleness of the chiefs, the high station of the monarch turned his personal aggrandisement to the benefit of
* 32 H. VIII.; Irish Statutes.
I54I-] Little done there for Public Good. 275
the country. But there were far more important and obvious needs, which would now have been remedied by a purer ambition. The great want of Ireland was equal laws. In return for the wealth and honours that were lavished upon them, the great chieftains might now have been persuaded to admit English law into their vast dominions. The smaller septs might now have been defended from their powerful neighbours by receiving them under royal protection. But the ofreat chieftains returned from Greenwich and Dublin to minister Irish law, or the law of their own will, among their dependencies, as heretofore. The petition of several of the smaller septs to be admitted into the English jurisdiction was ineffectual. All that was done on this great opportunity for the permanent extension of the English system was, the division of a county into two.*
* Gordon's Ireland, i. 243.
T 2
CHAPTER XI.
Henry VIII. — a.d. 1542, 1543.
Hitherto I have pursued a rigorous method in re- lating the statutory provisions of this reign for the reformation of the Church. The Parliamentary sessions, their debates, their acts have been first described at length : and the attendant Convocations of the clergy have regularly and humbly followed. But the in- creased importance of the clergy, under the so-called Catholic reaction of the later years of Henry, may warrant some relaxation of this method : a briefer glance may be cast at the proceedings of Parliament, and they may even be subordinated in some degree to the clerical assemblies. The ecclesiastical measures of the laity, now that the revolution was so far ac- complished, became of less magnitude than they had been before : some of them were originally suggested by the clergy : a few were actually submitted to the clergy, and may be perused as well at St. Paul's, as within the walls of Westminster.
The Parliamentary session, which was begun January 16, was memorable for an extraordinary outburst of the eloquence of the new loyalty. The Lord Chancellor delivered a speech which perhaps surpassed the most meritorious efforts of Rich and Crumwel. Those former orators had compared the
The New Loyalty. 277
King to Solomon or Absalom. " David," said the Lord Chancellor, perhaps with more loyalty than Biblical erudition, " King David asked neither for riches nor honour, but for wisdom and understanding. Our sovereign lord has breathed the same petition with the like fervour : and has he not obtained it ? He has been anointed with the oil of wisdom above his fellows, above the rest of the kings of the earth, above all his progenitors ! The wisdom that he has acquired is manifest in three ways : in understanding of the Word of God, in military skill, and in political knowledge. As for the first, has he not slain his giant, the Roman Goliah, with a sling and stone ? He has : and the metaphor that I have used may be interpreted more exactly. The shaft of that sling is the King himself: the stone is the Word of God : the strings, composed of many threads, may be likened to the preachers of the Word : and it may be hoped that the threads of those strings (for on this point only is a caution needed) may not be too long, too lax, too weak, to hurl the stone with full force at the right moment. As to the next part of wisdom, the science of the art of war, bear witness, Gallia ; and let Scotia tell. Their baffled arms, their ravaged coasts proclaim our King invincible. And no less, with regard to political wisdom, I bid you remember the peace of thirty years which we enjoyed, when all the world beside was at war. I bid you remember intestine commotions com- posed without bloodshed, the barbarous nation of Ireland reduced to order, the coast defended by repairing old forts and erecting some new ones. Are not these things the proof that as his Majesty prayed the prayer of David, so he has obtained the request of his lips so abundantly, that no king of whom history bears record is comparable to his Majesty ? "
278 Parliament. [ch. xi.
The lords professed themselves to be thoroughly persuaded of it : they all rose, and inclined themselves with the greatest reverence : they declared how will- ingly, with what unreluctant minds, they bore that powerful sovereignty : what gratitude they owed to God who had committed the reins of empire to such a prince.* The orator then turned to present affairs. " Our republic," said he, " is the work of the King, who will never fail us. It consists of three estates, of prelates, lords, and commons. They are all here in this representative assembly : and the cause for which they are here is, the glory of God, the establishing of the people in the unity of the faith, and the rejection of false opinions, whether new or old."
The next session was dignified by the presence of the King himself: and the new loyalty was aroused to the utmost by the sight of the wronged husband who was about to bereave himself of another wife. The attainder of the unhappy Katharine Howard and her complices was indeed the great business of the session : but no more need be said of it. As his Majesty passed to the throne, every knee was bent, and every eye was wet with loyalty. Another orator was found for the occasion, who was equal to the last : for the Commons presented their new speaker, Sir Thomas Moyle. " I divide goods," said this ingenious person, " into two classes : those which are inherent in the man himself, and those which may be shared by others. And I ask myself, I ask you, what shall be said of our sovereign lord the King, both as to the one, and as to the other. The former class consists of the gifts of the person and of the mind. Now consider his
* " Pro persuasissimo acceperunt. — Quam pronis animis ferant illiiis imperium, et quantum Deo debeant, qui Principatum tali Principi guber- nandum commisit." — Lords' Journals.
1542.] The New Loyalty. 2'-jg
Highness with regard to these. I appeal to all the world. Are not his personal graces, and the virtues of his mind without parallel in the human race ? The other kind of goods are those in which others may participate. They are prudence, liberality, and such other virtues. And, oh, here have we not reason to praise and honour his Majesty?" He concluded by requesting freedom of speech, and license to approach the royal person in case of difficulty. Henry replied, by his chancellor, that he knew of no such gifts and virtues in himself: but ascribed all to God. He granted their requests with some precaution. So great was the gratitude of an enriched assembly.*
After this they went to business. They corrected the fraudulence of those who forged the names and sold the possessions of others, of those who made counterfeit letters, seals, or other privy tokens, to get money or goods : a kind of crime which seems to have been fostered by the enormous sales and exchanges of land which were going on everywhere. They extended the penalties of treason to lunatics, provided that they had gone mad after committing their treasons : f and
* Lords' Journals. I have endeavoured to clothe the Latin abstract of these speeches ; but I feel sure that I have not approached their elo- quence. Mr. Froude (iv. 135) has done the same for the former of them. It is fair to add that Lord Audley touched upon the evils of the times. " Attigit oppressionem pauperum, potentiam malorum qui volunt leges observari, et plecti hos qui leges violant, sed tantum ut suam nocendi libertatem expleant." The remark of Lingard, that at this time the English Parliament very much resembled a Turkish divan, seems not unjust.
T This Act against lunatic traitors has excited the indignation of legal writers. It ordered that if a lunatic traitor developed madness after being examined by the Privy Council, but had seemed sane at the time to any four of that body, the offender might be tried i)i his abseftce, in any shire that the king pleased, judgment passed, and execution done. This was " a cruel instance of the anxiety in the government that no offender should by any possibility escape them." — Reeves' English Law, iii. 344.
28o Parliainent. [ch.
XL
they facilitated the operations of the Privy Council and the processes against treason by ordaining that the trial might be held anywhere by commission, without sending the suspected person, after his ex- amination before the Council, back to his shire at the King's expense. In the fulness of their gratitude they erected for the King that lucrative Court of Wards and Liveries, which they had refused before the revolution of property : * and they added to it the Court of Surveys. They forbad that any member of a corporation, such as a cathedral church, a hospital, or a college, should have a negative voice, even by the peculiar statutes of the body, upon any grant, lease, or election made by the head and the greater part of the brethren. This was to prepare the way for the de- struction of chantries and hospitals, which were next to be devoured, now that monasteries were gone.f They enabled those of the late religious who had passed into the new erected corporations to inherit and to sue. They passed another of those curious mandates for the repairing of decayed towns, which seem to have become so urgently necessary at this time. The towns which were now enumerated were, Canterbury, Rochester, Stamford and Great Grimsby in Lincolnshire, Cam- bridge, Derby, Guildford, Dunwich, the Cinque Ports,
* See Vol. I. p. 74 of this work.
t " Another Act made way for the dissolution of colleges, hospitals, and other foundations of that nature. The courtiers had been practising with the governors and presidents of some of these to make resignations of them to the King : which were conceived in the same style that most of the surrenders of the monasteries did run in : eight of these were all really procured, which are enrolled : but they could not make any great progress, because it was provided by the local statutes that no president, or any other fellow, could make any such deed without the consent of all the fellows of the house ; and this could not be so easily obtained. Therefore all such statutes were annulled, and none were any more to be sworn to the observance of them." — Burnet : 33 H. VIII. 27.
1542.] Act against Witchcraft. 281
Lewes, and Buckingham. We have been at most of these places in the company of the monastic visitors.
Among these less important laws there stands, in terrible prominence, the first Act against Witchcraft. Superstition, it would seem, was not banished by the destruction of images and relics : but rather, in escaping from more harmless impostors, it had received a new stimulation from a wilder cupidity. The vast treasures which were seen going across the country from every part towards the royal treasury, the golden and silvern ornaments or furniture concealed or displayed by the new monastics, had awakened the belief (which three centuries have scarcely dissipated) of hoards of illimit- able wealth, hidden by the monks in vaults or secret chambers, which might be recovered by the arts of divination. The fresh ruins of the monasteries, which lay strewn everywhere, the half demolished churches, the churchyards, the tombs and monuments of the dead, were haunted by perpetual searchers. The crosses, which stood on village greens or upon highways, were dug down " in infinite number " (as the Act has it), to find what might be underneath them. Nor can it be doubted that these investigations were profitable to the richer and more enlightened inquirers who came first, and that many a tomb and monument was rifled with advantage by them.* But when it came to
* Happily or unhappily, we can never know the amount of destruction of this sort which went on in the closing years of Henry, throughout the reign of Edward, and in the beginning of Elizabeth, more, however, by abuse of authority, than by private enterprise. Weaver says that the monastic visitors, under pretence of their commission, " rooted up and battered down crosses in churches and churchyards," that they broke down and defaced the effigies of the dead which were " portrayed for the only memory of them to posterity, not for any religious honour : " that they cracked to pieces the painted windows, or else turned the figures in them upside down, and so on. " But," he adds, " the foulest and most inhu- man action of those times was the violation of funeral monuments.
282 Act against JVitchcraft. [ch. xi.
be a regular industry, a trade between the conjurer and the fool, it was thought time to stop it. Besides this new impulse given to magic by treasure seeking, there were the old conjurations against the lives and property of hated persons, or for the purposes of un- lawful love : there were those prophets who foretold infallibly the fate of personages who wore some particular beast, or bird, or fish, in their arms or cognisances. These sorceries may have been invested with new terrors, in the eyes of legislators, from a recent knowledge of those passages in the Bible which enumerate the arts of incantation, and forbid a witch to live. They were all now made felony. A new felony was created ; and this was the beginning of the most barbarous and irrational series of laws that ever disgraced the codes of civilisation. It was, how- ever, repealed at the end of Henry's reign, and was not renewed for two successive reigns. The full horrors of the witch persecutions were reserved for the days of the Puritans.*
The Convocation, which met simultaneously with
Marbles, which covered the dead were digged up and put to other uses ; tombs hacked and hewn to pieces ; images, or representations of the defunct, broken, erased, cut or dismembered : inscriptions or epitaphs, especially if they began with an Orate pro anima, or concluded with a Ciijus animce propitietur Deus, for greediness of the brass, or for that they were thought to be Antichristian, pulled out from the sepultures and purloined : dead carcases, for gain of their stone or leaden coffins, cast out of their graves, notwithstanding this request writ or engraven upon them, Propter inisericordia/n Jesu reqiciescant in pace. These commis- sioners, these Tv/x/3a)pv;^oi, these tomb-breakers, these grave diggers, made such deep and diligent search into the bottom of ancient sepulchres, in hope to find there (belike) some long hidden treasure." — Funeral Mon.- p. 51.
* Blackstone says that our ancient law books, both before and after the Conquest, are full of witchcraft. But there seems to be no statute about it before this one (33 H. VIII., 8 and 14). Certainly it was this one that made it felony. The examination of conjurers and diviners not unfrequently occupied the Privy Council of Henry : and some of their
1542.] Convocation. 283
this session of Parliament, was the most important of any that had been held for several years. Landing from his barge at Paul's Wharf, the Most Reverend marched with his cross before him to the cathedral church ; where the Mass of the Holy Ghost was celebrated by Bonner, and the Latin sermon was preached by Doctor Richard Cox, a rising divine who was now Archdeacon of Ely. Several new prelates now adorned the Upper House, whose characters, so far as they are discernible, were coloured by the uni- form tinge which now disguised the once conspicuous standards of the Old and the New Learning. Heath, the successor of Hilsey in Rochester, was the most learned among the younger bishops. But this formerly zealous adherent of the New Learnino-, who had attracted the regard of Melanchthon, was believed to have fallen lately under the spell of Gardiner. Holgate of Llandaff, sometime the Master of the Gilbertines, who had surrendered so readily so many houses of his order, was, as he might be supposed to have been, a political character. At the time of the suppression of the Pilgrimage of Grace, he took so leading a part that he was appointed by the King to the high office of President of the North : and Tunstall rejoiced to seek advice of his wisdom and loyalty.* Howbeit wisdom remained not with Holgate always. Being raised, a year or two after this time, to the Arch- bishopric of York, he appeared in the character of the first holder of that great see who was a married man : and he added a double solemnity to the event by some curious mistake, which is alleged concerning him.
implements, as rods, sceptres, beads, bits of glass, are mentioned in their records ; the same are enumerated in this Act, and also in the King's Book, or Necessary Doctrine. — See p. 322 of this vol. * State Pap. v. 1 22, 1 29.
284 Convocation. [ch. xi.
Knight, the new Bishop of Bath and Wells, and Bell, who had succeeded Latimer in Worcester, were officials trained in the school of Wolsey. An old man and a young incumbent met in Knight : he had been Secretary of State not only to Henry, but to Henry's father : he had seen the face of Maximilian : he had witnessed the rise of Wolsey : he had been one of the representatives of England at Rome in the King's great matter : and in every situation he had displayed extraordinary intelligence and ability. Though he received his promotion late in life, he was destined to survive the reign of Henry. Bell was a civilian of some repute. Of the occupants of the new founded bishoprics, most of whom were promoted regulars, perhaps the most remarkable was Thirlby, who was, in the opinion of the King himself, an inferior Gardiner. Bird, the first bishop of Chester, was, in the view of Bale, one of the ten horns that were exalted against her of Babylon. He was a man much employed by the King. He had been with Bedyl and Edward Fox on the vain mission which was sent to persuade Katharine of Arragon to renounce the title of Queen. He had vindicated Supreme Head before the King in several sermons : and was author of more than one work well esteemed among the New Learning.
The fallen and ruined state of reliijlon, the reforma- tion of abuses, the emendation of the permitted version of the Scriptures, and the making of canons against the prevailing vice of simony, opened an ample field to exercise the wisdom of the clerical assembly. These were the questions which were proposed to them by the Archbishop on the authority of the King : on these he bade them consult and deliberate : and the royal in- tention, which appeared to indicate the greater respect that was to be shown towards the spiritual estate,
1542.] The Great Bible discussed. 285
was willingly observed by the clergy.* The Most Reverend, beofinnino- with the translation of the Scriptures, asked them one by one the plain question whether the Great Bible could be retained without scandal, error, and offence of the faithful. It was a strange question to come from such a mouth, concern- ing a version which had been authorised so far as any version ever had been, or perhaps ever has been. The answer of the major part was, that the Great Bible could not be retained, unless it should be corrected according to the Vulgate. t The lower clergy then exhibited a constitution which they had made both in Latin and English against simoniacs : but the Most Reverend deferred the consideration of this, and restricted them to the revision of the Old Testament.
Now indeed it seemed as if the retarded enterprise of a new or at least an amended version of the Holy Scriptures, which had hung so long upon the King's will, were to be prosecuted by the clergy under the King's authority. The prelates conferred upon the mode and form of proceeding in an exact examination of the sacred volume. The prolocutor reappeared
* " Reverendissimus ex parte Regis exposuit utrique Domui quod Regias intentionis sit quod ipsi patres, prelati, et clerus de rebus religionis lapsis et ruentibus consulant, ac de remediis congruis exhibendis inter se deliberent, et qufe reformanda et corrigenda duxerint, inter se corrigant et reforment ; denuntians iis quod in Testamento turn Veteri quam Novo in lingua Anglicana habentur multa quae reformatione indigent : proinde velle ut prolocutor cum clero ad inferiorem domum se conferant, et inter se conveniant de dictis libris examinandis, quodque nonnulli periti etiam designentur ad canones et alias leges de simonia vitanda et coercenda condendos."— Wilkins^ iii. 860.
+ " In tertia sessione, post discursum de versione Bibliorum habitum, Reverendissimus rogavit singulos utrum sine scandalo, et errore, et ofFen- sione fidelium magnam Bibliam in Anglico sermone tralatam vellent retinere. Visum est majori parti eorundem dictam Bibliam non posse retineri, nisi prius debite castigetur et examinetur juxta earn Bibliam quce communiter in Ecclesia Anglicana legitur." — lb.
286 Convocation. [ch. xi.
with a book of notes made by the Lower House on the Old Testament : and the Most Reverend com- mitted their labours to the scrutiny of the fathers. A sufficient number of the most learned of the bishops and doctors was appointed to arrange the work ; the New Testament was committed to the consideration of the Bishops of Durham, Winchester, Hereford, Rochester, and Westminster ; along with Doctors Wotton, Day, Coren, Wilson, Leighton, May, and others : the Old Testament was consigned to the Bishops of York and Ely, to Redman, Taylor, Haines, Robertson, Cox, and other doctors well skilled in Latin, Greek, Hebrew, and English, By these com- mittees it is known that the New Testament at least was given into the hands of the most competent persons that there were : and the parts were distributed among them. To Canterbury, Lincoln, Winchester, and Ely were assigned the four Gospels ; the Acts of the Apostles to Rochester; to Chichester, Romans; Corinthians to Salisbury ; the four following Epistles, to the Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, and Colossians were entrusted to Barlow of St. David's; Thessalonians to Bell of Worcester; to Parfew of St. Asaph the remaining Epistles of St. Paul. The writings of St. Peter fell to Holgate; Skip had the Epistle to the Hebrews; Thirlby the Epistles of St. James, St. John, and St. Jude ; while Wakeman and Chambers, of Gloucester and Peterborough, divided between them the Book of Revelation.* All these prelates had their assistant doctors : the work seems to have been taken in hand without delay, and proof still
* The list of the committees appointed "pro examinandis Biblis," comes from Wilkins : that of the distribution of the New Testament was copied with his own hand by Fuller out of the perished Records of Convocation.
1542.] New Version of the Bible tmdertaken. 287
remains of the activity that was displayed. In no long time Leighton and Wotton finished and exhibited their portion — the Epistles to the Corinthians. Gardiner showed that he was at work by bringing into the House a long list of venerable words, which he con- ceived it proper either to retain in the original, or to translate with as little alteration as might be.* But
* " Verba, quae voluit pro eorum germano et native intellectu et rei majestate, quoad potuit, vel in sua natura retineri, vel quam accommo- dissime fieri possit in Anglicum sermonem verti." — Wilkins.
The list was a curious one —
Ecclesia
Penitentia
Pontifex
Ancilla
Contritus
Holocausta
Justitia
Justificare
Idiota
Elementa
Baptizare
Martyr
Adorare
Dignus
Sandalium
Simplex
Tetrarcha
Sacramentum
Simulacrum
Gloria
Conflictationes
Ceremonia
Mysterium
Religio
Spiritus Sanctus
Spiritus
Merces
Confiteor Tibi Pater
Panis propositionis
Communio
Perseverare
Dilectus
Sapientia
Pietas
Presbyter
Lites
Servus
Opera
Sacrificium
Benedictio
Humilis
Humilitas
Scientia
Gentilis
Synagoga
Ejicere
Misericordia
Complacui
Increpare
Distribueretur orbis
Inculpatus
Senior
Apocalypsis
Satisfactio
Contentio
Peccatum
Peccator
Idolum
Prudentia
Prudenter
Parabola
Magnifico
Oriens
Subditus
Didrachma
Hospitalitas
Episcopus
Gratia
Charitas
Tyrannus
Concupiscentia
Cisera
Apostolus
Apostolatus
Egenus
Stater
Societas
Zizania
Christus
Conversari
Profiteor
Impositio manuum
Idolatria
Dominus
Sanctus
Confessio
Imitator
Pascha
Innumerabilis
Inenarrabilis
Infidelis
Paganus
Commilito
Virtutes
Dominationes
Throni
Potestates
Hostia
This list has obtained some celebrity because several writers have repeated
288 Convocation. [ch. xi.
they had been at work no longer than a month, before another caprice of the royal mind frustrated the scheme for ever. The Most Reverend suddenly announced that it was now the purpose of the Supreme that the translation of the Scriptures should not be done by the Synod, but by the Universities. Some natural indignation was felt at this chicanery : and all the bishops, except Ely and St. David's, made bold to
without proof or probability, that by exhibiting it Gardiner alarmed Cranmer, and put a stop to the whole proceedings. If so, it was a wretched state of things, that a man could not give his opinion without producing such consequences. As to the words themselves, observe, I. That Fuller's remark is just, that some of them are retained in the original, without translation, in our present New Testament ; others (not always those in his list) are retained with an interpretation added, as Emmatiitel. 2. Mr. Blunt well remarks that Gardiner's principle was subsequently adopted in many words ; as Resurrection, which in the older English versions was Again-rising, Redeemer, for Again-buyer. [Plain Account, 56.) 3. That Gardiner felt as a Latinist not less than as a theologian. When he was examining the heretic Marbeck next year, who had made an English Concordance, he exclaimed, that " if such a work should go forth in English it would destroy the Latin tongue." — Fox. 4. Some Latin words that are now fully naturalised were not so then, and were often used with their Latin endings. Thus Paget wrote to Gardiner himself in 1546. "I have deserved benevolentiam of all: if any man will bear to me malevolentiam, the Lord judge between him and me." Hence Gardiner desired to have Christus instead of Christ. 5. It is possible that a thorough collation of Gardiner's list with the Great Bible and the Vulgate might explain the reason of some of his wishes and apprehensions. I have imperfectly collated a few of his words with the G. B. by the help of Dr. Wood. Charitas is "-love"' in the G. B. in I Cor. xiii. Communio in i Cor. x. 16, \s" pa?-taking." Sacramentum is often ''' 7nysfery," 3.S in A. V.: in the crucial passage, Eph. v. 32, (" This is a great mystery,") where matrimony is termed a Sacrament in the Vulgate, we have in G. B. the rendering '■'' secret T Elementa in Gal. iv. 3, is "ordinances." Confessio in Rom. x. 10, is " /^ know- ledge with the mouth." In Spiritus and Spiritus Sanctus, the rule of the A. v. seems followed, that the former is Spirit {sprite), the latter either Holy Spirit or Holy Ghost. Parabola is sometimes simi- litude. Dr. Wood has added to these that Ecclesia is always rendered " Congregation" as it is in Coverdale and in Matthew : and that in Acts xiv. 22, the rendering is "they ordained them elders by election in every congregation," which is, as he says, "a highly disingenuous translation," found also in Coverdale and in Matthew.
T542.] The proposed Version quashed. 289
protest against it. The work, they said, was fitter for the clergy than for the Universities, where learning was decayed, and all was in the hands of young men. But this remonstrance was vain. Cranmer merely replied that he should stand by his master's will and pleasure. The Universities, to which it was pretended to transfer the work, heard nothing of it, and did nothing ; and the clergy, and especially the bishops, have been treated in the matter with the injustice that has been their usual lot from history. The very readi- ness which they displayed in entering on the work, and portioning it among themselves has been repre- sented as a deep design to quash it. What else could they have done ? What else has ever been done in the same business ?*
In other respects the clergy showed themselves not
* As a fine example of colour, look at the account which Strype gives of this matter. " One of the matters before them was concerning the procuring a true translation of the New Testament, which was indeed intended not so much to do such a good work as to hinder it. For having decried the present translation, on purpose to make it unlawful for any to use it, they pretended to set themselves about a new one. But it was merely to delay and put off the people from the common use of the Scriptures. As appeared plainly enough in that the bishops themselves undertook it. And so, having it in their own hands, they might make what delays they pleased. For in the third session a proposition was made for the translation, and an assignation to each bishop of his task. As Matthew to the Archbishop of Canterbury, Mark to the Bishop of Lincoln, Luke to Winton, John to Ely : and so of the rest. But the Archbishop saw through all this. And, therefore, in a session that followed after, told the House from the King, to whom I suppose he had discovered this intrigue, that the translation should be left to the learned of both Universities." — Life of Cranmer. In the same way Lewes accuses the convocation of insisting much on trifles ; as, whether in the transla- tion the constant form should be the Lord, or our Lord. — Engl. Bib. p. 146. But it seems that this question arose after Cranmer had taken the work out of their hands ; and that it had nothing to do with the translation. " Postea a. question was made whether one Christian speak- ing to another should say the Lord save thee or our Lord save thee." — IVi/kins.
VOL. II. U
290 Convocation. [ch. xi.
unwilling to accept the invitation of the King, and apply his commandment to touch some of the evils of the times. The constitution of the Lower House against Simony was committed to the Bishops of Winchester, Westminster, and Worcester, with power to frame it anew. The Bishop of Winchester was directed to make the draft of a constitution against leasing away benefices for more than twenty years. The bishops proposed to supplicate the King against the public plays and comedies exhibited in London to the contempt of the Word of God. The Arch- bishop gave notice of some statutes to be made against adulterers, perjurers, and blasphemers : and the Prolocutor afterwards brought in the heads of the decrees which had been framed in his House against such offenders : but to the fathers it seemed that the royal mind should be ascertained on that part : and the Prolocutor was sent back with an ad- monition to the clergy not to publish or declare their deliberations, but to keep them as secret as possible. The clergy seem certainly to have been withheld in some things by the bishops. Three schedules appear however at length to have been prepared to be sub- mitted to the King ; the first for avoiding of marriages illegitimately contracted ; the second to appoint per- petual vicars in benefices formerly monasteries, and other such, which were now served only by curates ; and to tax their revenues for this purpose to the modest amount of eight pounds a year. The third was the long debated ordinance against Simony.
But the increased importance of the clergy, or at any rate of the bishops, was seen most clearly when the Lord Chancellor Audley deemed it necessary to submit to them a bill that he designed to bring into Parliament, which would have conveyed a great part
1542] Question of Spiritual Jurisdiction. 291
of the spiritual jurisdiction to laymen : and their spirit was displayed by the summary rejection of the proposed measure. Audley proposed that the chancellors of bishops " might be married men : and, having wives and children, might have power to excommunicate and suspend, and to promulge all the censures of the Church, as priests do." These officials and their registrars, as he suggested further, were to be made independent by holding their offices for life, and to have " sufficient fees of the ordinaries to find them and their families." But the bishops replied that the bill was not worthy nor convenient to be laid before Parliament for the great scandal that would ensue : and they requested Audley to suppress it. And so he did.*
For the rest, the Most Reverend, true to his vocation, urged on the fathers the abolition of candles and candlesticks before images : and beofan to sound the first notes of the coming liturgical reformation by proposing the correction of all portiferies, missals, and other service books. From them, he said that the names of the Roman pontiffs and of Thomas Becket might even now be erased more carefully. The silkf^n vestments and other ornaments which still remained on statues were not to be forgotten :t and the teachingf of the Lord's Prayer, the Creed, and the Ten Com- mandments ought to be considered. With the consent
* I suppose that this bill of Audley's must have been the one bearing the frank title, " That laymen may exercise jurisdiction ecclesiastical," which was read once in the Lords this y&ax.—JojcrJials.
t Images were used to be decked in silken vestments, &c. So Latimer : " They preached that dead images ought not only to be covered with gold, but clad with silk garments, and these also laden with jewels : while Christ's living images be an hungred, a thirst, a cold." — Convoc. Sermon o/i^;^6. The images were stripped, but the poor were no better clothed.
U 2
292 Co7ivocafion. [ch. xi.
of the greater part of the fathers he passed a decree that the use of the Church of SaHsbury should be observed by all the clergy of the Province in repeat- ing their canonical Hours, under pain of a penalty to be inflicted at the will of the Ordinary. This would appear to have concerned the clergy alone, and the performance of their private devotions. But it would seem (though this may perhaps have escaped the notice of liturgical writers) that the Use of Sarum had been spontaneously adopted ere now in the Province of Canterbury since the invention of printing : and it is certain that the enterprising Grafton (who ^ad abandoned the Bible, feeling the new current of the times towards liturgical revision) had already taken out a patent, along with his partner Whitechurch, for the privilege of printing the Use of Sarum for seven years to come.* A curious ordinance to regulate the
* Confusion has been caused by writers mistaking this decree of con- vocation for a public measure. For instance. Hook says, " The bishops decided that the Use of Sarum should be adopted in all their churches." — Crannier, ii. 194. The decree was a mandate to the clej-gy, and the essence of it lies in the words, " in Jioris siiis canonicis dice?idisr — Wilkins, iii. 862. Nevertheless, as it appears from Grafton's Royal Breve, or Patent, the clergy had adopted the Use of Sarum in their churches, and that it had been often printed heretofore. " In times past," says the King in this instrument, " it hath been usually accustomed that these Books of Divine Service, that is to say, the Mass Book, the Grail, the Antiphoner, the Hymnal, the Portaus, and the Primer, both in Latin and in English of Sarum Use, for the Province of Canterbury, have been printed by strangers in other & strange countries, partly to the great loss & hindrance of our subjects which have the art of printing, & by im- printing of such books might profitably & to the use of the common- .wealth be set on work, and partly to the setting forth of the Bishop of Rome's usurped authority," &c. — Rymer, xiv. 766. In short, he says that the Use of Sarum was often printed by foreigners, but printed uncastigated, and so he gives the privilege of printing to Grafton and Whitechurch, January 28. The credit, therefore, of first generally adopting the Sarum Use does not belong to Cranmer : to whom it is usually given. A castigated edition is known to have been issued by Whitechurch, with the title " Portiforium sec. Usum Sarum noviter impressum, et a plurimis purgatum mendis. In quo nomen Romano
1542.] Scotland. 293
diet of the clergy, especially on great occasions of hospitality, concluded the labours of the assembly. The principle adopted was that an archbishop might have one more dish than a bishop, and a bishop one more than a dean or an archdeacon. But this was not in use more than three months.*
Scotland, a kingdom which in the leading race, the prevailing language, the great institutions, was English, bore to England little resemblance in her history : and less at this time than ever before. A weak throne, trembling amid the commotions of a powerful nobility — of a nobility as great as that of France, as lawless as that of Ireland : a standing war of independence, which was often turned into a struggle for existence, maintained against a neighbour of tenfold greater strength : these made a combination of dangers over which no other nation has ever triumphed. Scotland resisted with glory and success, but she was covered with scars : whilst in England the throne was risen to a height which overshadowed the freedom of the people, the throne in Scotland, and with the throne the national life, seemed (though perhaps it only seemed) in danger of extinction. For more than a hundred years little save misfortune had befallen the house of Stuart : that dynasty under which, by the ways of fate, England was to recover, with horrible convulsions, the liberties which she had basely sur- rendered to the Tudors. The first and greatest of
the monarchs who bore the name of James, the only
•
Pontifici falso adscriptum omittitur, una cum aliis qu^ Christianissimi nostri Regis statute repugnant. Excussum Londini pro Ed. White- church, 1 541. Cum priv. ad. impr. sol." Collier has extracted this title from Cleop. E. 5. 259. As this edition must have been subsequent to the patent, the date of 1542, which Rymer gives to the latter, must be too late.
* Wilkins and Fuller, as above.
294 Scotland. [ch. xi.
king of the western world in whom the greatness of the ruler and the greatness of the poet ever met in the fullest measure, received twenty poignards in his breast as the reward of his efforts to reduce the disorders of his realm. His successors, the second James and the third, died in open battle with their subjects. The field of Flodden ended the life of the next who bore their crown and name : and the inheritor of those fatal legacies had been left an infant. This appeared to finish disastrously the policy of Henry the Seventh, who by the marriage of his daughter with the Scottish King, had sought to secure the perpetual peace of the kingdoms, and the eventual union of the crowns. But the relations of the Tudors with the Stuarts were destined to be unhappy. The nation had not re- covered in a generation from the blow of Flodden. The successive bastardy of the two daughters of Henry the Eighth precluded the renewal of the alliance : and the long minority of James the Fifth was followed by his marriage first with one French princess and then with another. The young monarch was a firm Catholic, a man of strong opinions and honest purpose ; but his abilities were unequal to the difficulties of his position. He learned to regard his uncle of England with a mixture of distrust, disappro- bation, and admiration. Of the strength of Henry's character he was well aware : he knew him to be utterly unscrupulous, and destitute alike of generosity and affection : and as the English revolution unfolded 'itself, his astonishment, his alarm, and his caution grew greater. He steadily resisted all invitations to imitate the course of the King of England, to bring in the Reformation, to sack the monasteries, to depress the clergy. He could not always conceal his dislike of what he beheld. But, on the other hand, he
1542.] The Scottish King and his Clergy. 295
shrunk with good reason from provoking so terrible a neighbour.
It was Indeed the poHcy of the King of Scots to stand well with the clergy. They, like the nobles, were a more powerful body there than they were In England. The religious orders, and especially the mendicants, were even more numerous. The King was the natural patron of them all, and they in turn supported the throne. But James was neither a blind papist, nor disinclined to check the disorders of his church : which seem to have risen to a gfreater height than in England, or else to have been reprimanded with a greater briskness. No papal indulgences were allowed to take effect in Scotland without the King's license.* In amending the discipline of bishops, priests, and religious persons, the King and the tem- poral part of his council were at one. On one occasion, in the presence of his whole council, both lay and clerical, he had an interlude played before him, which turned on " the naughtiness of religion, the presumption of bishops, the collusion of the spiritual or consistory courts, and misusing of priests." At the end he called upon the bishops, exhorting them to reform their fashion and manner of living. " Otherwise," said he, " I will send six of the proudest of you to my uncle of England ; and as he shall order them, so will I order the rest that will not amend." The Bishop of Glasgow, who was chan- cellor, answered that " one word of the King's mouth would suffice them to be at his commandment:" whereon James angrily rejoined that " he would gladly bestow any words of his mouth that might amend them." To show his sincerity, he desired to be fur- nished with an abstract of all the acts, constitutions,
* State Pap. v. 152.
296 Scotland. [ch.
XI.
and proclamations which had passed in England " for the suppression of religion, the profit of the King, and the reformation of the clergy," that he might study them.*
But the French alliance, the state of his kingdom, the perpetual irritation of the border feuds, all ren- dered it impossible for James to undertake the work of reformation, and gradually set him in an attitude opposite to that of England. Instead of styling him- self Supreme Head of the Church of Scotland, he admitted, to the fury of his uncle, a title nearly the same as that which the latter had formerly merited from Rome ; and allowed himself to be called, once at least, " Defender of the Christian Faith." f The transactions between England and Scotland became a tissue of outrage and treachery. An interview was proposed between the two sovereigns, to take place at York, when Henry was on his northern progress : but, though the safe-conducts were prepared, neither the Scottish estates nor the French King would consent that James should venture his person so far out of his own dominions. The Scottish King then pro- posed a triple interview, between himself, his uncle, and his ally : but this was refused by England. A plot was then formed by Sir Thomas Wharton,
* Bellenden to Eure, June, 1540. — State Pap. v. 169.
t Sir Ralph Sadler, the English ambassador in Scotland, sent to Henry a book entitled " The Trumpet of Honour," on the title-page of which the Scottish king was styled " Defender of the Christian Faith." Henry signified that he thought this " more than unkindness," if it were done by the will of James, because it was " a piece of his title " : and he added "the conjecture is the more pricking, because he added thereto the Christian Faith : as though there should be any other than the Chris- tian Faith : which seemed to have another meaning than one good prince should think of another, much less a friend of his friend, a nephew of his uncle, if he would show himself to esteem his friendship." — Wriothesley to July, 1541, State Pap. v. 191.
1542.] War 'with Scotland. 297
Warden of the West Marches, an eminent new mo- nastic, for kidnapping James near Dumfries, and conveying him into England. It might occasion surprise that an official should dare to propose such a crime to his sovereign : but Henry entertained the scheme, and referred it to his Council. The caution, however, or the honesty of Henry's advisers, caused them to shrink from the attempt. They laid before their master the danger of betrayal, the improbability of success, the scandal of failure. Even if all other things went well, they urged that the King of Scots would hardly let himself be taken alive on his own ground : to have him hurt or slain would be an indelible dis- grace. They added that " they would have been afraid to think on such a matter, unless His Majesty had expressly commanded them to consider it." * But this was not the last time that Henry was minded to employ towards Scotland those tactics which sometimes succeed because they are not expected.
The bloody depredation of the border, which never ceased on either side, now swelled to the dimension of a war : and in the skirmish of Halydon Rigg an English commander, who had passed the Marches in pursuit of a body of freebooters, was defeated and taken. By the credulity of the king and of the clergy of Scotland, this affair was magnified into a great victory over the English heretics : and an insane confidence possessed them when war was formally declared by Henry. In one of his longest manifests the King of England laid forth his griefs : the war into which he was driven he affirmed to be neither
* Privy Council to Henry N\\\.— State Pap. v. 204. Mr. Froude says that Henry " thought of employing some gentle constraint" (iv. 177). The opinion of Mr Burton is that his plot was one of "immeasurable turpitude and folly." — Hist, of Scotland, iii. 369.
298 Scotland. [ch. xi.
sought by him, nor grounded on the ancient claim of homage, but provoked by " present matter of dis- pleasure, present injury, present wrong ministered by the nephew to the uncle most unnaturally." But at the same time Henry appointed certain learned men to investigate the grounds of the English title of superiority over the kingdom of Scotland : and, al- though it has not been sufficiently observed by recent writers, the insensate design of repeating the career of Edward the First was the key of Henry's Scottish policy. The Archbishop of York was ordered to search all his old registers for charters and monu- ments relating to the question : and the King's manifest itself ended in an elaborate historical re- hearsal of the claim, from the days of Edward the Elder to the days of Henry the Sixth. The King then declared that he designed to renew the old demands.* The Duke of Norfolk advanced into Scotland, ravaging the country so terribly that the Scottish force of twelve thousand men, which James collected, could find no subsistence in the devastated region, from which the English likewise were com- pelled to retreat in a month or two. The Scots then moved to the west, and entered England to avenge their injuries. But the lords feared to allow their King to set foot on the dangerous soil : the expedition advanced without him, and the loss of his authority was fatal. Though the surprise was complete, for Norfolk had disbanded his army in the belief that
* Hall. There can be no doubt that Henry renewed all the old claims on Scotland at this time. In the money bill of next year, in one of those marvellous preambles which are the boast of the period, the Parliament avers that old rolls, records, and documents had been exhibited before it, proving that " the late pretensed King of Scots " was an usurper, and that the King of England was king of Scotland. — 34 and 35 Henry VIII., 27. This was after James's death.
1542.] New Continental Combinations. 299
the Scots had done the same,* the enterprise was ruined by insubordination. The nobles refused to obey the general whom the King had appointed ; confusion reigned ; a panic set in ; and at Solway Moss the royal army of Scotland was shamefully routed by a handful of yeomen, not two thousand in number, among whom there was not a single regular soldier.f The unhappy James died of shame and grief in the last month of the year, leaving a defence- less kingdom once more to the miseries of a weak regency and a long minority.
In modern Europe the alliances and hostilities of states are not necessarily determined by the con- sideration of religion : nor, on the other hand, is the profession of the churches held to be affected by the changeful policy of the states in which they exist. It was necessary to bear this maxim strongly in mind at the time when it first began to be exemplified : when the specious reconciliation of Charles and Francis was broken ; and the long indecision of the great powers resolved itself into a combination between the Turk and the French monarch under the favour of the Pope ; and a contrary alliance between the Emperor and the King of England. It was amid the laughter or indignation of the world that the Csesar joined hands with the Supreme Head, while the Most Christian ally of the Great Turk bent before the Pope, imploring absolution that he had ever in time past contaminated himself by the touch of the English heretic.l This strange turn of affairs was
* Norfolk to Henry VIII., Nov. \i^A,2.—State Pap. v. 217.
t We are all patriotic : but Mr. Burton's account of Solway Moss is, " There was a scattering right and left, and several prisoners taken."
X The French king desired absolution of the Pope, " for his trespass in joining league and practice with the King of England in time past, against the rites and laws of the Roman Church." This " all men noted
300 Alliance between diaries and Henry, [ch. xi.
of little advantage to the Holy See or to England. Between Charles and Francis a war broke out before the end of the year, which seemed likely to be waged with all the ancient fury. Whilst these great prin- cipals gathered their forces, the Pope found his power impaired, or his weakness discovered. His mediation was refused by the Emperor. His messengers were coldly received in Spain, and dismissed as they arrived. The council, which he indicted once more to be held in Trent, began to look ridiculous. Charles expressed his displeasure that it was called at such a conjuncture, when there was little likelihood that he could be present. The three legates who were commissioned to open it at the appointed place, one of whom was Pole, travelled slowly thither : but when they arrived, they found themselves alone. They could do nothing, and loitered there a year ingloriously. On the other hand, the King of England found himself bound to an ally who was his superior in ability, who used him and played with him : nor is there in English history a sorrier episode than the fitful war which, during the remaining years of his reign, Henry waged against France in conjunction with his imperial comrade.
The protracted negotiations, which issued in the offensive and defensive treaty between Charles and Henry, were conducted on the English part chiefly by ecclesiastics. Bonner was despatched into Spain to represent England : and was followed by Thirlby. Gardiner and Tunstall negotiated with the Imperial ambassador in London. From the outset Henry found that in diplomacy he was no match for Charles. He endeavoured once more to have his traitor, Robert
to be of most ridiculous lightness and impudency, considering him to be an open Turk with his adherents." — Harvel to Coimcil, Jan. 1544; State Pap. ix. 582.
1542.] Charles attacks the Protestants. 301
Brancetor, delivered into his hands : but once more without effect.* He proposed that the Emperor should join him against the Scot : and the Emperor replied that he was willing, provided that Henry on his part would join him against the Dane.f He added the word spiritual to the word enemies in the articles of the treaty which bound the contracting powers to mutual defence and offence : and by this means he hoped either to prevent the Pope from proceeding with his censures, or to attack him by the aid of the most powerful of auxiliaries. The Emperor refused to allow the word. A long dispute ensued : and in the end the King, although he declared that " he liked nothing that manner of proceeding and grating upon him," was forced to yield the point.J
The celebrated campaign followed in which the Emperor burst suddenly upon his German enemies before assailing France. Embarking in a vast flotilla which conveyed an irresistible army, he descended the Rhine, and stormed or terrified into surrender town after town. Those strono-holds which resisted he sacked, and treated their garrisons as rebels. As the Spanish legions approached, the Protestant teachers and preachers were compelled to fly precipitately from their posts. Upon the Duke of Cleves, Henry's late
* Seymour to Henry VIII., Sept. i^^2.— State Pap. ix. 144. I have ventured to believe that the Robert Branston whom Henry demanded through Seymour was the man whose name has been deciphered as Robert Brancetor in the despatches of Paget, formerly noticed.
t State Pap. ix. 587.
X The details of the dispute are contained in the letter of the Council to Bonner, 7th Nov. it,^2.— State Pap. ix. 214. Also in Bonner's letter to the King, 15th April, 1543. — lb. 355. Henry tried to get the phrase all enemies made to include "spirituales"; Charles to get it limited to "tem- porales." Charles kicked out "spirituales," Henry kicked out "tem- porales," and the treaty contains neither word. Indeed the whole clause seems to have been expunged. See the treaty in Rymer, xiv. 768.
302 Henry s Alliance with the Emperor, [ch. xi.
father-in-law, who had imprudently occupied the imperial town of Duren, the blow fell first, and he was brought down with terrific severity. On the refusal of Duren to surrender, the Spaniards were advanced to the wall, the place was stormed and burned, the garrison were hanged. The territory of Cleves was ravaged ; the mother of Anne went mad and died raving: her father, the Duke, after drawing his sword on his own minister in a fit of frenzy, was compelled to avoid utter ruin by a deep humiliation. Dressed in mourning, accompanied by the Duke of Brunswick and some other high nobles, who sought by participation to lessen his disgrace, he came before the throne of Caesar : all knelt together : and by entreaties and concessions he obtained the pardon of his mighty adversary. This blow enraged the Protestants against England : and the train of Bonner, who accompanied and witnessed the triumphant progress of Charles, were attacked and nearly murdered in the streets of Cologne. The English monarch himself was not better pleased with the Emperor's success : in obtain- ing which the common cause seemed to be neglected. His ally amused him with fair words, but undertook nothing from which he could derive advantage. The troops which he furnished were employed in the tedious operation of reducing a German town which the French had seized : and at the end of the campaign, notwithstanding the efforts of the allies, Landrecy remained untaken.
The commission of bishops and doctors, which it was the last public act of Crumwel to appoint for devising a new confession of faith, had laboured diligently in their work, but it was not before the expiration of two years and a half that they produced the third great formulary of the reign of Henry. The Necessary
I543-] The Third English Confession. 303
Doctrine and Erudition of a Christian Man was printed in the middle of the year 1543. The method employed in composing it was the same that had been used before in the work which it superseded, the Institution of a Christian Man. Questions were propounded in writing, probably by the Archbishop, to the several members of the commission : the answers were delivered on fixed days : and of them an abstract was made, both in Latin and English, by appointed persons, marking the points of agreement and of disagreement. The answers returned by the Archbishop himself were excepted from this process.* Upon the primary question of the age, the nature and number of the Sacraments : upon the great question of the following age, church government, and the claims of Episcopacy, the questions, the answers, and the summary abstracts have been preserved : and the greatest diversity of opinion as might be expected, is to be found in them.
Cranmer, whose bent was towards the historical view of things, showed boldness and judgment in these inquiries : and called forth at an early period some manifestation of one of the chief glories of the modern intellect: scientific freedom and honesty of method. The answers which he drew serve to show how characters were elicited, and even humours touched, in the course of a mental investigation. These curious minutes are the proper introduction to the formulary itself which we are to consider.f
* Burnet, Bk. iii.
+ These Questions on the Sacraments, and the Answers, exist in two transcripts, the one in the Lambeth, the other in the Cotton Library. Both have been printed by Burnet. They have been carefully examined for me by my friend Mr. A. Sturgeon, i. The Lambeth MS. Burnet, Goll. iii. No. xxi. Burnet calls this the Stillingfleet MS. (because Stil- lingfleet published some parts of it in his " Irenicum ") ; but it is
304 The Third English Confession, [ch. xi.
All were agreed that in Scripture there was no definition of a Sacrament : no more than of the
catalogued as No. 1108 : "Collections of Archb. Cranmer on Theo- logical Subjects "; and endorsed, " Sententias doctorum virorum de Sa- cramentis." It is a miscellaneous collection of papers sewn together in vellum covers. On the first side of the first sheet is a fragment of a set of Questions, as if some one had begun to write them out, and then broken off. These are, " How many Sacraments there be in the Scripture instituted of Christ in the New Testament " — " Whether a layman may excommunicate " — " Whether excominunication be necessary where Christian governors be." These coincide with none that Burnet has printed, though the first of them may answer to his third. The Questions on the Sacraments (which we are considering) do not stand first in the volume, which contains a great amount of miscellaneous matter, some certainly of several years later date. Mr. Sturgeon says, " Cranmer's part seems to be in his own hand. The answers signed by Ebor. seem to have been written by a clerk. Rochester's is not signed, but endorsed 'The bishop of Rochester's Booke.' London's is signed as a sort of declaration, ' Ita mihi Edmonde London. Ep. pro hoc tempore,' &c. Carlisle's is not signed, only headed."
The Questions were answered by the following bishops and doctors :
Cantuarien. D. Redman
Edouarde Ebor. Ricardus Cox
The bishop of Rochester Edwardus Leighton
Edm. London Ep. Symon. Mathew.
Robert Karliolen. William Tresham
Geo. Day : (" Opiniones non Richard Coren
Assertiones.") Edgeworth
Thomas Robertson : (" ad Owinus Oglethorpus.
Qua^stiones.")
The bishops will be seen to correspond, with the one exception of Carlisle, to those nominated for doctrine by Crumwel, in 1540. (See above, p. 234.) Besides these, there is reference in the "Agreements" or "Disagree- ments " (see further on) to answers returned by
St. David's. Hereford.
Durham. " The Elect of Westminster."
This last reference fixes the date of these Questions to the latter part of 1540 : since, as Jenkyns has observed, the title of Elect only belonged to Thirlby between 17th September and 29th December in that year.— Cranm. ii. p. 98. The valuable observations of Mr. Pocock, in his " Burnet " should be consulted. 2. The Cotton MS. Cleopatra E. 5. 39, in the British Mu- seum. This has been printed by Burnet in the Coll. to his supple- mentary volume, No. Ixviii., Ixix., Ixx. ; but not perfectly. This original
I543-] The Original Questions and Aiiswe^'s. 305
Trinity, of grace, or of the law : Bonner adding sarcastically to his answer, " Marry, what other men can find, being daily, out of long season, exercised in Scripture, I cannot tell, referring therefore the thing to their better judgment." To the question, what the Sacrament might be by the ancient authors, they returned many answers, to the effect that by the ancient authors the Sacrament was the sigfn of an holy thing : but upon the more explicit definition that the Sacrament was a visible form of invisible grace, they could not agree : on the ground, as Thirlby put it, that this definition coincided not with all the Seven Sacraments, nor with the Seven specially above all others. But on the question whether the matter, nature, and virtue of the Seven might be found in Scripture, though the name were not, there was agreement in the affirmative ; Cran- mer and Barlow however denying that Orders and
consists of four separate papers. The first of these gives, in three parallel columns, the questions and certain brief answers in the same hand, and some observations on them in the King's hand. It is indiced, " Seventeen Questions and Answers about the Sacraments, with the King's Observations in his own hand." Burnet is wrong in saying that this paper contains the names of certain persons, prelates, and doctors, written in the margin. The King's observations are very characteristic. The second paper gives the questions and some other brief answers, following one another, each after each. It is written in a very fine bold clerical hand : the first or first two words in each question large and thick. The answers are not the same with those in the Lambeth MS. They seem to aim at giving the gist of the answers of several, and not to be the answers of an individual. The names of several bishops and doctors are put against certain parts, as a reference to their opinions. This digest was submitted to the King, and contains one observation from his hand, that on Quest, ix. (See below, p. 310.) Burnet was wrong, as Mr. Pocock has observed, in putting this royal comment into the corresponding place in the first paper. The third paper is a copy of the English " Agreements " in the Lambeth MS. This is said by Mr. Pocock to be in Cranmer's hand. The fourth paper is a copy of the questions with the answers of Cranmer himself, bearing the same attestation as his answers in the Lambeth MS.
VOL. II. X
3o6 TJie Third English Confession, [ch. xi.
Extreme Unction were to be taken for Sacraments by the Scriptures.
It was in regard to the number of the Sacraments indeed that the diversity of opinion appeared most surprising, though it only arose out of the well-known ambiguity of the word. Thus, Cranmer observed, in his Answer, "The Incarnation of Christ, and Matri- mony be called Mysteries in Scripture : we may therefore call them Sacraments : and there is one Sacrament that is hard to be revealed, as would God it were, and that is the Mystery of iniquity." Heath of Rochester replied that in Scripture there were " in- numerable sacraments, for all mysteries, all ceremonies, all the facts of Christ, the whole story of the Jews, and the revelations of the Apocalypse, may be named Sacraments." — " Nebuchadnezzar's dream in Daniel, and the King's secret in Tobit, are Sacraments by the Scriptures," said Doctor Cox : and to these were added by others the Sacrament of Godliness, and the Sacrament of the Seven Stars in the Apocalypse. " There are as many sacraments as mysteries," said Doctor Redmayn, " but I think that the seven may principally bear the name." — " It is particularly observable," remarked Doctor Oglethorpe, " that of the seven which bear the name, there is only one that is called by the name in Scripture." — " I cannot tell how many Sacraments be by Scripture, for they be above one hundred," said Doctor Coren. " Speaking generally," said Doctor Edgeworth, " sacraments be innumerable : but speaking properly they be but seven. In Matrimony, which is expressly so called in Scrip- ture, there is a literal verity, the indivisible knot of the man and his wife in one body : upon which the Apostle foundeth the allegorical saying, E<^o autem dico in Christo et in Ecclesia. The mystical sense
I543-] The Original Questions and Answers. 307
presupposeth a verity in the letter, on which that is taken. Six more there be to which this definition doth agree." Nor was this explanation wanting in intelligence.
In the other main line of inquiry, the authority of bishops, the questions that were proposed were even bolder and more penetrative: the loyal scepticism, which burned like a passion in the breast of the chief bishop of England, flashed brightly forth in them. Whether the Apostles made bishops because there were no Christian kings in their day, or by authority given by God : whether bishops or priests were first : and, if priests, whether the priests made the bishops : whether a bishop had authority by the Scriptures to make a priest, and whether any other than a bishop could make a priest : whether consecration were necessary for a bishop or priest ; or only appointing to the office would be sufficient : whether, if a Christian king conquered an infidel dominion, having with him none but learned temporal men, he and they might teach and preach God's Word, and make and constitute priests : whether, if all the bishops and priests of a region were dead, the Christian king should make others to supply their room : these questions were truly radical and trenchant : and he who propounded them (if it were the Most Reverend indeed) may have exchanged an enlightened smile with them that were of his counsel, in prospect of the perplexity of the more tenacious of the conclave that were to resolve them. The answers of Cranmer himself througfhout were loyal and enlightened. " There is no more promise of God," said he, " that grace is given in the committing of the ecclesiastical office, than in the com- mitting of the civil office : all ministers ecclesiastical or civil are appointed by the King : the ceremonies that
X 2
3o8 The TJiird English Confession, [ch. xi.
are used in all are not of necessity, but for a good order and seemly fashion. Bishops and priests were but one office at the beginning of Christ's religion. Princes and governors may make bishops, and so may the people by their election. No consecration of bishops or priests is needed by the Scriptures : the election or appointment of them is sufficient. Princes and laymen may teach and preach, and make priests and bishops, in the cases supposed." To these positions the rest of the bishops, headed by the Archbishop of York, offered a general but not un- qualified denial. The voices of the doctors were more ambiguous in some points. They had " not read," or they "remembered not" any instance bearing on the case supposed. But on the whole they went with the bishops : and the collector of suffrages recorded, in every question, an agreement of opinion. The answers (of which I offer an epitome) ran thus. The Apostles made bishops by the authority of Christ, who said, " As my Father hath sent me, so send I you." But, added Bonner, and some others, if Christian princes had been then, they should by right have appointed them their rooms and places. The Apostles were both priests and bishops : they were priests before they were bishops : the divine power which made them priests made them bishops also : and though their ordination was not by such course as the Church now uses, yet they had both visible and invisible sanctifica- tion. Bonner, however, and some others thought that the Apostles were bishops before they were priests, adding that the question was not of importance, since, accord- ing to St. Jerome, there was little or no difference between the two orders in the beginning. None but bishops and priests may make a priest : but (added some) they must not use this authority without the
I543-] The Original Qiiestioiis and Answers. 309
permission of the prince. And Barlow and some others affirmed that laymen had otherwhiles made priests, and might make them in case of necessity. Consecration is requisite, said most : no consecration is requisite, said Doctor Cox, but only appointing, to the office of priest, with imposition of hands. But Barlow went farthest, who said that appointing was alone sufficient. Laymen, said all, not only may, but must, in case of necessity, teach and preach God's Word : but a layman cannot give the order of priesthood. In such a case of extreme necessity as that no priest could be had from any neighbouring country, nearly all said that, though such a case were hard to find, the prince or other learned laymen might constitute priests, for that the very necessity would be a direction : and so of the ministration of the Sacraments. With this sentence, however, Archbishop Lee, who died shortly after, seemed to disagree ; and with him one or two of the doctors. On the whole, it may be concluded that the readiness to alter laws and ordinances on the ground of ideal cases and incredible suppositions (the tendency of every revolution) was frustrated by firm- ness and intelligence. But certainly Cranmer, Barlow, and their party were, to be bishops, almost as swift as some of the eagles. For the rest, the same contrariety of opinions was extended to the use of the chrism in Confirmation (which was held to make that ordinance a Sacrament) : to Confession of secret sins : and to the question of the power of excommunication. Through- out the whole inquiry, the indignant, negligent, or prudent silence of the Bishop of Winchester might be remarked.*
* Gardiner's silence could not be accidental : z. e. he cannot have given answers that are lost. He was on that part of the commission, as it was appointed by Crumwel, which treated of doctrine. (See p. 234 in this
3IO TJie Third English Cojifessiou. [ch. xi.
The Supreme Head bore, as it became him, his part in these theological discussions, A brief and timid digest, which was probably prepared by Cranmer or Heath, laid before him the conclusions of the divines : and on this he wrote with his own hand some characteristic observations. When he read that there was no proper definition of Sacraments either in Scripture or in the ancient authors, but only a general declaration, his observation was, " Why should we then call them so ? " On the appropriation of the word Sacrament to the Seven, or to one only (a limitation which appears not in the answers of the divines themselves), the answer of the digest was, "God knoweth": on which the King demanded, " Why then hath the Church so long erred, to take upon them so to name them ?" A second digest, in which the sentences of the several doctors might be traced with more precision, was also compiled for him ; and on this he wrote a sinMe annotation. The ninth
o
question being, " Whether the Apostles, lacking a higher power, as in not having a Christian King among
volume.) We have the answers of all the other bishops who were on that part of the commission, either in full or summarised at the end of the questions. These bishops were, Canterbury, York, London, Durham, Rochester, Hereford, and St. David's : to whom is to be added " the Elect of Westminster," Thirlby : who was only a doctor when Crumwel ap- pointed the commission, but who was one of the doctors whom he appointed to be on that part of it. Gardiner, therefore, either had no questions sent him, or he never answered them. The only bishop who was not on the Crumwellian Commission, and who yet answered these questions, was Carlisle. Perhaps Winchester effected an exchange with him. He seems, however, not actually to have resigned his place in the Commission, for he was active in introducing their final work to the clergy in Convocation. See below, p. 316. These Questions only concern a small part of the whole affair. A great deal of confusion has been caused by Strype's gratuitous assumption that the manuscript articles, belong- ing to the affair of the first German embassy, of 1538, which he printed, were drawn up by this commission. See note on p. 6 of this voliune.
1 543-] The Original Questions and Answers. 311
them, made bishops by that necessity, or by authority given them of God :" and to this the wavering but reasonable answer of Canterbury himself being, that the making of bishops had two parts, Appointment and Ordering : " Appointment, which the Apostles, by necessity, made by common election, and sometimes by their own several assignment, could not then be done by Christian princes because at that time they were not, and now at these days appertaineth to Christian princes and rulers : and Ordering, wherein Grace is conferred, in which, as afore, the Apostles did follow the rule taught by the Holy Ghost, per manuum impositionem cum Oratione et jejunio:'' — "Where is this distinction?" wrote the royal commentator ; " now since you confess that the Apostles did occupy the one part, which you now confess belongeth to princes, how can you prove that Ordering is only committed to you bishops ?"
No such alarms, no such excursions are known to have exercised that part of the commission, which was appointed for rites and ceremonies. Indeed, as it seems to have been considered inexpedient at this time to do more in the way of liturgical revision than to castigate the old service books in a few particulars,* it would have been useless for them to attempt to make new books, or to have undertaken to explain, alter, or abolish the ceremonies of the Church. They composed a rationale, but it was not published : and in it they confined themselves to commending, without amending, the rites and ceremonies that were in use. This document, which deserves perhaps more atten- tion than it has received, might be examined with advantage by the reader who desired to acquaint him-
* See below, p. 315.
312 The Third English Confession, [ch. xi.
self with the ancient ceremonies, offices, and orders of pubhc service of the Church of England, which were soon to be reformed or reduced into the great Use of the sixteenth century. Those who framed it touched implicitly upon the leading divisions into which the large and confusing mass of the manuscript church books might be arranged : namely, the Pontificale, the Daily Prayers with their various supplements, and the Missale. The ceremonies, observances, and prayers that were used in the consecration of bishops, and in giving orders not only to priests, deacons, and sub- deacons, but also to other inferior grades of clergy, were contained, said the commissioners, in the books called Pontificals : immense elaborate volumes (it may be observed) filled with curious and magnificent rites. These rites, in the judgment of the commissioners, were laudable and expedient to be used : but less of them than of any other part of the ancient services have actually survived in the present offices of the Church of England. The daily services in the churches, " Matins, Prime, Hours, Evensong, and Compline," were declared with truth to consist the most part of Scripture, though certain things added by man might well be reformed. They referred here to the second great group of the ancient services : to the Breviaries or portuises, those various books which contained in some confusion the daily prayers arranged according to the monastic system of the seven or eight canonical hours. It was this group of books which stood most in need of reformation : for the monastic system of constantly recurring services, though found too burdensome to be observed in full strictness in the monasteries them- selves, had intruded itself into the services of every church of Christendom : and every parish priest found himself bound by his books to go through a daily
1543-] Rationale of Rites and Ceremonies I 313
routine of prayers which it was impossible even to pretend to observe. But on these points the remarks of the commissioners were brief and conservative. The Missale, the third great part of the services of the Church, received at their hands a more expHcit exposition. The Mass, the contest of the age, was defended : the dresses worn by the priest in celebrating it were explained in their historic and in their mystic signification : and the succession and connexion of the various parts of the great Catholic service were ex- hibited with lucidity and even with beauty. All the disputed ceremonies were maintained. The liturgic principles of this remarkable Rationale must have been highly obnoxious to Cranmer : and it is probable enough that it was he who prevented it from seeing the light. If it had come into Convocation, it would have been passed : and must have influenced the course of the great liturgic reformation in the suc- ceeding reign.* The suppression of this book is one of those forgotten facts which are the turning-points
* It was first printed by Collier (vol. ii. 191, fol. ed.) from the Cleo- patra E. 5, fol. 259. Strype gives some account of it, and seems to refer it to an earlier date. He says that it was laboured to be passed through a Convocation by the popish party soon after the Six Articles Act : that it was devised by Gardiner, and has an annotation in his handwriting : that Cranmer hindered the reception of it : that it was the book consisting of eighty-eight articles devised by a Convocation, which Fox says that Cran- mer co7tfuted. Life of Cfanin. bk. i. ch. xix. I am sure that it was never brought before Convocation : for I have no doubt that it was the docu- ment which Convocation, in the first year of Edward the Sixth, requested Cranmer to produce (see below, ch. xiii.). Cranmer did not confute it, he suppressed it, and prevented it from being seen. It is curious to specu- late what would be the contents of our present Prayer Book, what would be the disputed points of our liturgic, ritualistic, and vestmentary con- troversies if this Rationale had seen the light at the time when it was made. The Cleopatra manuscript is in two hands, the new hand com- mencing on p. 278. It seems very doubtful that Gardiner had anything to do with it. It is not divided into articles or items : but yet in fact it consists of about the number which Fox assigns to it. See it in Collier.
314 T^^^^ Third English Confession, [ch. xi.
of history. But I return to the more celebrated labours of the other part of the commission.
The Necessary Doctrine and Erudition of a Christian Man was introduced into the Convocation, which met concurrently with the Parliament at the beginning of the year : and was passed by them after an examina- tion which lasted eight days. It was therefore invested with the authority of the English Church. In this Convocation the same activity was exhibited which had marked the year before : and several steps were taken or suggested by the clergy in the way of a needful and proper reformation. When they met in February, after the indispensable solemnity of voting a subsidy to the royal necessities — a subsidy of the vast amount of four shillings in the pound for three years to come, some Homilies were exhibited which had been prepared by several of the prelates. They were the beginning of the first Book of the present Homilies.* The Prolocutor then laid before the Upper House, to be presented to the King, several petitions for redressing the evils of the times. One of these was for procuring the better payment of tithes, both prsedial and personal, by the laity : another was to put in operation the long neglected statute for making and revising ecclesiastical laws by a commis- sion of thirty-two persons : under pretence of which statute (as it has been shown) the existing ecclesiastical laws were all suspended. f So far as real action was
* Cranmer, when he seriously undertook the work of providing the Church with Homilies, in the beginning of the next reign, wrote a letter to Gardiner, reminding him of the attempt of this Convocation of 1542 (i.e. 1543) to set a stay to the errors of ignorant preachers. Strype's Crafi. bk. ii. ch. iii. Mr. Corrie in his Preface to the Homilies writes as if Cranmer had said 1540, not 1542. (See below, ch. xiii.)
t See Vol. I. p. 190 of this work. The petition of the clergy to the King was, " For the Ecclesiastical laws of this realm to be made, accord- ing to the Statute made in the Jifih year of his most gracious reign."
I543-] Convocation of 1543. 315
concerned, nothing came of these petitions : but in the following year, as it will be seen, the delusive statute about appointing thirty-two persons was renewed. The stroke of the Reformation was to be seen in another of these petitions to the great author of it, '' For an Act of Parliament to be made this session for the union and corporation of small and exile benefices through the realm ; which for smallness of fruits be not able to find a priest, and so rest untaken by parson, vicar, or curate." But this bore no legislative fruit. The Most Reverend now advanced the medi- tated liturgical revision another stage. He declared it to be the royal will " that all mass books, antiphoners, portuises, in the Church of England should be newly examined, reformed, and castigated from all manner of mention of the Bishop of Rome's name, from all apocryphas, feigned legends, superstitious orations, collects, versicles, and responses : that the names and memories of all saints, which were not contained in the Scriptures or authentic doctors, should be abolished and put out of the same books and calendars : and that the service should be made out of the Scriptures, and other authentic doctors." The examination was committed to the Bishops of Salisbury and Ely, Capon and Goodrich, and to six of the Lower House ; but this committee was not formed, the Lower House declining to appoint.* At this same time one lesson was ordered to be read in English in the churches,
Wilk. iii. 863 ; Strype, i. 581 ; Ex. Reg. Cranni. Doubtless it should be the twenty-fifth year, that is, A. D. 1534, the year of the Submission of the clergy and of the statute about the Thirty-two. The clergy now uncon- sciously made an era of the year of grace 1529, and reckoned on to the fifth year of his Majesty's most gracious Reformation.
* Ely and Salisbury were to " take to each of them three of the Lower House, such as should be appointed for that purpose ; but this the Lower House released." — Wilkitis, iii. 863.
3i6 The TJdrd English Confession [ch. xi.
without exposition.* Here then, at this point, rested the revision of the pubHc service. No new books were composed. The old books were ordered to be called in and castigated. If the order was ever en- forced, the books, after their expurgation, must have been restored to the churches whence they were taken. But it is more likely that nothing was done.f
It was not before the month of April that the new Formulary of the Faith was submitted to the con- sideration of the Synod. It came before them part by part. The translation and exposition of the Lord's Prayer and of the Angelical Salutation were examined by the Most Reverend, and by the Bishops of Win- chester, Rochester, and Westminster: and then sent to the Lower House. Next day the former five of the Ten Commandments followed the same course at the hands of the same prelates. The rest of the Decalogue, the Exposition of Baptism, the Exposition of the Eucharist, which, we are told, were composed, examined, and revised by Canterbury, Westminster, Rochester, Salisbury, and Hereford, were then resigned to the hands of the Prolocutor and the judgment of the clergy: and, on the day following, the Eucharist again, and the other Sacraments, Matrimony, Penance,
* "The curate of every church, after the Te Deum and Magnificat, shall openly read unto the people one chapter of the New Testament in English, without exposition ; and when the New Testament is read over, then to begin the Old."— Wilkzns, iii. 863.
t That is, perhaps the books were not formally called in. Perhaps there was less to do than was thought. There had been a great deal of Pope-scraping going on for years. Cranmer was very particular indeed about it. The process was applied not only to the public service books, but to the primers, or books of private devotion. In 1541, a husbandman was brought up from his county before the Privy Council, by an informer, for having the Pope's name in his primer. It appeared, however, when the book was examined, that the Pope's name was blotted out save in one or two places, where it remained by accident. So he was discharged.— Acts of Privy Council, vii. 221.
I543-] passed through Convocation. 317
Order, Confirmation, and Extreme Unction, were despatched to the same destination by the prelates aforesaid. The Exposition of the word Faith was examined by Canterbury and Winchester, by Rochester and Westminster : the Exposition of the Creed, or the Twelve Articles of the Christian Faith, was examined and approved by all the bishops. In the afternoon of the same day the Articles of Justification, of Good Works, and of Prayers for the Dead, were read in the Upper House, and transmitted to the Lower. B)' the Lower House they were returned with approbation, as being Catholic and religious : and the clergy applauded the diligent exertions of the fathers in the cause of religion, of the commonwealth, and of unity.* The work was published at the end of the next month. f
The spirit that makes the works of men greater than the men was not absent from the treatise thus elaborately composed. The Necessary Doctrine and Erudition was substantially a revision of the Institu- tion of a Christian Man, its predecessor, with which
* " Necnon gratias ingentes patribus egerunt, quod tantos labores, sudores, et vigilias religionis et reipublicse causa, et unitatis gratia subierunt." — Wilk. iii. 868.
t It was printed by Barthelet, May 29, 1543. Lloyd's Fonmdaries. The book consists of the same parts that were thus examined, as follows : —
The King's Preface.
Faith.
The Creed or the Twelve Articles of the Christian Faith.
Certain Notes for the better understanding of the Creed.
The Exposition of the Seven Sacraments.
The Exposition of the Ten Commandments.
The Exposition of the Lord's Prayer.
The Exposition of the Salutation of the Angel.
The Article of Freewill.
The Article of Justification.
The Article of Good Works.
On Prayer for Souls departed.
3i8 The Third English Confession [ch. xi.
it is now necessary to compare it : but it was much better composed, more coherent, and more learned. It was divided in reahty into the same four parts : the Exposition of the Creed, of the Decalogue, of the Sacraments, and of the Lord's Prayer and other choice pieces of Scripture : but this division was no longer formally maintained. The name of the Bishops' Book mi^ht seem to have been as well or better deserved by it than by the Institution, since it was prepared by the diligence of so many prelates. But the Necessary Doctrine and Erudition was issued with much greater pomp than the Institution : it bore on the title-page a declaration that it was " set forth by the King's Majesty of England " : it was adorned by two texts, " Lord preserve the King," and " Lord, in thy strength the King shall rejoice" : and instead of the prelatical petition to the King, which had served for a preface to the former book,* it had a Preface written in the name of the Kino- himself. For these reasons it became known by the popular designation of the King's Book.
In the Preface the King repeated the complaint of the age concerning the ill use to which the Scriptures were turned. In the time of darkness, he said, he had laboured to purge his realm of hypocrisy and superstition : and now, in the time of knowledge, the devil desired to return into the house that was swept and garnished, accompanied with seven worse spirits : for there was entered into some of the people "an inclination to sinister understanding of Scripture, pre- sumption, arrogancy, carnal liberty, and contention." It was necessary for the people to understand that some men were made to teach and others to be taught : and that it was not necessary for all to read
* Vol. I. p. 529 of this work.
I543-] compared with the Second. 319
the Scriptures for themselves. The laws of the realm now restrained the Scriptures from a great many, since it was sufficient to hear and bear away the lessons taught by the preachers : a position which his Majesty supported by the ludicrous sophism that the text, " Blessed are they that hear the Word of God," meant that they were blessed who heard without reading.
The Article on Faith, with which the Necessary Doctrine begins, was a new addition to the Institu- tion : and contained a clear explanation of the various acceptations of the term.. The Exposition of the Creed was very much shortened from the Institution : and the long Notes and Observations in the older work were omitted. In the Sacraments great differences might be observed between the two books. The article on Baptism was entirely re-written, and was a great improvement on the old one. In the Sacrament of the Altar, the very brief article in the Institution, declaring the doctrine of the Real Presence, was re- placed by a very long one, affirming Transubstantia- tion, receiving in one kind, and receiving fasting. The article adds a testimony to the evil manners of the times, bidding the people " not to talk, or walk up and down, or offend their brethren by any example of irreverence to the said Sacrament." In Matrimony the former exposition was nearly repeated : but, in a book that was issued by the authority of Henry the Eighth, there was good reason for omitting even the cautious declaration that the bond of lawful marriage could not be dissolved or broken but by death only : and that he who went about to dissever himself, went about to divorce Christ from his Church. The celibacy of priests was maintained (in another part of the book) : and the restraints under which some of the
320 TJie Third English Cojifession [ch. xi.
late relieious were still held was vindicated. Of their free will, by vow advisedly made, they were said to have chosen the state of continency : and therein they now continued, according to their free choice, freely and willingly. In Orders the difference between the two books might be expected to become conspicuous : and the immensely long exposition of the Institution was replaced by one nearly as long but of another sound. In the Institution a low view of the clerical privilege was taken : stress was laid upon the duties of the priestly office, and their right discharge : the grace given in ordination was said to be simply grace to discharge those duties. The power of priesthood was said not to be a tyrannical or absolute power, but a moderate power, subject and restrained to the end for which it was given by God : and that was " only to administer and distribute to the members of Christ's mystical body spiritual and heavenly things, that is to say, the pure and heavenly doctrine of Christ's Gospel, and the graces conferred in the Sacraments." The office of preaching was declared to be " the chief and principal office whereunto priests or bishops be called." The inferior orders, such as janitors, lectors, exorcists, acolytes, and subdeacons, were denied to exist by the authority of the New Testament : the authority of the New Testament was denied to all other ceremonies of ordination but the imposition of hands, such as " rasures, tonsures, unctions." In the Necessary Doctrine, the opposite, the higher view was maintained on most of these points, though in moderate language : but the greater part of the article was against the authority of the Pope. The exposition of Confirma- tion is the same in both books. That of Extreme Unction is much shorter in the Necessary Doctrine than in the other : but it is fairly equivalent.
I543-] compared with the Secoiid. 321
The difference of view between the two formularies was indicated also in the order in which the Sacraments were placed. In the Necessary Doctrine they came as they have been enumerated here. In the Institution, or Bishops' Book, they ran thus : Matrimony, Baptism, Confirmation, Penance, the Sacrament of the Altar, Orders, Extreme Unction. In the Necessary Doctrine, moreover, a distinction was made between the greater Sacraments, of Baptism, Penance, and the Altar, and the rest of the seven.
In the Expositions of the Ten Commandments, which were substantially the same in both, the manners, the practices and the superstitions of the age or of the day received some curious illustrations : while some minute alterations still served to distinguish the older theory of the newer book. The Institution affirmed that they who transgressed the First Com- mandment fell into desperation. It rebuked those who reputed some days good, and others unfortunate : or who held it unlucky to meet in the morning with certain kinds of beasts, or with men of certain pro- fessions. It contained several passages against images : particularly one against having pictures or similitudes of the Father of Heaven, which had been permitted in times past partly because of the dulness of men's wits, and partly from yielding to " the custom of gentility," that is, of the gentiles, who made representations of their gods. It declared that all priests and ministers used the name of God in vain, if in the administration of the Sacraments they yielded not all the efficacy thereof to our Lord, but ascribed any part of it to themselves : or if they used the Sacraments in conjuration, or other strange practices : and that any person using the name of God in enchantments or divinations, transgressed the Third Commandment.
VOL. II. Y
322 The Third English Confession [ch. xi.
All these passages were omitted from the Necessary- Doctrine. But both books sounded loud the terrible note of witchcraft. Both denounced those who pre- tended to tell the future " by lots, divination, chattering of birds, and looking of men's hands :" those who, " by- charms or witchcraft, used any prescribed letters, signs, or characts, words, blessings, rods, crystal stones, sceptres, swords, measures," those who " hung St. John's Gospel or anything about their necks:" and most especially those who " made secret pacts and covenants with the Devil, or used any manner of conjurations to raise up devils for treasure, or any other thinof hid or lost:" and those who resorted to witches and conjurers.*
Several long passages concerning original sin and concupiscence, which occurred in the Institution under the Tenth Commandment, were expunged from the Necessary Doctrine. Another long passage on the same subjects, which came in the Exposition of the Lord's Prayer, was likewise omitted : and an awful description of concupiscence was considerably softened in the latter book : where it was added that original sin is taken away by baptism, though concupiscence may remain.
A few other alterations may be mentioned, which illustrate either the higher doctrine or the greater liberality of the later formulary ; which breathes more of antiquity, and less of the ferocious dogmatics of the age : but, at the same time, Is even more precise in the point of loyalty. In the part about Laudable Rites and Ceremonies, the Necessary Doctrine added to the hallowing of the font the hallowing of the chalice, of the corporas, and of the altar. In enumerating
* The enumeration of magical acts here corresponds pretty closely with that in the Act against witchcraft. Above, p. 282.
I543-] compared with the Second. 323
religious actions in the Fourth Commandment, where the Institution has " to hear the word of God, to remember the benefits of God, to give thanks for the same, to pray, to exercise holy works," the Necessary Doctrine adds, ** to hear mass." In commenting on the petition for daily bread, in the Lord's Prayer, the Institution said that the word of God was principally meant, and that only the bread of the word of God could feed and sustain the soul. Here the Necessary Doctrine inserted a passage to the effect that the Sacrament of the Altar was meant by the bread for which we ask : and that the word of God was meant also. On the petition " Forgive us our trespasses," the Institution said that " if we would escape everlast- ing damnation, we must heartily forgive those who had trespassed against us." The Necessary Doctrine simply affirmed that we must put out of our hearts all rancour, and refer the punishment of all offenders to the law of God and of the prince. In the Exposi- tion of the Creed, the later book entirely omitted to declare that " all the people of the world, were they Jews, Turks, Saracens, or of any other nation, who should finally be found out of the Catholic Church, or be dead members of it, should utterly perish, and be damned for ever." In the same part, instead of a description of the Final Judgment, a highly beautiful passage was substituted, in which the rewards of the righteous in the Life Everlasting were alone depicted. In the Article on Baptism, where the Institution said that children dying in infancy should undoubtedly be saved thereby, " and else not ; " the Necessary Doctrine left out the last words. To the same purpose is the avoidance of too much arguing on mysteries : as, for example, the substitution of a short paragraph for a long disquisition on the Descent
Y 2
324 The Third English Confession, [ch. xi.
into Hell : and of a few words for a minute enumera- tion of the gifts of the Holy Ghost. An unwarranted addition to Holy Scripture was also expunged. In the former book, St. Matthew was thus cited : " Prepared for the devil and his angels, and the cursed members of his {i.e. Christ's) body." The added words were omitted in the latter book. At the same time a greater precision in loyalty might be detected in one or two places. In the Exposition of the Fourth Command- ment, the latter book adds to the necessary works enumerated in the former which might be done on Sunday, " the speedy performance of the necessary affairs of the prince and the commonwealth." In the Exposition of the Fifth, obedience to princes is put before obedience to spiritual rulers : which stood first in the Institution.
For the rest, the new Article on Free Will in the new book was moderate : the old Article on Justifica- tion, which the old book contained, was expanded into two Articles, on Justification and on Good Works : and the old Article on Purgatory reappeared under the title of, Prayer for Souls departed. Such was the third Confession of the Church of England, as compared with the second. The triumph of the Old Learnincr, which was doubtful in the Institution, was unquestionable in the Necessary Doctrine.
The ecclesiastical measures of the Parliament, which concurred with this remarkable Convocation, were not numerous, but they bore the unclouded impression of loyalty. " For the advancement of true religion," the Parliament forbade the free use of the Bible : and in their statute for this, they showed themselves as susceptible of hostile criticism, on behalf of the King's doctrines, as the clergy had ever appeared to be in defending the ancient faith. The perversity and
1543] ^ Parliament of 1543. 325
ignorance, the froward malice and conceit of those who abused the use of the Scriptures " by words, sermons, disputations, and arguments, by printed books, printed ballads, plays, songs," and other devices, was set forth at length. It was declared expedient to suppress all such productions " by laws dreadful and penal." Tyndale's versions, the ancient fear of the clergy, were forbidden to be read: and all other versions, which had notes, prologues, and prefaces contrary to the King's doctrine, were also prohibited. The other translations of the Bible were allowed, but any preambles or annotations were to be blotted out of them, save only the summaries of chapters. To have in possession an Anabaptist book was to cost a man five pounds, for the damnable opinions of the Anabaptists had been condemned by the King's Pro- clamations. The King, said the legislature, of his most gracious and blessed disposition, had heretofore set forth the Scriptures. But his goodness had been so abused that it was necessary to lay restraints on the use of them. It was therefore enacted that no woman might read the Bible : no artificer, prentice, serving man, husbandman, yeoman, or labourer might read it, either openly or privately, to others or to themselves, nor teach and preach in churches, on pain of a month's imprisonment. But noblemen and gentlemen might quietly read it in their families : merchants might read it to themselves, and so might ladies. If a clergyman preached against the King's doctrines, he was to be burned alive for the third offence : if a layman, he was to be imprisoned for life. An abject clause was added, empowering the King to alter the Act, or any part of it, "at his Highness's liberty and pleasure." This completed the character of a not unjustly celebrated statute. At the same time the guardians of English
326 Parliament of 1543. [ch. xi.
freedom facilitated their former Act of Proclamations by a fresh concession. They had given to the King's Proclamations the force of laws, but they had at the time ordained that unless half the Council were present, offenders against Proclamations could not be punished. This was an impediment in the way of the ever active Council of Henry. Offenders against Proclamations remained unpunished at times, because there were not councillors enough present to punish them. Parliament hastened now to remedy this. If nine councillors were present, the guilty should not go unpunished.*
Another enormous subsidy, a tax on real and per- sonal property, rising from fourpence to three shillings in the pound, payable in three years, attested, but failed to satisfy the exhaustless cupidity of the King. The clergy, more liberal or more helpless than the laity, followed this by a grant of no less than ten per cent, of those nine parts of their incomes which were left after the tenth was gone, as ever, to the Crown.f These concessions were unprecedented: but they only served to whet the royal appetite for more. The inquisitions and returns that were made disclosed the value of every man's estate : and, with this information before him, the King had recourse to a forced loan or " prest," as it was called : a practice which he repeated several times in his later years. All persons who were rated at fifty pounds a year received a letter
* 34 and 35 H. VIII. I and 23. There were a few other ecclesiastical Acts of minor importance ; one of which bears the misleading title, " for the payment of pensions granted out of the late abbeys." The nature of this is better conveyed by its title in the Journals, " payment of synods and proxies to the Bishop, of such lands as belonged to late dissolved houses." It was an honest attempt to inforce the general saving of corrodies, synodals, and such claims, in the Act of Dissolution.
t 34 and 35 H. VIII. 27, 28.
I543-] Katharine Parr. 327
from the King, demanding a sum of money, by way of loan, on the security of a privy seal for repayment in two years. Russell, Gardiner, Baker, and Wriothesley sat for London in commission on this business : by their diligence and dexterity ten per cent, at least was exacted from the reluctant subject : and some of the heads of the city were known to have lent the King no less than a thousand marks.*
About the middle of this year Henry contracted his sixth marriage. He may be left in the peace which he enjoyed with Katharine Parr, if only it be observed that, before she survived her royal husband, the last of his Queens stood once, or fancied that she stood, within the danger of his orthodoxy. Strongly inclined to the New Learning, she displayed too freely a disputatious temper, which aroused at last the theo- logical or marital susceptibility of the Supreme Head. He caused some Articles to be administered to her, as was done to heretics. Seeing in that dread formality the prospect of a more tragic fate than that of Boleyn or Howard, the terrified lady fell into such a state of lamentable despair and bitter wailing that the King was fain to hasten to her chamber, and assure her that nothing serious was meant ; while she, on her part, kneeling at his feet, pathetically protested that, if she had ever appeared to dispute his opinion, it was out of no perverse inclination, but only to move him to display before her wondering gaze the treasures of his invincible learning and matchless eloquence.f
A more serious persecution, the third under the
* Stow. So strict were the commissioners in handling men and widows, that " he that paid least (paid) ten pounds out of every hundred pounds." — Wriothesley, 12,0.
t This is one of the best stories in Fox. As he gives it, it is perfect as the story of a comedy : with surprises, turning point, happy event,
328 TJiivd Persecution under Six Articles, [ch.xi.
Six Articles, broke out at the time of the marriage : and raged chiefly about the royal seat of Windsor. In the month of July four men of that place were indicted, arraigned, and condemned for heresy : they were Anthony Pearson, a priest ; Henry Filmer, a tailor; Robert Testwood, a singing man; and John Marbeck, another singing man, and a celebrated name in the history of music. The first three of them were burned ; the last was pardoned. Pearson was alleged to have preached that Christ was hung between two thieves when the priest elevated the consecrated elements, if the priest were not a pure and sincere preacher of God's word. Filmer, sharing the popular error concerning the nature of the Sacrifice of the Mass, is said to have said that he had eaten twenty gods in his life. Of Testwood, the singer, we know more. He was a merry jester, and unfortunately too free in expressing his opinions. He had been admitted into the Windsor choir three years before, on account of his musical ability and the splendour of his voice : but he had not been there long before the dean and canons found that they had a heretic among them. Testwood,
everything that such a story should have. Of course "the wily be- guilers " are in it, with Gardiner at their head, who seems indeed to have been employed to make the Articles. Fox really had great power. Herbert and Lingard have also related it ; but I am afraid that the imagination of the latter has (for once) run away with him, when he says that it was the noise of Katharine's unceasing screams that brought Henry to her side. Fox, who, like other great story-tellers, disdains unnecessary mysteries, keeps assuring us all the way that the King knew what he would do, and was laughing in his sleeve. But he went so far as to sign her commitment to the Tower. If she had once got there she would never have come out alive ; and, as Herbert says, if it were a jest, it was a cruel one. Gardiner, as usual, has been abused for his malignity in this affair. But Tytler and Maitland have observed that if he could have been blamed, it would not have escaped the notice of Bale, in his sketch of Katharine Parr, in his Centuries. Bale's book was published in 1548 : that he was not afraid of attacking Gardiner at that time is plain from other parts of it.
I543-] The Singing Man of Windsor. 329
indeed, seems to have been one of those sprightly- wits of whom Crumwel was the patron, and to have been under his special protection. At dinner he would argue with the canons and chantry priests of the establishment. When the people came on pilgrim- age to the spurs, the hat, and other relics of good King Henry of Windsor, and of the rest of the saints who had monuments there, he would go to them in the church, and admonish them that they were worshipping stocks and stones. To illustrate his argument he struck the alabaster image of the Virgin with his key, and knocked off her nose. On Relic Sunday, an annual day whereon all the canons, clerks, and singing men were wont to go round the church in procession, every one carrying a relic, Testwood's offences rose very high. The rochet of Thomas Becket was handed to him to carry : and he refused it with a very rude jest indeed. The verger then came with St. George's dagger, demanding who lacked a relic yet : whereon Testwood bade him give it to Mr. Hake, who was standing next to himself in the procession. When Mr. Hake had it, Testwood stepped out of his place, while the procession was wait- ing in the choir, went to the canon who was to march with it, and uttered this profane jest : " Sir," said he, " Mr. Hake hath St, George's dagger : now, if he had his horse, and Mr. Shorn's boots, and King Henry's spurs and hat, he might ride, when he would." With that he stepped back to his place : and the canon, who was ready robed in a gorgeous cope, and held the pix in his hands, could only cast after him a dreadful look. Another time, when a paper in metre in praise of the Virgin was set on the door of the choir by one of the canons, Testwood pulled it down : and when it was set up again, again he pulled it down, at the time
330 Third Pevseciitioii under Six Articles, [ch. xi.
when all were eolne in to service. The dean sent for him to his stall to reprimand him for this, before the service began ; but, being a timid man, was rebuked by Testwood rather than rebuked him. But perhaps the most notable prank of this unfortunate jester was when he was set to sing against a famous singer of the King's Chapel, who happened to be in Windsor. The anthem chosen contained a long and elaborate counter verse, addressed to the Virgin, beginning " O Redemptrix et Salvatrixl' and in this the singers were to try their skill. As the two voices rose in the air, repeating and combining the words in bouts and turns of intricate sweetness, it was heard that Testwood changed the O into Non, and the et into nee. As often as the one singer cried Oh, the other answered No : each exerted his powers to the utmost in the struggle for the mastery : and the piece came to an end in a furious combat of sound and doctrine, to the scandal of the congregation.
So long as Crumwel remained in power Testwood and his friends were safe : and several efforts which the canons made against their refractory singing man were defeated by him through Crumwel's aid. But the doings of the heretics in Windsor had been long marked with anger by a resolute lawyer of the place, named Simons, who was a staunch adherent of the Old Learning. This man had taken notes of the sermons of Pearson : he had upheld the vicar of Windsor against the disputatious tailor : he had picked up and preserved the nose of the statue of the Virgin, when Testwood broke it off. He had threatened them all with future retribution, and he expected his opportunity. At length, about the time of Crumwel's fall, the renowned Doctor London added to his other promotions a prebend in Windsor. At the first dinner
I543-] Dr. London and Windsor Heretics. 33 1
that he gave on coming into residence, he found out Testwood's quality, and gave him a taste of his own. He soon became acquainted with Simons; and the two, taking into their counsels another ecclesiastical lawyer, named Okham, resolved to extirpate heresy in that neighbourhood. They watched, they set others to watch, the behaviour of suspected persons in church : they made a collection of the notes of Simons on Pearson's sermons : they got possession of an English Concordance which Marbeck, the other sing- ing man who was implicated, was making from the Latin : and when they had gathered sufficient evi- dence, they went with their budget to the Bishop of Winchester. Gardiner is said to have encouraged them to proceed : a commission of enquiry was sent down to Windsor : and Filmer, Marbeck, and Test- wood, along with one Bennet, were apprehended. Filmer and Bennet were committed to the prison of the Bishop of London ; Marbeck was sent to the Marshalsea : Testwood was put in charge of the bailiffs of Windsor. Pearson, who was apprehended soon afterwards, was also kept at Windsor. They were examined severally by the Bishops of Winchester, Rochester, Salisbury, and Ely ; by Doctors May, Oking, and others : and certainly all kindness seems to have been shown to them, and an anxious desire was exhibited to let them go free. However, in the end, Filmer and Marbeck were sent to Windsor to be tried by jury according to the provisions of the Six Articles : and there they were joined by Testwood and Pearson. As for Bennet, he was allowed to remain untried in London, on plea of sickness : and he ultimately escaped.
The judges who were appointed to try the four prisoners were Capon, the Bishop of Salisbury : Sir
332 Third Pevsecntion under Six Articles, [ch. xi.
William Essex: Sir Thomas Bridges: Sir Humphrey Foster : Franklin, the Dean of Windsor : and one Fackel, of Reading. The jury found them guilty of heresy : but it was some time before the judges could bring themselves to pronounce the horrible sentence. They sat regarding the prisoners with tears in their eyes : one after another refused the office, which was performed at last by Fackel, the only one of the bench who had shown any disposition to deal hardly during the trial. For Marbeck a pardon was procured from the King by Capon, with the ready help of Gardiner : and he lived happily to become the founder of the first and noblest school of English Church music. The other three were burned together in front of Windsor Castle, enduring their torments with heroic constancy. Some time afterwards the King, being at Windsor, made some enquiry into the case : when Sir Humphrey Foster and the Sheriff made bold to say to him that they never in their lives sat with his authority on a matter that went so much agfainst their con- sciences : and told him so pitiful a tale of the end of those poor men, that he turned away from them exclaiming, "Alas poor innocents!" It is a pity that he made no enquiry before.*
* The history of these poor men is one of the most vivid, circum- stantial, and pathetic in Fox, and far less distorted than usual by his prejudices. He puts the tragedy in 1544, but in one passage in 1543. Hall puts it in 1543, and this seems the right date. Marbeck long sur- vived, and was alive when Fox wrote his story, " singing merrily, and playing on the organs." He seems to have been as good a singer as poor Testwood. Gardiner, who showed him great kindness all through the affair, told him that he had " pleased him in his art as much as any man that ever he heard." Mr. Froude says that Marbeck, who had made a Concordance to the Bible, was the most obnoxious of all. But he was the only one that was pardoned, and he would have been acquitted but for Fackel. Mr. Froude of course lays the blame on Gardiner, whom he calls "the chief delinquent." He never notices that the abomination was allowed to go on till it imperilled people of condition, and then was
I543-] Doctor London flies too high. 333
These poor victims were allowed to burn. But it soon appeared that Doctor London and his associates had flown at higher game, to their own undoing. The list of suspected persons which he, Simons, and Ok- ham had prepared was found to contain the names not only of such base rascals as priests, tailors, and singing men, but the names of gentlemen, of members of the Privy Council itself, and (though this was of less moment) of at least one dignitary of the Church. Sir Philip Hoby, a distinguished new monastic, and Lady Hoby, Sir Thomas Carden and Lady Carden, and three or four others of the Council, were among those whose heretical behaviour had been noted in their books : and with them was numbered Dean Haynes of Exeter, a Prebendary of Windsor, who was already in prison on suspicion. This was in- tolerable : and it was stopped at once with a high hand. The Earl of Bedford, Russell, who had succeeded Crumwel as Privy Seal, seems to have taken the lead in the matter. A warninor ^^^3 con- veyed to the persons implicated : and they proceeded with haughty prudence against their despicable foes. A party of them, headed by Carden, waylaid Okham as he was posting to Gardiner with an indictment which he had drawn up at Windsor. The dangerous instrument was perused by those against whom it was directed : the King was fearlessly acquainted with it : and a free pardon, which was easily procured from a generous monarch, prospectively covered every offence,
stopped at once. He talks about the three poor fellows dying " to satisfy the orthodoxy of the Bishop of Winchester ! " They died to satisfy the proof that at that time there was one law for the rich and another for the poor. However he is only following Fox and Strype, who gravely tells us that Gardiner forfeited the King's favour through his cruelty on this occasion. On Gardiner's conduct, see MaitlaiuVs Essays, p. 311.
334 Third Persecution under Six Articles, [ch. xi.
and prevented the shame, the peril, and probably the fatal issue of a trial by jury.* The three miscreants, Okham, Simons, and London, were apprehended and examined on oath before the Council. The denial of the charge of conspiracy did but raise their guilt to perjury. They were condemned to ride about the towns of Windsor, Reading, and Newbury, with papers on their backs, and with their faces toward the horse tail : and to stand in the pillory in every one of those towns. Doctor London was no stranger to that situa- tion.! After undergoing his sentence, he was cast into the Fleet, and there he died miserably. Such was the end of a great, but too ambitious, monastic Visitor. j:
But before this hapless consummation, it was dis- covered that the machinations of London, and, as it is alleged, of Gardiner, had been spread still wider, and contrived even higher. We must not grudge to be detained a little longer yet in following the steps of so bold an enterpriser. At the time when the persecu- tion was raging in Windsor, the King happened to sail past Lambeth in his barge. Seeing the Archbishop standing at the stairs, as his custom was, in sign of duty, he called him to him : and Cranmer, leaping into his own barge, was soon on board of the King. " Ah, my chaplain," said the monarch merrily, '' I have news for you : I know now who is the greatest heretic in Kent." And he pulled out of his sleeve a paper of accusations against the Archbishop, his chaplains, and his preachers ; which he had received, subscribed by the hands of certain of the prebendaries of Canterbury
* We shall again observe that a free pardon was the royal method of mitigating the Six Articles, when they imperilled people of condition.
t Strype, i. 582. "This Dr. London, for his incontinency, afterwards did open penance in Oxford, having two smocks on his shoulders," &;c.
1 Fox.
I543-] Cranmer informed against. 335
and of the justices of Kent. In truth it had been ex- pected by the Old Learning, but without reason, that the fall of Crumwel would have been shared by Cran- mer : and this expectation was perhaps the secret encouragement of the present attempt. Crumwel himself knew better : and shortly before his own end he expressed to the Archbishop his conviction that nothing would ever shake his credit with the King. " You," sighed the tottering minister, " you were surely born in a happy hour : for say and do what you may, his Majesty takes it in good part. I have complained of you myself to him in some things, but in vain : but let any complaint be made against me or any other of the Council, and .most seriously will he chide us, and fall out with us."* The enemies of Cranmer had mistaken their strength. When the Archbishop had read the paper which the King showed him, he de- manded a commission to investigate the charges laid against him. The King bade him sit at the head of the commission himself. "You will tell the truth, yea, of yourself," said he, "if you have offended: let the commission be made out to you and to such others as you shall name yourself." Cranmer, after vainly repre- senting that it would not seem indifferent for him to be judge in his own cause, consented to this arrange- ment, and named for his assessors his chancellor, his registrar, and Doctor John Cox : to whom the King added Doctor Bellasis, a monastic expert, who seems however to have been unequal to this business. The enquiry was opened : but little progress was made, for Cox and the registrar, whom Cranmer thought his friends, were secretly in favour of the confederates. The prebendaries of Canterbury, who had signed the accusation, were mostly men who had been members of
* Morice, in Nichol's Narratives.
33^ Third Perseaition under Six Articles, [ch. xi.
the late convent, and old enemies of Cranmer.* But the renewal of hostility may have been due to Cranmer himself; who, at the time when Christchurch was re-founded as a Dean and Chapter, had sought to procure the abolition of prebends altogether. " Ex- perience has long" shown, " he had said to Crumwel, " that prebendaries are a set of men that spend their time in idleness. A prebendary is commonly neither a learner nor a teacher, but a good viander. The beginning of prebendaries was proposed for the maintenance of good learning and good conversation : and so were relig^ious men. But the one state is as much abused as the other ; and they may perish together. "t And certainly in this, matter Cranmer was justified in his appeal to past history. Prebends had been peculiarly liable under the old system to the abuses of patronage. Being lucrative offices, without cure of souls, they had been constantly held by un- learned and slothful men, often by laymen, or even by children. But it is not to be regretted, on the whole, that Cranmer failed to abolish them : and that to a later age there was left the happy device of exploding the sub- stance and retaining the name of the disputed dignity. Cranmer called before him the prebendaries whose names were affixed to the accusation : but he could make little of them, and was unable to discover their confederates. He spoke in so fatherly a manner to one of them that he could not forbear weeping. To another he said, " I find in you a good judgment, but you will not leave your old mumpsimus." To this strange catchword of the age the bold reply was,
* Some of the accusations against Cranmer, which this paper con- tained, may be found in Strype's Crafiiner, where there is a full account of the intrigue. They are mostly frivolous, concerning little irregularities of worship, or about preaching.
t Cranmer to Crumwel, Leit. p. 397.
I543-] Cramnev and his Prebendaries. 337
"We have no mumpsimuses but such as the King allows." He then committed two of them to custody. One of the prisoners contrived to send a messenger to the Bishop of Winchester, informing him of their condition ; and Gardiner eagerly interfered in the quarrel against his powerful rival. After vainly en- deavouring to get the prisoners released by an Order of Council, he sent an encouraeine message to the prebendaries in general, and reproved them for the weakness which some of them had shown. ** Re- member," said he, " that my Lord of Canterbury cannot kill you : he who wept to him behaved like a child where he ought to have answered like a man." Cranmer now resigned the enquiry to the other com- missioners, in whose hands it languished for several weeks, until Morice, the faithful secretary and bio- grapher of the Archbishop, bethought him of a happy expedient. Writing up to Court, he requested that the eminent monastic expert Legh might be sent to conduct the investigation. LeQ;h came : he saw the position of things : and the business which had per- plexed Cranmer was to him so easy as almost to be below the exertion of his powers. Selecting ten or twelve of the servants of the Archbishop, men of in- telligence and audacity, he ordered them to make a simultaneous search of the houses of all the pre- bendaries and gentlemen who were suspected of being in the confederacy. Armed with the authority of the commissioners, these searchers proceeded to every house at the same moment : there was no time for alarm, concealment, or consultation ; and the whole plot, such as it was, lay suddenly discovered. Letters were seized which the Bishop of Winchester had written, letters from Doctor London, letters from Thornton, the Archbishop's own suffragan, from
VOL. II. z
338 Cranmev and his Prebendaries, [ch. xi.
Barker, and from others of the Archbishop's house- hold, who ate of his bread and drank of his cup. They were put into a chest, and taken to London for the perusal of the King. The prime mover of the whole appeared to be Doctor London : and Winchester the great encourager of it. Cranmer now reappeared upon the scene, and reproached those of the delin- quents who were of his own household. They fell on their knees before him, and with many tears implored his forgiveness, acknowledging that they had been tempted a year ago to do as they had done. The Archbishop cast his hands to heaven ; upbraided them for false friends ; thanked God that he had one firm friend, meaning the King ; prayed that they might be made better men; and dismissed them from his ser- vice. Some of them were then committed to prison, where they remained for several months, confined with various degrees of strictness ; all during the pleasure of the Archbishop. The conditions of release, which he exacted, were an apology and confession of their faults : and affliction modified their spirit ; and their supplicatory letters began to flow to him. But, before they were all subdued, the meeting of Parliament ensued at the beginning of the following year : and a general pardon (it is pleasant to relate in the midst of so much extreme dealing) ended their captivity, and an unpleasant and frivolous affair. Such was the history of the first of several attempts that were made against Cranmer in the later years of Henry. The reader will not lament the time that he has spent in perusing it, if the features of a memorable era are not less to be observed beneath the play of the petty jealousies and struggles, which animate, than in the development of the great events which compose them.
CHAPTER XII.
Henry VIIL, a.d. 1544, 1545, 1546, 1547.
On the meeting of the ParHament and of the Con- vocation, which ensued in January, the common busi- ness that engaged both assembhes was the renewal of the statute for revising the ecclesiastical laws. The age which forgot so little of all that concerned the Church had suffered that statute to sleep, to awake, and to sleep again, from the time when it was first pro- mulgated in the beginning of the revolution. It was now to be stirred once more, chiefly, perhaps, by the hopes of the clergy : and a bill for this purpose, which was introduced, was the first that occupied the attention of the House of Lords. The clergy appear to have applied to the King to urge the measure forward ; * but it lingered until the session was nearly at an end, and when it was finally expedited nothing came of it. The King, who in some former time would seem to have nominated the commission of Thirty-two which the statute directed, had let the matter rest, and was not to be moved to activity by this new confirmation. Meantime, the old laws of the Church, the Leges Episcopales, the ordinances of the English synods from the earliest times, remained, as before, in a kind of indefinite suspension : and when any process took place in the ecclesiastical courts, it was with fear and
* " Habito inter eos secreto tractatu, ac Regia Majestate adeundo pro legibus ecclesiasticis condendis." — Convoc. Rec. ist Feb. Wilkifts, iii. 868.
Z 2
340 Parliament of 1544. [ch. xn.
trembling. The new and futile Act which was passed was chiefly remarkable for a servile touch of loyalty. Whatever the King and his Thirty-two coadjutors should determine, was ordered to be taken for law, without the concurrence of Parliament, if only it were declared by proclamation under the Great Seal,*
Cranmer, for to Cranmer it seems probable that this renewed abortion of leoislation owed its birth, was indeed anxious about the state of the ecclesiastical laws : and appears to have directed his attention to them from the time of the Submission of the clergy. Out of the canon law he had made a collection of places where the primacy or the authority of the Pope were acknowledged, and of other things which he deemed meet to be abrogated first of allf With the approbation of the Supreme Head, he (it may be) and some other learned men, who may have been some relics of the Thirty-two, whom, or some of whom, the King may have nominated at some unknown time, composed or began to compose a book of laws for the Church of England : and he seems now to have de- sired to impose these labours on the realm by the royal authority. A patent was prepared for the King to sign, ordering the new laws to be observed : a truly pompous document, which may have waited on the humour of the King for several years. It may now have been presented to him again by the eager primate, along with the book or draft of the new code. But Henry never signed it : and if (what cannot be proved) the book which was to have been authorized was the not unmemorable Reformatio Leguni Ecclesiasticartim, which Cranmer afterwards evolved, it was well for the Church of England that he did not. To substitute the conceptions of a single age for the determinations
* 35 H. VIII. 16. t Burnet, Collec. iii. No. 27.
I544-] State of Ecclesiastical Law. 34 1
of all antiquity, was perilous. The attempt was made and defeated again at a later period.*
* This attempted renewal of the ecclesiastical laws is wrapped in obscurity, i. Cranmer says in a letter to the King, some time after, that he had asked the Bishop of Worcester, Heath, to bring to the King the names of the persons whom the King had in times past appointed to make ecclesiastical laws for the realm, and also the book which they had made. He speaks as if it were a thing that had been forgotten and then brought up again. The Bishop was " to enquire out their names, and the book which they had made." This very important letter, the last which Cranmer is known to have written to Henry, is printed by Burnet under Edward VI.'s reign. Collec. i., No. 6i. It is dated 24th Jan. 1545 (6). It is referred to in Strype's Cranmer^ bk. i. ch. 30 ; but is strangely omitted by the Cranmer editors from the Archbishop's works. Was the "book" which Heath was thus instructed to bring before the King the Reformatio Legiim Ecclesiasticaruin ? It seems improbable that Cranmer would have spoken so cursorily of a work for which he had the greatest concern : he speaks as if Heath had to look for both the authors and the book. There appears therefore to be no proof that Cranmer was engaged in any way with the Reformatio at this time, or before the reign of Edward. 2. Collier says that it was at this time that the commission of thirty-two was first nominated. He is undoubtedly mistaken in this. 3. The Letters Patent which the King was to have signed are printed by Strype (Cranm. App. No. 34), and by Collier (Rec. No. 50). They were addressed among others to all abbots ; and it seems natural to infer that they were drawn up when there were still abbots in England, i.e. earlier than this year, 1544. They were probably drawn up when Henry appointed the men whose names Heath was now to look for ; and perhaps Heath found them in his search. They might have been drawn up any time after 1532, the year of the Submission and of the first legislation about the thirty-two commissioners. (See vol. i. pp. no and 190 of this work.) Collier, possessed with the notion that the Letters Patent were drawn up at this time, explains that some of the bishops, having been abbots formerly, still had the title of abbot. This is a very forced explanation, and is borne out by no document of the time that I know. The Letters Patent are so fulsome and windy that it is a wonder that they did not attract the King's hand. Collier and Strype say that Gardiner prevented him from signing. If so, perhaps Gardiner added to the debt which the Church of England owes him, and which has been so queerly acknowledged. [I may now add that there seems no doubt that the thirty-two commissioners were nominated by Henry at some unascertained period, that their work was existent, and that their work was not the Reformatio Legum. Fox, the first editor of the Reformatio, says in his Preface, " Delecti sunt viri aliquot numero 32 . . . nic illaudandi fortasse eorum conatus, qui leges tum illas, licet his longe dissimiles, conscripserant ; " with more to the same effect.]
342 Parliament of 1544. [ch. xn.
To this session was reserved the distinction of inventing the last and highest refinement in the art of swearing loyalty : an art which might have been deemed already carried to perfection. In a new Act of Succession the legislature recalled to mind without complacency their former efforts to renounce the Pope and extol the King. They had, they granted, passed Acts by which every ecclesiastical and every lay officer was sworn to renounce the usurped power, authority, and jurisdiction of the Bishop of Rome, and to count for nought the former obligations under which they might be held by him. They allowed to themselves that they had prescribed forms of oaths by which the Pope was solemnly abjured : and they were not unconscious that they had made it treason to refuse to take those oaths. But it appeared to them that their former oaths lacked "full and sufficient words." Their former oaths were " not so pithy to all effects, nor so plainly set forth as would have been con- venient." They therefore now ordained another form which was to take the place of all the previous attempts of immaturity. And all persons who had taken any of the former oaths were to esteem that in taking them they had taken this. It seemed a curious principle to implant in legislation, that an oath taken at one time might be esteemed the same as another prescribed years afterwards. At that rate a man might be taken and reputed to have sworn at one time the exact opposite of that which he had sworn at another. It is probable however that here the design was only to save the trouble of a general swearing over again. As for the oath that was now prescribed, assuredly it lacked. not full and sufficient words. Among the first of those who enjoyed its ripe perfection was Holgate, the aspiring surrenderer
I544-] ^cf to moderate the Six Articles. 343
of the Gilbertines, who now succeeded the various Lee in the mighty diocese of York.*
After so many burnings, it seemed good at length to the ParHament to moderate their statute of the Six Articles. They discovered that secret and malicious accusations were made against the King's subjects under the Act, as it stood ; they therefore now forbade that any trial should be held, but only on such present- ments and accusations as were made on the oaths of twelve men or more. The time they limited within a year of the alleged offence : and the authority to a warrant of one of the Council, of two justices or of two commissioners, of whom one was to be a layman. Trial by jury, instead of ecclesiastical process, for religious offences was the essence of the Six Articles : but an unmanageable deal of fuel for Smithfield had instantly rolled in whenever the King or the Council opened the gate by granting commissions. To order the witnesses in every case to be as numerous as the jury might have seemed a sure way of checking the inconvenient supply. Nevertheless, whenever the gate was opened, the fuel rolled in as before. f
In money, they generously forgave to a bankrupt
* Collier, who has quoted the oath taken by Holgate at his consecra- tion, has not observed that it is the same as that given in this new Act, 35 H. VIII. I. It superseded the oath taken by Bonner and other bishops. It may be distinguished as The veil-removed Oath. As a specimen take the first sentence, " I, R. H., having now the veil of darkness of the usurped power, authority, and jurisdiction of the see and bishop of Rome clearly taken away from mine eyes, do utterly testify & declare in my conscience that neither the see nor the bishop of Rome, nor any foreign potentate, hath or ought to have any jurisdiction, power, or authority within this realm, neither by God's law nor by any other just law or means," &c. The former oaths may be seen in 28 H. VIII. 10, or in Fox or Collier.
t 35 H. VIII. 5. This enactment about the twelve witnesses or accusers seems not to have been observed in some of the subsequent cases. We have seen a case already in which even the former require- ment of two witnesses was not enforced. See above, p. 124, note.
344 Parliament of 1544. [ch. xn.
monarch all that he had borrowed of his subjects for the last two years. The vast sums which had been raised by the late loan or prest were thus converted into a gift to the Crown : and the King's creditors were left to compare the dishonesty of their debtor with the servile recklessness of his abettors. Among the reasons assigned for this measure it was alleged that the reforming and extinguishing of many schisms, opinions, and arguments, that had arisen in the Church of England, nor less in the Church of Ireland, had been expensive to his Majesty. Another Act about treason; another about decayed houses in Wales, in the County Palatine of Lancaster, and in Maldon in Essex ; another for the payment of tithes, extended and ended the measures of former sessions and the ecclesiastical labours of this.*
The House of Commons was enlivened by a second attempt to shake the Archbishop. Sir John Gostwick, knight for Bedfordshire, suddenly rose in open Parliament, and accused Cranmer of heresy against the Sacrament of the altar. Gostwick was a man of the Old Learning, of great experience in the royal service*, who was occasionally employed by the Privy Council.f It seems unlikely that he acted without secret encouragement : the more so that, though he alleg:ed Cranmer's sermons at Sandwich and Canterbury in proof of his accusation, he was a stranger in Kent, and had never heard the Archbishop preach there. But he alone appeared in the enter- prise : and he instantly roused the fury of the King. The King " marvellously stormed at the matter," de- claring that Gostwick played a villainous part in accusing of heresy the Primate of the realm, especially
* 35 H. VIII. 2, 4, 5, 12.
t See an instance in the Acts of the Privy Council, vii. 280,
I544-] Second Attempt against Cranmev. 345
being in favour with his prince. Toward Cranmer alone, indeed, of all the men who flew to do his bid- ding or bathed him in flattery, the King appears to have entertained the sentiment of personal friendship. There are intractable natures which can be soothed and governed by a word, a look, a touch from one person alone. The calm which seemed to float around Cranmer, and arose from real religion, had this effect on the temper of Henry : the humility which was so utter, and yet which appeared to take hold of something higher than worldly obsequiousness : the assiduity which sprang from fervid principle : the candour which even verged on pusillanimity : the touch of greatness which was all that there was to ofive an ideal character to a. sordid revolution : these qualities afforded relief to the furibund mind of the despot : and an attempt upon Cranmer roused the best passion of which his heart was capable. " What will they do with him if I were gone?" cried the King. " Tell that varlet Gostwick that I will surely make of him a poor Gostwick, and otherwise punish him, if he do not acknowledge his fault unto my lord of Canterbury." Alarmed by this threat, the knight hastened to Lambeth, and sorrowfully submitted him- self to the Archbishop. Cranmer forgave him ; and procured the forgiveness of the King, which was granted on condition that no more should be heard of his meddling that way.*
The third, the final and most dangerous attempt to ruin the reforming Primate, which followed soon after, proceeded from the Privy Council itself: the accusa- tion was made in the ears of the King himself: and it was again the accusation of heresy. A more sur- prising blunder can hardly be conceived. The Council
* Morice, Fox, Strype's Cra7imer.
346 Third Attempt against Cvmimer. [ch. xn.
should have known that heresy was not the charge to bring against a man of Cranmer's rank. Heresy was for the base poor. Treason was what they should have tried : and a charge of treason might have been concocted just as easily.* The Duke of Norfolk, how- ever, and they of the Old Learning, persuading the others, though it was against the advice of the dis- cerning Russell, ventured into the royal presence with the petition that they might commit Cranmer to the Tower. " He and his learned men," said they, " have so infected the whole realm with their unsavoury doctrine, that three parts of the people are become abominable heretics. This may prove dangerous to your Majesty, being like to breed such commotions and uproars as there are in Germany. He is one of the Council, and no man dares object matter against him, so long as he is at large. But let him be put in durance, and men will be bold to tell the truth." They obtained their request, though with much persuasion. The great prize seemed to be within their reach, and the official leader of the New Learning to all appear- ance was to be given into the hands of his enemies. " You may call him before you to-morrow morning," said the King, " and, as ye find occasion, commit him." But Henry had reserved a magical contrivance for the rescue of the friend whom he seemed to have deserted. At midnight he sent for Cranmer. The Archbishop rose hurriedly and came to the King, whom he found in the gallery at Whitehall. " I have granted the Council liberty to commit you to the Tower to- morrow morning:" said his Majesty, "how say you,
* The only apology that I can offer for this blunder of the Privy Council is, that they had a great many heresy cases before their multi- farious tribunal just then ; and so may have got unconsciously into the notion that there was nothing like heresy. But it was a mistake worthy of a prebendary or a Gostwick.
T544-] Third Attempt against Cra7tmev. 347
my lord, have I done well or ill ?" The Archbishop thanked the Kine for thus warninor him, and said that he was ready to go to the Tower for the trial of his doctrine, if only he were heard indifferently : for which he doubted not that his Majesty would pro- vide. *' Oh, Lord God!" cried Henry, "what fond simplicity have you! Know you not that if you were once in prison, your enemies would have the advan- tage over you ? Mouths would be opened that now are shut. False knaves (and three or four of such would be enough) who dare not now look you in the face would rise to witness against you. No, not so, my lord ; I have a better regard for you than to per- mit your enemies to overthrow you. Go before the Council to-morrow when they summon you. As soon as they break the matter to you, demand that, being one of them, you may have the favour which they would have themselves, that is, to have your accusers face to face. When they refuse this, and are for com- mitting you to the Tower forthwith, appeal from them to me, and give them this ring. They will well under- stand the sign that I have taken your cause into my hand from them."
In the morning the Archbishop was summoned before the Council by eight of the clock. With pre- mature insolence his adversaries kept him waiting at the chamber door near an hour among their serving men, many Councillors going in and out. His faithful secretary, Morice, who accompanied him, beheld the insult with indignation, and called Doctor Butts, the King's physician, to witness it. Butts came and saw, and hastened to the King to report the strange and shameful sight. "It is well," answered the monarch, " I shall talk to them by and by." Anon the Archbishop was called before the tribunal; and
348 Third Attempt against Cvamnev. [ch. xh.
all happened as Henry had foretold. He was charged with infecting the realm with heresy : he demanded his accusers : the Council decided to send him to the Tower immediately, and have his examination after- wards. Then Cranmer made his appeal, and presented the King's ring. " By this token he resumes the matter into his own hands, and discharges you there- of." The Council recognised with dismay the sign which the King used for no other purpose but to call causes to himself. Lord Russell swore a great oath. " Did I not tell you, my lords, what would come of this matter ? I knew right well that the King would never permit my Lord of Canterbury to have such a blemish, and to be imprisoned, unless it were for high treason." They had no alternative but, as the custom was in such cases, to break up their sitting, and repair at once to the King with the token and the cause.
They were received with taunts. " Ah, my lords," said the Kingf, " I thought I had a discreet and wise Council ; but now I perceive that I am deceived. What make ye of my Lord of Canterbury ? Is he a slave ? You shut him out of your chamber among your lacqueys ! Would ye be so handled yourselves ? Understand that I count my Lord of Canterbury as faithful a man to me as ever was prelate in this realm ; and one to whom I am many ways beholden. Who loveth me will so regfard him." With that he laid his hand upon his heart. The Duke of Norfolk offered an explanation. They meant, said he, no harm to the Archbishop of Canterbury. It was true that they thought to put him in the Tower: but it was only that after his trial he might shine forth with the greater glory. " Well," answered the King dryly, " I pray you use not my friends so. I perceive how the world goeth among you : there remaineth malice among you
1 544-] Origin of the English Litany. 349
one to another. Let it be avoided, I advise you." Herewith he departed. The Councillors shook hands with the Archbishop : and the King (knowing the power thereof among men) sent some of them on several days to dine with him at Lambeth. Such was the last attempt that was made against Cranmer during the life of Henry.*
Occasional Prayers, Supplications, and Processions, to be used in churches, were not unknown in olden times : and in the last year they had been ordered by the King on account of a great rain falling at harvest.f It Is not improbable that the suffrages used on that occasion were in English : and it is certain that in this year the King, about to embark in person on his last expedition against France, ordered special prayers to be had in the tongue of the people. " Christendom," said he to his Archbishop, " is plagued with a general war : it is out of the power of man to redress this misery : God alone can restore peace. Let General Processions be used in all the churches, with all reverence of the people. The people come but slackly hitherto to the processions, not understanding the prayers and suffrages used : therefore we have now published certain prayers in our native tongue, that the people, feeling the godly taste thereof, may joyously
* Morice, Fox, Strype. This story of the King's ring, as I scarcely need remind the reader, has been made by Shakspeare one of the underwalks in Henry the Eighth, in the last Act. He makes it take place in the time of Anne Boleyn and of Crumwel, and changes the persons concerned. Crumwel sits at the head of the Council ; it is not Russell who falls to swearing when they fail ; the whole plot is led by that scapegoat Gardiner ; and the rescued primate goes off in triumph with the King to baptise the infant Elizabeth, whose birth is the best event that the poet can bring an undramatic reign to. It is rather hard on Gardiner to have Shakespeare in that age telling him, " Thou hast a cruel nature and a bloody ;" and Lord Tennyson pulling him about by the hair in this.
t Strype's Cranmer, bk. i. ch. 29 ; Wilk. iii. 868.
350 The Liturgic Refovniation. [ch. xn.
embrace and frequent the same. These prayers
are to be used throughout your province: and that
not for a month or two, as our other injunctions have
been, to our no Httle marvel : but earnestly set forth :
and if any do not with good dexterity accomplish the
same, let him be reported to us."* The litany which
was used on this occasion seems not to have survived :
but it led to more lasting consequences. Cranmer was
ordered by the King, soon afterwards, to translate into
English "certain processions;" that is, the old Latin
Litany, or several of the old Latin Litanies, together,
no doubt, with the English versions of them, contained
in the early primers, to be used in the churches upon
festival days. In executing this task the Primate took,
as he said, more than the liberty of a translator.
In some of the supplications he added : he altered
or took away parts, or left out whole passages in
others. To the verses thus made into English he
put the Latin note, or plain song : for he made them
for a proof how English would do in song. He
modestly allowed that his English verses lacked grace
and facility : and requested the King to cause some
other person to make them again in more pleasant
phrase. t Never, it is probable, was such an excusation
less needed. The Litany thus prepared was, beyond
doubt, the first cast or model of the present noble
office of the Church of England : an office which we
* See the King's Letter to the Archbishop and the Archbishop's to his suffragans, nth and 14th June, 1544) in Wilkins, iii. 869; also in Strype's Life of Cranmer.
t In the State Papers (i. 760) this Letter of October 7 is put in 1543 ; in Cranmer's Remains (412) in 1544; by Collier, in 1545. The middle date seems to be the most Hkely. The English Litany, nearly in the present form, was published by Grafton and Whitchurch in June, 1545 (see Burton's Three Primers) ; and it was solemnly tried, or sung in, for pubhc use at St. Paul's on the iSth of October, being Sunday and St. Luke's Day in the same year. Wriothesley, 16.
I544-] The English Litany. 351
therefore owe to the hand and ear of Cranmer.* From this time, until the Hturgical reformation of the following reign, no opportunity was lost, whenever
* The old Latin Litany, which was substantially the same in the various Uses, was little more than a string of invocations and interjec- tions. The petitions were short, and were swallowed up in the responses which followed them. The heretics were always at this. " It was never merry in England," said they, " since the Litany was ordained and Sancta Maria, Sancta Catarina sung or said." So the clergy complained in their Protestation of the year 1536. — Wilkins, iii. 805. A specimen will suffice to show that the heretics were not without reason, especially from their own point of view.
" Sancta Maria Magdalena, ora pro nobis. Sancta Maria, ora pro nobis. Sancta Katherina, ora pro nobis. Sancta Margareta, ora pro nobis. Sancta Helena, ora pro nobis," &c., &c.
Even the longer petitions, when they were turned into the bald English of the early Primers (of which anon), were short and rough enough.
" From unclean thoughts, deliver us, Lord. From the blindness of the heart, dehver us, Lord. From sudden and unprovided death, deliver us, Lord. From pestilence and famine, dehver us, Lord."
Marshall's Pritner, l^lS- This was slightly better in a Primer a few years later.
" From unclean thoughts, Lord, dehver us. From lightning & tempest, Lord, deliver us. From sudden & unprovided death, Lord, deliver us. By the mystery of thy holy incarnation. Lord, deliver us," &c.
Hilsefs Pri7?ter, 1539.
Such were the materials which Cranmer had to work on.
Why was the Litany called, as it often was, the Procession, or the General Procession ? Because it was used in procession. In the magni- ficent services of the early time processions were formed in the churches, perambulated the neighbourhood, and returned to the churches. The Litany was chanted as they marched with banners, crosses, canopies, and other tokens. Soon after the Litany was made English by Cranmer this practice was discontinued, but the Litany retained the name of the Pro- cession for some time. Thus we read that in 1547; on St. Matthew's Day, in honour of the victory of Pinkie, all the churches in London "kept a solemn procession on their knees in English." — Wrioihesley, 186.
352 Diet of Speyev. [ch. xn.
any special service was appointed, of turning some part of the old Latin services into English : and In this gradual way the alterations of the public services progressed considerably during several years.
After several unsuccessful attempts to accommodate the difficulties between the Protestants, the Imperialists, and the Papallsts, an unusually full Diet, which met at Speyer in the beginning of 1544, seemed not unequal to the task of reconciliation. The Pope, who had seen with alarm that the Empire might be pacified without him, took care to send his representative, and solemnised the meeting by ordering public prayers throughout Christendom, and promising an indulgence to all who should supplicate for the restoration of peace. In that age the exigencies of princes were the danger of the Church : and the Caesar himself, her protector, was now suspected of the design of filling his coffers and paying his soldiers by seizing her revenues.* It soon appeared, Indeed, that the intention of Charles was not to make peace with his rival, the French King, but to unite the Protestants with himself against him. In a vehement harangue, with which he opened the Diet, he declaimed against the apostate who had joined hands v/ith the Turk. The Protestants, who had no reason to love Francis, caught the tone and exceeded the violence of the Imperialists in denouncing the unholy alliance. The title of Most Christian King they declared to belong to him no more; the very title of king to have been forfeited by one who had lost his place in the body politic of Christendom. The Emperor prudently fostered the common indig- nation by deferring the consideration of questions of
* Herbert says that he obtained a Breve from the Pope for that ; but that he abandoned the design, and found other means of supplying his wants. See also Sandoval, lib. 26.
I544-] Disgust of Charles and Henry. 353
religion : and before the assembly dispersed in June, he published an edict of a tone very favourable to the Protestants. " Let neither party disturb or vex the other for the present," said he, " both shall be equally represented in the Imperial Chamber hereafter: and as for the ecclesiastical revenues, both may retain them, as they are." By this the Pope seemed more likely than ever to be excluded in the pacification of the Empire : when a sudden turn in the policy of the subtle or capricious Charles altered again the aspect of affairs. Three months after the close of the Diet, he made with Francis the peace of Crispi : and joined with the Eldest Son of the Church in importuning the Father of Christendom to summon his often indicted Council. The Pontiff complied : and in November issued his bull for the Council to meet at Trent in the following year.
This curious explication was due to the course of the war which meanwhile had been prosecuted by the Empire and England against France. Charles and Henry, those allies, had settled the plan of a decisive campaign for the year : but each of them, to their mutual disgust, perceived the other departing from the common cause in search of private advantage. To neglect the frontier towns ; to march straight on Paris by separate lines ; and to dictate a humiliating peace within the walls of the capital : this was the project to which they had bound themselves : a project destined to be revived and frustrated in succeedinor aees. Charles, indeed, advanced to the vicinity of Paris, but it was not until he had taken several towns on his own behalf. The English monarch, long dissatisfied with his comrade, resolved in turn to consult his own interest ; when he prepared for the last campaign in which he took a personal part. Unwieldy and
VOL. II. A a
354 Heiivy invades France. [ch. xii.
diseased in body as he was now become, he crossed the seas with an army of thirty thousand men : but, instead of directing his march toward Paris, he formed the siege of Boulogne and of Montreuil. The imperial ambassador urged him in vain to advance. Two months were consumed in the reduction of Boulogne : and the fall of that place determined or accelerated the separate peace which Charles concluded with the common enemy. It ill satisfied the Emperor to see the English pale extended in France. Henry was obliged to raise the siege of Montreuil, and return to England, where the pomp of public rejoicings concealed the chagrin that was felt by all at the miserable issue of the alliance with the Emperor. Francis was now able to direct his undivided forces against his re- maining adversary : a desultory and inglorious war followed, lasting nearly to the death of Henry : and, in spite of the vaunted preparation of the kingdom, England was compelled to confess the naval superiority of France.
No sooner were the monasteries destroyed and their libraries scattered to the winds, than the great antiquarian age was begun. In the beginning of the year 1545, John Leland presented his New Year's Gift to the King. This unhappy man, a clergyman, one of that inexplicable race who haunt old libraries, crawl around mouldering walls, dwell among tombs, and for no earthly advantage lose their youth, their eyes, their nerves, in poring over the various relics of departed ages : who hold a life to be well spent in clearing an inscription or rectifying a date : who main- tain that what is old is venerable : and who sometimes publish a book at the cost of their substance, that they may preserve some portion of the past from the devouring vitality of the present : this unhappy man
I545-] John Leland, the Antiquarian. 355
had obtained from Henry, three years before, a com- mission to search all the libraries of the monasteries and colleges throughout the realm : to preserve, to put on record all the ancient monuments and histories, and the books and writings of learned men. As the monasteries were then dissolved already, and their treasures dissipated, the royal solicitude might appear somewhat tardy : but Leland seems to have begun his researches, of his own motion, perhaps at his own cost, three years before he got his commission, at a time when many of the old monastic seats of learning were yet untouched.
Under the name of a New Year's Gift, the ardent emissary now informed his patron of the success with which he had prosecuted his undertaking. He had brought, he said, many old writers out of deadly dark- ness into lively light ; so that they might receive like thanks of posterity, as they had employed long study to the public wealth. Part of them he had bestowed in the royal libraries, part remained still in his own custody. He hoped to prove both to Germany and to arrogant Italy that Britain was the first mother and nurse, the preserver and maintainer of great men and of great wits : for he had found in these regions that there had been an infinite number of writers, learned with the best, as the time served, and excel- lent in every kind of knowledge. He was so inflamed with love to see thoroughly the places of which he had read, that, " sparing neither labour nor cost," and intermitting all his other occupations, he had travelled for six years throughout the realm. *' There is neither cape nor bay, haven, creek, nor pier, river, nor confluence of rivers," exclaimed he, " but I have seen them : I have explored breaches, washes, lakes, meres, and fenny waters : mountains and valleys,
A a 2
356 JoJm Leland, the Antiquarian, [ch. xh.
moors and heaths have I traversed ; forests and woods, cities and boroughs, castles and manor houses, monas- teries and colleges, I have investigated all."*
Leland, indeed, appears to have pursued his enter- prise with the enthusiasm, and perhaps with some of the strength of madness. He designed to cast his labours into a colossal work on the British Antiquity, which, as he said, should open the window that had been stopped for a thousand years, and cause the old glory of Britain to reflourish through the world. The work which he proposed was to have numbered fifty books : for it was to have been divided into as many books as there were shires in England and Wales : and it was to have illustrated the memorable things of every region. In his passionate aspiration we may catch the first note of the Elizabethan patriotism : the proud ambition that filled the mighty writers of the last part of the century to raise Britain (as they would call their England) to the glorious rivalry of Greece, of Rome, and of Italy. With an artless cunning, he endeavoured to quicken the languor of his prince by as- suring him that he had met in his researches with many records of the abominable usurpations of the Bishops of Rome in the times of his ancestry. But the most imbecile tyrant that ever dishonoured the purple was not more deaf to the call of genius than Henry the Eighth.
The spacious design of Leland, which gave, as it were, the keynote to the succeeding antiquarian age, was never carried out. The author of it went mad and died : his madness being accelerated, it is said, by the pecuniary difficulties into which he was suffered to sink, and the irregularity with which his stipend was paid. Time has dealt less kindly with his remains than he with the remains of time. Of his great collec-
* See his own words in Strype, ii. 483 : or in Hearne's Leland.
I545-] The Great Antiqitarian Age begun. 357
tlons some parts only have been printed : the rest he still in the obscurity of manuscript, or have perished altogether. But for the disinterested zeal of the greatest of his successors, of a man who was as ill- . used in his day as he was, none of his labours would ever have seen the light.* Leland was indeed a mis- taken man. He undertook an itinerary for the sake of learning in the age of spoliation and destruction. In this he was the precursor of Mabillon and the great Benedictine itineraries of the next century. He laid out for himself, single-handed, work which three ages of historiographers, bibliographers, and inquirers of every degree have not accomplished yet. I3ut instead of getting a commission to visit monasteries and colleges for the sake of learning, he should have got a commis- sion to visit them with the view of brinoinsf them to surrender : and then he should have asked for the grant of one or two of them in reward for his services.
However, the great age of the antiquarians was now begun. As soon as the mediaeval past was dead and buried, these mourners began to creep near. Look at them ! For one hundred and fifty years from this time they succeeded one another. In this country the line of their great leaders was long and unbroken : Leland, Camden, Stow, Spelman, Dugdale, Dods- worth, Hearne, Wharton, Tanner : most of them men of the first order of ability, who might have been his- torians in a later age. But not before they had done their work could English history be written. The materials of history lay beyond access, in strange places, in remote libraries, in neglected dust-covered heaps of manuscript. This army of patient labourers
* Hearne published Leland's Itinerary, and some others of his works, in about twenty volumes. The New Year's Gift may be seen in volume I.
358 The Great Antiquarian Age begtm. [ch. xn.
set themselves to the humble duty of preparing the way before those who came after : they spent their lives in deciphering originals, in making collections, in making catalogues of manuscripts, in making cata- logues of the rare books which the historical student might find in any place. The works of reference which they thus gradually accumulated became the chief means of communication and information amongf the learned. English history meanwhile was in the hands of the chroniclers, or of the poets, as Daniel and Milton. With the exception of the astonishing work of Speed, a work to which little justice has been done in modern times, there was no writing that could claim the title of an English history.* There was nothing indeed in existence of an exact nature but the lives of several of the kings : all of them written, as it happened, by men of the greatest distinction.! It was not until the seventeenth century was closing that an English history, both general and exact in plan, had been rendered possible : and the labours of some of the later anti- quarians, Rymer, Bernard, Nicolson, tended directly to that end. English history then began: and it
* Speed's History of Great Britain was published at the wonder- fully early date of 1614. It is composed on a true plan, with a breadth and intelligence of knowledge which entitle it (in my opinion) to the proud distinction of the first English history. This great work has suffered in modern times from being regarded as a mere chronicle. It is omitted in Hallam's Literature of Europe, where surely it deserved a place. But in Spelman's eyes it was " opus consule dignum ; " and Nicolson said of the author that he had "a head the best disposed towards history of any of our writers." — E7tg. Hist. Library, 194.
t About the end of the seventeenth century, when a combination of booksellers proposed to publish a " Complete History of England," all that could be done was to place together Milton and Daniel, then Habing- ton's Edward LV., Sir Thomas More's Edzvard V. and Richard III., Bacon's Henry VII., Herbert's Hetuy VIII., Hayward's Edward VI., Bishop Godwin's Mary, Camden's Elisabeth; and fill the interstices and continue down to William III. by new hands.
I545-] The Great Antiquarians. 359
began with the English Church. The great works of Burnet, Collier, and Strype appeared almost simul- taneously : and they might all lay claim to the title of histories in the modern sense of the word. All were founded upon great research : all were both general and exact : all were furnished with large col- lections of original documents.* But it was significant of the age in which they appeared that only one of these o-reat works was extended back into the me- diaeval past. The others regarded nothing but the Reformation. The mediaeval past had been, and still remained, what the Reformation had made it, the scorn of all men, the laughing-stock of wit, and the
* I have omitted the antic writers Fuller and Heylin, who appeared about the middle of the seventeenth century. Perhaps they should not be omitted. Burnet's Reformation preceded the works of Collier and Strype at the end of the century ; and may claim to be, as Hallam has observed, the first work of importance that was furnished with an appa- ratus of originals. No book has been more severely criticised. It was attacked by the learned Wharton as soon as it appeared ; the laborious Collier is never weary of girding at " our learned church historian " ; it has been bitterly assailed in recent times. For myself, I am far from joining in the unmeasured condemnation of this work which has been pronounced by some writers of authority. It should be remembered that it was the first work of the nature of a general history, founded on authentic records, that appeared in this country. The author was very laborious, and he studied to be exact. It is true that he has strong pre- judices ; but who is free from prejudice ? The question is, whether his prejudices make him dishonest. I do not think they do. He now and then makes a downright blunder ; but it is usually one of pure prejudice, being often an unwarrantable inference from authorities fairly given ; and he usually furnishes the means of confuting himself. But he is never found giving to all appearance the whole of a story, and suppressing everything that makes against his own view. He is never found passing entirely over events that do not favour him. His actual blunders are not so gross as those of some modern writers. His remarks on legal and judicial matters are especially valuable. His faults are, want of arrange- ment, want of elevation of style, want of points of view. But this is better than the modern delusion of grouping : better than running up a theory on every page : better than false analogies : better than perpetual graphic : better than exalting one fact into a dominant theory, and running that theory through a whole age.
360 The Litiirgic Refovmation. [ch. xn.
butt of literature. Genius was flown to Greece and Rome. The antiquarians who had crept about the mediaeval past were solitary figures : and it is only in the present age that the mediaeval past is moving into the middle of the field of historic vision.
The old service-books of England, the mingled product of the ecclesiastical and the monastic systems, contained (like those of the rest of Christendom) two different sets of offices for the seven or eieht canonical hours of prayer.* The one series was for public worship ; the other was intended for private devotion. Long before the Reformation, the private offices had been taken arid translated into English separately : and, under the peculiar name of Primer, they were in the hands of the people. Small manuals in English, or partly in Latin, with this title, still remain : some of them of a date considerably earlier than the Reformation.
These little books had come to be understood to have certain fixed contents : and to include elementary expositions of doctrine along with the prayers and other forms of devotion. They contained, besides the offices of the Hours, the Litany, the Ten Command- ments, the Ave, and other pieces, with some explana- tions.! From the beginning of the Reformation such books had increased greatly in number : for in the primer, or private prayer-book, the New Learning discerned a means of disseminating their opinions in a familiar and unsuspected form. A length this outlet was stopped by the march of authority on the path of uniformity.!
Of the various Primers which favoured the New
* Matins, Lauds, Prime, Third Hour, Sixth Hour, Ninth Hour, Even- song, Complene.
t Moultrie's Pref. to his Primer, 1854. Mr, Maskel mentions eight MS. primers in English of date before 1460. Mon. Rit. vol. ii.
+ Vol. I. p. 240 Jittj. op. These manuals were used as reading books
I545-] Primers, or Private Prayer Books. 36 1
Learning, two, that claimed, without much right, to have the royal sanction, may deserve a brief examina- tion. The former of them, known from the unascer- tained author by the name of " Marshall's Primer," was condemned by Convocation, soon after its appearance, in the year 1530. The author omitted the old Litany, for the reason that it abounded in superstitious invo- cations. He restored it some years afterwards, in another edition : but at the same time he prefixed a warning against abusing the invocations. His various addresses to the reader abound with denunciations of the " blind idolatry," the " blasphemous and shameful villainy," the " ringing and singing, the mumbling and murmuring, and the piteous puling," with which the worship of Christians was become depraved.*
The other was published by Bishop Hilsey of Rochester in 1537: and republished tw^o years later, after the author's death, under the auspices of Crum- wel. It is one of the innumerable books, hostile to the Old Learning, to which the powerful minister granted the privilege of the press. To give it a claim to bear the royal name, it contained the King's Form of bidding prayers, and the Act for the abolition of superfluous holidays. f It retained the Litany, but
in schools, as well as for ordinary devotion. Mr. Dickinson says that no less than thirty primers, either wholly English, or English and Latin combined, were published between 1527 and 1547.
* The condemnation of this Primer by the clergy may be seen in Wilkins (iii. 733). "He putteth in the book of the Seven Psalms, but he leaveth out the whole Litany, by which appeareth his erroneous opinion against praying to saints. He hath left out all the hymns and anthems of our Lady, by which appeareth his erroneous opinion against praying to our Lady." Cf i. yj htij. op. The book was therefore five years at least earlier than is commonly thought. A full account of it is given by Collier (i. iii), and by Strype (i. 335), who says that it was called King Henry's Primer, to give it authority. It had no right to the title, save from being published " Cum privilegio," probably under the favour of Crumwel.
t In the corner of the title page of this Crumwelian publication are
362 The Litiirgic Reformation. [ch. xn.
omitted all the saints invoked therein, except those that are found in the New Testament. Otherwise it is chiefly remarkable for a Calendar giving Epistles and Gospels for Sundays and Saints' Days, which nearly correspond with those now in use. Hilsey may therefore be regarded as the first compiler of the present selection of Epistles and Gospels.
These, however, and all previous Primers were superseded by the really authorised Primer of Henry the Eighth, which was published by the indomitable Grafton and his friend Whitchurch in 1545, the year at which the history is now arrived. The authorised Primer came forth with a royal Injunction and a royal Preface. The King declared that he desired to avoid the diversity of Primers, " whereof were almost innu- merable sorts, which ministered occasions of con- tentions, and vain disputations, rather than edified." As he had laboured to set a perfect stay in other parts of religion, so now he had bestowed pains " to set forth a determinate form of prayer, that men might know both what they prayed and also in what words ; and neither offer to God things standing against true religion, nor yet words far out of their intelligence and understanding." All schoolmasters were ordered to teach this Primer, or " book of ordinary prayers" : with their elder pupils they might use a Latin version of it, which was prepared. But no other Primer was to be taught, either Latin or English. Thus, by the author of uniformity, the armour of the New Learning- was continually taken from them, piece by piece, and their weapons were turned against them. But the New
inserted the words, " K. H.'s PRIMER." Far more conspicuous is the announcement that it was set forth "at the commandment of the Right Honourable Lord Thomas Crumwell, Lord Privy Seal, Vicegerent to the King's Highness." See it in Burton's Three Primers.
1 545-] Authorised Pvijuer of Henry VIII. 363
Learning always got more. The new work was cer- tainly vastly superior to all others of the sort. It contained Cranmer's Litany of the previous year, instead of the old jejune Litany with the endless invo- cations. The hand of Cranmer miofht be discerned no less in the shortening of the offices of the Hours, and in the extension of other parts of the book. The versions of the ancient hymns, which were interspersed, were much finer than those of the other Primers.*
Thus far the liturgic reformation proceeded in the reign of Henry. The Primer, or private prayer book, was translated and authorised before the public service books : but certain parts of the public services, as the Creed, the Lord's Prayer, the Ten Commandments, the Litany, to which may be added the forms of Bidding Prayers, were authoritatively published in English also. Nor is it altogether unimportant to notice that the one went before the other.f The types
* Burton's Three Primers of Henry the Eighth. The last, or authorised Primer, is entitled " The Primer set forth by the King's Majesty and his Clergy, to be taught, learned, and read, and none others to be used throughout his dominions." It is in two parts : the first con- taining the Calendar, the King's Injunction, the Prayer of our Lord, the Ave, the Creed, and the Ten Commandments. The other part contains Matins, Evensong, and Complene ; the Seven Psalms, the Litany, the Dirge, the Commendations ; the Psalms of the Passion ; the Passion of our Lord ; certain Godly Prayers. The Calendar contains nearly the same as the present red days, but much fewer than the present black days. The title of the Latin edition, which was printed at the same time, was " Orarium, seu Libellus Precationum per Regiam Majestatem et Clerum Latine Editus. Ex. Ofificina Ric. Graftoni. 1545." — Fuller.
t Mr. Froude says (iv. 482) that " a collection of English prayers was added to the Litany, a service for morning and evening, and for the burial of the dead." This is a passable account of the authorised Primer, perhaps. But Mr. Froude goes on to say that " the King in a general proclamation directed that they should be used in all churches and chapels in the place of the Breviary." He refers to Wilkins, iii. 873. Perhaps anything that the King published might be called a pro- clamation, but it would have been better to call this, as Wilkins does,
364 The Lifurgic Reformation, [ch. xh.
moreover were set in which the great Anghcan formu- laries were soon to be moulded : and in the first Articles of Henry, in the Institution, in the Necessary Doctrine, in the orieinal Homilies, we have the forecast of the present confession and teaching of the Church. It was scarcely found necessary afterwards to add to the number of these types. Bibles, forms of prayers, and con- fessions of faith are the best things that the Reforma- tion has bequeathed to posterity. It cannot be denied that they were the true expression of the genius of the age ; and that, apart from the wasteful and sordid conflict out of which they rose, they have been an inestimable benefit to the nation.
The further measures of liturgical reformation, which were under contemplation, were stopped for the moment by the death of the King. They were two : to alter the Mass into a Communion : and to abolish the ceremonies of creeping to the Cross, cover- ing images in Lent, and ringing bells all night on All Hallows. The former, a design which in these
" The King's Preface to his Primer Book." That is what it is. See it also in Burton's Three Primers, in its proper place. It contains no mention of the Breviary, and no direction that the Primer, or Private Prayer- Book, should be used in churches and chapels. How on earth could it ? The "collection of English prayers" which is used in churches and chapels belongs to the following reign. I suppose that Mr. Froude found all that he says in that passage in this Preface, in which the King declares that he "judged it to be of no small force, for the avoiding of strife and contention, to have one uniform manner or course of praying throughout all his dominions." The royal Injunction by which the Primer was also heralded, contains a similar passage. Wilkins, iii. 875. The parts of the public service which were allowed to be in English were exactly what I have related in the text : and if any ardent spirit ventured to go beyond those parts, his conduct was instantly remarked. Thus it was considered worthy of record that in 1538 the curates of Hadleigh in Suffolk and of Stratford in Essex said " the mass and the consecration of the sacra- ment of the altar" in English several times : and that the Te Deum was sung in English in London after sermons by Barnes and others. Wrioihesley, 83.
I545-] The Council of Trent. 365
days we cannot comprehend without some reflection, was debated or stipulated between the French and Enghsh monarchs among the conditions of their peace : they even thought of pressing it upon the Emperor : and Cranmer is said to have been com- manded to prepare a form of Communion.* The zealous Primate had for his coadjutors, in the other design, the proposed abolition of superstitious cere- monies, Heath and Day, the Bishops of Worcester and Chichester ; he attempted to extend his monitions to all other bishops : but here, as in the case of the reformation of the ecclesiastical laws, the good pleasure of the King went not with him, and the draft of the Letters which he prepared for Henry to sign, received not the stamp of the royal hand.f
Every rumour was flying in the air for a year before the meeting of the long frustrated Council of the Pope. Sometimes it went, that the design was abandoned and the Legates recalled from Trent. Again the report was that priests were daily resorting thither : but the nature of their consultations remained un- known. In truth, as the time appointed drew near, many bishops came, but only to be disappointed by the continual procrastination by which the day of opening was deferred. Many of these bishops were so poor that they had to be supported during their visit by the reluctant generosity of the Pope : great discontent prevailed : and in spite of all admonitions one or other of the prelates departed daily, alleging the waste of their time, the pressure of their own affairs, or the emptiness of their purses : while those who
* " The King commanded him to pen a form for the alteration of the Mass into a Communion." Strype's Cranm. bk. i. ch. 30.
t See the important letter of Cranmer to the King, January, 1545. Burnefs Edward VI. Collect. Bk. i. No. 61.
366 The Council of Trent. [ch. xh.
still arrived were saluted by those who were there already with the benediction of " headlong fools, who had cast themselves into the net." The alarm and irritation of the Protestants grew great, on the other hand. Whether they were to be summoned to the Council, and punished for contumacy if they refused to go : whether the decrees of the Council would be enforced upon them by the arms of the Empire, were the questions that were agitated among them. Their rage and fear was expressed in angry taunts. " The Pope's Council," said they, " is but aconciliabule. He calls it canonical and legitimate. It is canonical because it is according to his own canons : and leg^itimate because it follows his blind customs. A mere national synod would be more general than this general council."*
As for Henry, no sooner had the last bull for the meeting of the Council been issued, than he renewed his nes^otiations with the Protestants. His assent Mont arrived in Saxony with instructions to open once more the question of a religious league against their common enemy the Pope. Mont represented that in their former conference both parties had stood too obstinately upon points of difference : and pro- posed that, as no nations in Christendom were so likely to agree, commissioners should be appointed again to confer, and bring about a concord. f The arrival of a second envoy, of the name of Buckler, seemed to argue the sincerity of England : and Henry now proposed a separate league between himself, Denmark, Saxony, Holstein, Hesse, and some of the free cities : arguing that it would be troublesome in
* Many of these reports may be found in the letters of Henry's agents in State Papers, vol. x.
+ November, 1544. — State Pap. x. 225.
I545-] Henry and the Protestants. 367
such an emergency to wait for the consent of all the Protestants. But on this proposition Saxony looked coldly, remembering the former fruitless negotiations : Hesse was friendly in language, but declined it for himself* A league was then proposed, apparently by the latter potentate, on the simple basis of resisting the decrees of the Council of Trent, if they should be enforced : and to this Henry declared himself ready to agree.f Mont and Buckler, however, now pro- ceeded to Worms, whither the Protestants had sent delegates on the invitation of the Emperor : and there the original and more dignified proposition of a league between England and all the Protestants was aeain renewed. Bambach, the Marshal of Hesse, and Sleidan the historian, were solemnly appointed as their commissioners by the Protestants : \ and proceeded forthwith to Calais, the nearest point of English terri- tory. But then Henry wavered again. The two commissioners waited long at Calais, but no person appeared to confer with them on the part of England. At length they remonstrated, and the Bishop of Dur- ham was sent, but not till Bambach was gone, leaving
* State Pap. x. 282, 288, 341, 420.
t The Privy Council wrote to Buckler, 12 May, 1545, declaring Henry's willingness to join the Landgrave in resisting the Council of Trent, and to omit minor differences. This Letter is one of the very few English papers of the age in which I have noted the word " Supremacy " applied to the papal power. But it looks as if the Privy Council were repeating an expression used by Buckler in quoting the overtures of the Germans. When the Council reply to it themselves, they speak, as usual, of the " tyrannical power and jurisdiction usurped by the Bishop of Rome." — State Pap. x. 433.
X The Protestants appointed Bambach and Sleidan in a fully formal manner. " Ablegavimus ad Regiam Vestram Majestatem nobiles et ornatos viros Ludovicum a Bambach, Marascallum Hessi^e, et Johannem Sleidanum," &c. Their letter to Henry was signed " Legati Illustris- simorum Principum et Statuum Imperii ; in causa sincerae Religionis conjunctorum," 6 Aug., 1545.— ^/a/^ Pap. x. 560.
368 The Council of Ti^ent. [ch. xii.
his colleague alone. Paget followed Tunstall to Calais, where he found that Sleidan had been joined by Bruno and Sturmius, the Protestant orators at the French court. Among them all frequent conferences were held down to the time when the Council of Trent was actually opened, and to the end of the same year. Nothing came of them.*
The Cardinal Legates, Del Monte, Cervinus, and Pole, arrived in Trent eight months before the opening of the council. Of Pole there were curious rumours abroad. The dread of assassination was said to weigh continually upon his spirits. He refused to travel to Trent with his colleagues : he took the precaution of sending forward one of his servants disguised like himself: and when at length he set out, he was es- corted by a troop of horse as far as Mantua, whence he travelled by bye-roads. So much he feared lest the blow of a dagger, directed by his royal kinsman of Eng- land, should arrest his progress to the scene in which, as doubtless for the moment he expected, he was to win the highest glory. But Henry kept the dagger for nearer and more formidable churchmen.f The Cardinal, however, prepared himself, after his manner, for his high functions by writing an elaborate treatise on the nature and end of General Councils. This he addressed
* State Pap. x. 640, 643, 691, 708, 823, &c.
t It seems to have been believed that Henry hired two ruffians to waylay Pole on the road to Trent. Philipps's Pole, i. 390. The names of the two, Ludovico and Bonifacio, are certainly found among the mer- cenary captains whom Henry was hiring in great numbers in Italy, and this may have given rise to the story. If Henry had made such an attempt, there would be some trace of it in the letters of his Italian agents, but there is nothing about Pole beyond one or two contemptuous allusions to his state of mind. Thus, Harvel tells about Pole's servants going in disguise to Trent, and adds, " I know not to what purpose such folly should be used." State Pap. x. 400. And again, " The Cardinal Pole being, as I understand, in continual and incredible fear," p. 453. Harvel was the agent who hired Henry's Italian mercenaries.
I545-] Poles Book de Concilio. 369
to his colleagues, designing it for the guidance of himself and them. " My treatise," said he, " is but a roueh drauo;ht, for I am no architect. It is not a perfect model, but a prefatory sketch of that magni- ficent temple which is to be founded on truth, and built by the restoration of discipline. The Legates of the Apostolic See are more than ambassadors : they are to discharge their office not only faithfully, but with a particular decency and dignity. How can they do this but by ascertaining the matter, the scope, and the composition of the assembly over which they are to preside ? A General Council is a congregation of persons united in the same faith, and gathered from every nation or people of God. All cannot be pre- sent at such a council : nor is the Church a popular state where the multitude decide all. There was once a council of the whole human race in the plains of Shinar, and the decree of that council was, ' Let us make a tower reaching up to Heaven.' In the Church it is the part of the people to assent and to obey. But neither is the Church thereby an oligarchy : away with such a thought! It is a monarchy: the monarch is Christ : the rulers and pastors of the Church are but the expositors of the laws of their monarch. It is a congress of these rulers and pastors, consulting for the interests of the people of God, that we call a General Council. What part has the Roman Pontiff in such a council? He has the part of the Vicar of Christ, who is the chief Pastor and Bishop of our souls ; that is the name by which St. Peter himself denoted Christ. And if he have the part of Christ, he has the part of God Himself To Peter, and to the successors of Peter, Christ delegated His offices, though He Himself remain ever spiritually present with His Church. Those offices or parts are three: VOL. n. B b
370 The Council of Trent. [ch. xn.
to be the father, the preserver, the pastor : who gener- ates anew, who keeps from evil, who feeds the flock with salutary food. These parts were taken by Peter in the first General Council of the Church, the Coun- cil of Jerusalem, the Council in which the Jewish law was abrogated. In that Council the four kinds or ranks of persons who must be in councils were pre- sent : the first was in the person of Peter, the second was in the persons of Paul and Barnabas, the third in the person of James, and those who are called the Elders were the fourth. But is not a council called in the name of a prince ? Yes : it is called in the name and by the authority of the Prince of princes, even of the Holy Ghost. In that first Council of the Church at Jerusalem there were no earthly princes present. Rich men enter hardly into the kingdom of heaven. To bring nobles, princes, and emperors into the Church is the taming of wild beasts ; the conversion of Con- stantine was a miracle. Princes may be the protectors of councils, but they add not by their presence to the four kinds of persons who are there. Nevertheless they have their assigned part ; and they too are the Vicars of Christ. P^or when I said that the Pontiff was Christ's Vicar, I meant not that he absorbed all vicarial parts. Every Christian man is in some sense a Vicar of Christ ; the Emperor is the same in a special sense. He is the Regal Head of the Church, as the Pontiff is the Sacerdotal Head. Both are Vicars of Christ, who is both Priest and King. The Emperor is indeed, like Christ, king of kings : and in a General Council he has those parts exactly which Christ, as their Lord, Master, and King, discharged toward His Apostles. He must protect the Council, as Christ did His Apostles when He said, 'Let these go their way.' He must control the disputes of the
I545-] Opening of the Council . 371
Council, as Christ controlled the contentions of His Apostles : and he must do this without despising them and setting their doctrine at nought because of their contentions ; but remember that General Coun- cils are held for the very purpose of determining the differences of teachers and pastors. The cause that the consent of emperors first began to be asked for holding General Councils was, that the churches of the chief pastors lay like flocks in the kingdoms of emperors and princes." Such was the characteristic prelude of the Council of Trent*
The Pope, who broke the general precedent by withholding his own presence from the Council, looked coldly on a doubtful undertaking, and perhaps desired that it should be as little effective as possible. The early promise of the pontificate of Paul the Third was long departed : and the advancement of his family seemed to be the chief care of the builder of the Farnese palace and the ravager of the Colosseum.f The Legates who represented him found themselves imper- fectly instructed, and doubtful how to proceed. They opened the Council at length on the thirteenth of December, 1545, in the cathedral church of Trent; where the concourse of another cardinal, of four arch- bishops, of twenty-six bishops, of five religious generals, and the ambassadors of the King of the Romans, feebly presented the churches of all kingdoms. The Council afterwards seldom reached the number of fifty prelates : to whom are to be added a body of assistant divines,
* Liber De Concilio. In displaying the positions I have done no justice to the Scriptural learning and the pious spirit of this remarkable work.
t Gardiner, e.g., writes to Henry that it is said that the Pope has opened the Council, being "moved thereto because he trusteth it shall not take the due effect ; " and that he labours to advance his family. — State Pap. xi. 24.
B b 2
372 The Council of Trent. [ch. xn.
about thirty in number, mostly friars, who seem to have held a subordinate position. The extirpation of heresy by the declaration of the faith, and the reforma- tion of discipline, were the great subjects which occupied in regular alternation the sessions and congregations of the assembly. Upon the former, the tendency to precise limitation, which became the well-known, the unhappy character of Trent, was soon manifested : in pronouncing tradition equal to Scripture the Fathers spoke where the older Councils had been silent : by their subtle definitions of Justification and Original Sin they imitated, in contradicting, the useless and captious distinctions of Germany.* Their conclusions were not reached however with servile or bigoted unanimity. On the contrary, the most opposite views were advanced with boldness : the ancient theological dif- ferences of the followers of St. Francis and St. Dominic in particular were revived with ardour : and the great names of Duns Scotus and Bonaventura, on which the Franciscans relied, were encountered by the mightier authority of St. Thomas the Dominican. The Legates found themselves set over an assembly that might slip from their grasp at any moment. Del Monte, the President, was a man of wonderful address, entirely faithful to his office and his patron ; but
* On Justification, for instance, three opinions were advanced and debated, i. That of the Luthei'ans, that faith is the sole ground of justi- fication : that hope and charity are only the companions of faith, and good works only the proof of faith. This view, we may observe, was put forth in England in Edward VI. 's reign by Cranmer in the first Book of Homilies, and was opposed by Gardiner. See cliap. xiii. in this volitnie.
2. The middle view, which divided Justification into inherent or belonging to man, and imparted, which supplied what is lacking in the inherent. This was favoured by Pole, even if he did not support the former view.
3. The view which obtained the suffrages of Trent : which does not exactly affirm the two kinds, but regards imparted Justification as promoting rather than supplementing inherent Justification. — Ranke's Popes.
I545-] Violent Debates on Discipline. 373
withal of an open and somewhat impetuous disposition. Cervinus was more covert, of equal dexterity, and not inferior in his attachment to the Holy See. He was celebrated for his learning. As for Pole, besides the high popery of his moments, he had, or was suspected to have, his hours of liberal Lutheran tendency ; to the Council he brought the fame of exalted sanctity, and the flash of a disinterested though weak and troubled genius. But the promise of his elaborate eloquence was followed, as usual, by poor performance ; after a few sessions and several orations he withdrew himself, on the plea of infirmity, from the scene of combat, and left the conduct of the consultation to his brethren in office whom he had volunteered to instruct.
It was whenever the question of the restoration of discipline came under discussion that the most violent debates arose : and the amazing revelation of the state of the continental churches, which was afforded by the frankness of the Fathers, awakened in their acute overseers the apprehension of schisms as serious as those of Germany and Switzerland. In Italy, France, and Spain, the countries which chiefly furnished the Council, a depravation of manners was brought to light, which far exceeded what was found in England before the Reformation. Non-residence, plurality, unions of benefices for the life of the in- cumbent, every evil that could affect the administration of the Church, were confessed, denounced, or defended with a sort of rage. All were ascribed to the influence of Rome, and neither the Pope nor his cardinals escaped the free comments of the assembly. The Spanish clergy, in particular, sustained perhaps by a secret dependence on the Emperor, distinguished themselves by the boldness of their demeanour. But
374 The Council of Trent. [ch. xn.
above all, the deep hostility of the prelates and the religious orders, which had been for hundreds of years the disgrace of the Catholic world, displayed itself. " We cannot teach nor preach in our own dioceses," exclaimed the bishops, " the ambulatory preachers and beggars fill every place. They go about with their indulgences, pardons, and dispensations, everywhere draining the purses of the people, and seeking to enrich their own communities. It was one of those men engraeed in that traffic, who started Martin Luther, who was himself another of them. Every monastery, every fraternity, all the universities and colleges, are exempt from our authority ; nay, there are few priests who cannot show some dispensation or privilege, got by purchase from the Holy Father, and settine us at nought. Two-thirds of the benefices of our sees are in the hands of his Holiness. If we be non-resident, 'it is because we have nothing to do when the office of pastor is taken away from us." On the other side, the regulars retorted that both the bishops and the curates had wholly abandoned the office of pastor for hundreds of years before the friars, the begging orders, were raised to supply their lack of service ; which, if they had not done, there would have remained by this time no sign of Christianity in the world : that for three hundred years they had laboured successfully to revive the piety of the people, as they were labouring still : and that it was a calumny to say that they sought gain. There can be no doubt that non- residence was the great abuse of the episcopal order, an abuse which had grown greater in past ages from several evil causes, and had been defended by gross chicanery. It had now become fixed into a sort of necessity by the course of events and the management of Rome : and the complaint of the bishops, if sincere, was reasonable ;
I545-] Duplicity of the Pope and Emperor. 375
that they were withheld from residing by the ridiculous position which they held in their sees. The long continued and systematic depression of bishops, of the simple episcopal order, by the Popedom, was in truth the cause above all others which rendered the Reformation, when it came, uncontrollable, irregular, and disastrous.
Paul, alarmed at the spirit which was displayed at Trent, desired to recall the whole question of the reformation of abuses from the Council to himself But his Bull to that effect was unpromulgated by his Legates, or disregarded by the Fathers : and the fiery disputations were followed by temperate decrees for the mitigation of the worst evils. In fact, the eyes of the Pope were fixed upon other objects. He regarded the small but excited gathering under Del Monte only as it affected his relations with the Emperor. To the Emperor, on the other hand, it mattered nothing whether the Council were large or small, so that it were held, and so that it were continued long enough to enable him to complete his warlike preparations against the Protestants. So resolute was he in this, that when Del Monte efew so much alarmed as to think of dissolving the assembly, the Emperor sent him the message that, if he did, he would throw him into the Adige. A colloquy on religion which he ordered at Worms, and another at Ratisbon, served further to amuse the Protestants until all was ready, and the war began which ended in the dissolution of the Smalcaldic League. The Council of Trent, though a great event in theological history, was but a little thing with the Pope and the Emperor. It was a plaything between them : a trouble to the one and a convenience to the other. Those high allies kept their mistrustful eyes fixed on one another : and the
37^ Henry and the Protestants. [ch. xh.
deliberations of the Fathers were drowned at times by the tramp of the pontifical soldiers marching through Trent to join the Imperial army. At length, about the time of the death of Henry the Eighth, the Pope ended the first part of the history of the Council by transferring it to the nearer and more accessible Bologna. The Emperor sternly protested against the translation : and the Imperial cardinals and bishops remained in Trent, and continued to deliberate there, till the Pope, by a Bull of Suspension, ended the spectacle of disunion and debate.
On the English monarch the effect of the actual meeting of the Council of Trent was to make him renew for the last time his delusive negotiations with the Protestants. A few days after that event, his agent Mont was ordered to proceed to their great meeting at Frankfort : where he found not only all the members of the Smalcaldic League, but also representatives of all the princes who professed the doctrines of the Augustan Confession. They had bound themselves anew to Protestantism : and had made a mutual alliance against any aggression that might be attempted by the Pope or the Caesar. In a few months their apprehensions increased. They expected daily to be cited to Trent : and kept ready a Recusation which they were resolved to present to the Council. If they presented such a memorial, they looked to be excommunicated and anathematised : and to have the exterminating armies of the Csesar let loose upon them. They were also distracted between the hostile realms of France and Eno-land : and found the
o
friendship of the French king, which they affected, likely to render them displeasing to the English monarch.*
* Mont to the King, Jan. 1546, State Pap. xi. I and 23. Also pp. 39, 61,77.
I545-] Renewed Negotiations. 377
In this dangerous emergency the Landgrave opened once more to Henry the prospect of the head of the German League. An alHance with them, said he to Mont, had often been sought but never effected by the King of England : the King of England differed from their Confession : but they greatly preferred him to the French King, who was a persecutor of Chris- tians, and who had told them, in answer to their remonstrances, that he was a Catholic, and that his friendship with them rested on other grounds than religion. He thought that the Protestant Confession might be the basis of a pacification throughout all Christendom. The answer of the King of England was, that he agreed with the Protestants in some of the principal points of religion : but that he had never yet been moved by them to make a league in defence of those points in which he agreed with them. This seems an extreme assertion, after all that had passed before : but Henry would probably have had some technical proof to allege, if the Germans had called it in question. He now offered to consider the proposal, if the Landgrave would send an ambassador into England. To the demand of one hundred thousand crowns, the price of the honour to be done him, he demurred : but he offered the Landgrave a yearly pension of ten or twelve thousand florins, on condition that he should enlist for him fighting-men in Germany : and the pension was accepted. He now sent another agent. Mason, to the Protestant princes, who were very anxious to conclude the alliance. They warned Mason, who has related the conversation, that if they were beaten, England would be next attacked : but the answer which they drew, though sagacious, savoured of the insolence of security. " If you were his allies," said the envoy, '" the King my master would not suffer
378 Henry and fJie Protestants. [ch. xn.
you to be beaten : as for himself, he may sleep first on one side of his head and then on the other : so good a wall have God and nature made about his realm. And besides, we have one great advantage that you lack : we all draw after one line."* The last overture of Henry to the Protestants, which followed soon after, was more magniloquent than any that had gone before. He proposed a defensive league, to bear the lofty title of the League Christian. Commissioners were to be sent to conclude it, to bring with them the names of the members, an account of what each would con- tribute, and of the aid which they would expect from England. These commissioners were to present the names of ten or twelve learned men, out of whom five or six might be selected to confer with the learned of England, and come to a settlement of religion, " following the Holy Scripture, or the determinations of the Primitive Church, or General Councils had before five or six hundred years." The King of England graciously promised to be present at the deliberations of the divines. f But this large proposi- tion had scarcely reached Germany when the threatened war commenced : ere the end of the year the cities of the Protestants fell rapidly before the onset of the Emperor, and the Smalcaldic League was virtually dissolved. Such was the end of Henry's transactions with the Germans : a web of unmeaning negotiations which are little to the credit of the English monarch.
When the Parliament met in November, 1545, the first bill that was brought in was, " For the abolition of heresies, and of certain books infected with false opinions." But this bill, whatever it may have been, seems to have stopped with the Commons, after passing
* State Pap. xi. 95 and 2S2 : 226.
t Henry to Bruno, 30 Aug. 1546, State Pap. xi. 282. Herbert.
I545-] Parliament. 379
the Lords.* Their next business was to settle the long disputes between the clergy and the citizens of London concerning payment of tithes : and for this end they passed an Act which was remarkable in substance, but more remarkable in form. The King and Parliament, it was rehearsed, had by former Proclamations and Acts taken order for the due payment of tithes cus- tomary in London, till such time as this and all other matters of ecclesiastical law should be regulated by the King and the thirty-two persons to be nominated by him. But meanwhile, as the case was pressing, a commission had been appointed to determine it, consisting of eleven persons, Cranmer, Wriothesley, who had succeeded the lately deceased Audley as Lord Chancellor, Norfolk, Russell, and others of the household, the council, and the bench : and to their ordinance the reluctant citizens were to be bound, under penalty of imprisonment until they should sub- mit themselves. The ordinance of the commission, under the ecclesiastical name of " The Decree," fol- lowed at length in twenty branches : and may be perused by the curious as the first and only legislative product of King Henry's undertaking to remodel the ecclesiastical laws of England by a commission, and as the only attempt which the English statutes contain to imitate the form and phraseology of canon law.f
The great Act of the session bore the frank title of " an Act for the dissolution of Chantries, Hospitals, and Free Chapels." It was an enormous measure, but it was the inevitable adjunct of the monastic destruction.
* Several bills of this session seem to have been postponed to the session of January, 1547, which broke up suddenly after a few days on account of the death of the King, and these bills therefore never became laws. Some of them had an ecclesiastical reference. There was one concerning informations, another against perjury.
t y] Henry VIII. 12.
380 Par Ha men f. [
CH, XII.
Now that the monastic spoil was gathered and squandered, the next object that attracted the eye of cupidity was the large mass of corporate institutions, of a character half monastic and half ecclesiastical, which still remained. There were few churches that contained not a chantry, or small endowment for a chanter to sing mass at one of the altars for a departed soul. In the larger churches and the cathedrals, these endowments were very numerous : and they sometimes maintained two or three poor men, as well as the mass priest. Many of them were in the chapels or churches of the monasteries — and it ouo-ht to be remarked that of these, although the greater part probably shared the fate of the institutions with which they were connected, yet some at least were transferred to the roofs and altars of neighbouring churches of the Church of England.* Besides these endowments, there were other chantries that were separate buildings, and bore indifferently the name of chantries or colleges. There were colleges of other kinds, each having a head and a few fellows : there were free chapels, or chapels which had curates with stipends from some land or rent charitably given, without the charge of the rector or the parish. t There were religious hospitals, and other corporations innumerable. According to the representation of Parliament, the priests, wardens, and other heads of these institutions, had been expelled from them of late by the founders, or pretended founders and patrons, who had entered into possession. In other cases the heads had conveyed or sold their
* The Benedictine Priory of Coventry had two chantries in it. At the dissolution, one of them disappeared, the other was transferred to the neighbouring church of St. Michael. Dugdale's Warwicks., p. 106.
t Blount's Law Diet. Mr. Walcott says that free chapels were usually built on royal manors, exempt from ordinary jurisdiction, but having incumbents instituted by the diocesan.
I545-] Act for dissolving Chantries. 381
manors and houses to the founders and patrons by covin : or they had otherwise conveyed or leased them away, so that the hospitals and other foundations were already extinct. It therefore seemed good to the King's most loyal subjects that the King should have all such as had been dissolved by any such expulsion, bargain, or conveyance within the last ten years. With petition and intercession they besought him to take them for the support of his expenses in wars, and the maintenance of his dignity. Covenants made for the sale of chantry lands the}^ declared void : and any person who had taken money for such lands was to re- pay it. But all surrenders and assurances of such lands, made to the King, they declared valid. They enacted that the King during his natural life might send com- missioners into all the institutions that were included in the statute, and seize them for himself, without inquest before a jury, or any other circumstance : the reason given for this extreme facility being that there was no doubt but that many of these institutions were abused. All suits affecting the King they ordered to be tried in the Court of Augmentations, but suits between subjects at common law.* No time was lost in executing this design. Injunctions for the visita- tion of chantries, resembling those of the monastic visitations, were instantly issued : and before the end of the year colleges, hospitals, chantries, and free chapels, were falling rapidly to the King.f
* Chap. iv.
t Wilkins, iii. 875. It may be observed that these foundations began to drop long before the Act. A seasonable spirit of voluntary surrender seized them as soon as the monasteries were fallen. The following are taken from Rymer : in two or three of them there was a visitor, the rest seem to have been voluntary surrenders :
A. D.
1 541 8 April, Metyngham Coll. or Chantry, Suff. ; Visitor, Petre. Rytn. xiv. 746
382 Parliament . [ch. xh.
These were very generous and loyal concessions ; but they prevented not the King from asking more. He laid his necessities before his subjects again : and received from the clergy fifteen per cent, on their incomes for the next two years : from the laity twenty per cent, on land, and half a crown in the pound on goods. Since the noble condonation of his debts by the last session, his Majesty had been demanding benevolences, though that kind of demand was illegal, and had failed when it was attempted under Wolsey. Seventy thousand pounds were raised by this means out of a people which had forgotten to resist : and two London aldermen, men probably who had been already severely drained by former extortions, were punished
A. D.
1 541 6 Dec, Rushworth Coll., Norf.; Visitor, Samson Michel. Rym.
xiv. 742
1542 6 April, Metyngham, &c.
2 June, Wynkfield Coll., Suff. lb. 748
18 ,, Higham Ferrers Coll., Northamp.; Visitor, Petre, Ib.T^^
1543 10 June, Hospital of the Savoy, Lond. Rym. xv. 167
1544 18 Feb., Westbury-super-Tryn, Collegiate Church, Gloucester.
Rym. XV. 12 4 Mar., St. John Baptist's Hosp., Bristol. lb. 14 17 „ St. Elizabeth's Coll., Winchester. lb. 15 26 April, Lingfield Collegiate Ch., Surrey, lb. 66 25 July, Chantry at altar of Brundish Ch., Suff. lb. 67
9 Dec, Sudbury Coll., Suff. Jb. 68 12 „ Arundel Coll., Sussex. lb. 68
1545 19 Jan., Wye Coll., Kent. lb. 67
24 ,, Kepire Coll., Durham. lb. 67 4 Feb., Tattershall Coll., Lincoln. lb. 66
4 Mar., S. John's Hosp., Coventry (Custos, Confratres et Sorores). 7^.67
10 „ South MaUing Coll., Sussex. lb. 65
17 April, Sibthorpe Chantry or Coll., Devon. lb. 71 7 Nov., Slapton Chantry or Coll., Devon. lb. 70
1546 7 May, Thornton Coll., or Collegiate Ch., Lincoln. lb. 91
11 ,, Trinity Hosp., Arundel, Suss. lb. ()i
1547 4 Jan., Fotheringhaye Coll., Northampt. lb. 92
The last three were after the Act, but are given to complete what Rymer has. There were many more no doubt that he has not given.
I545-] The Kings Extortions. 383
for murmuring at the new demand : of whom the one was sent to prison for three months on a charge of seditious words ; the other was carried to the army in Scotland, where he was made prisoner in the first skirmish, and compelled to pay a heavy ransom. At the same time the King had debased the coinage to an incredible extent. In that fallacious career he had gone from bad to worse, so that before his death the alloy exceeded the silver in his coins in the proportion of two to one. For all that his purse remained as empty as ever : and his mysterious beggary was unappeased still.*
The Parliament, for the rest, relieved the favoured Knights of Jerusalem from the sad restraint in which the other late religious were held : and permitted to them the privilege of matrimony.f They ordained that doctors of civil law, being laymen and being married, might exercise ecclesiastical jurisdiction as chancellors, vicars-general, and other such officials.J They passed another Act for the union of churches. It appeared that in divers places there were churches that were too poor to find a minister : two such churches, standing within a mile of one another, and under the revenue of six pounds, might be joined into one. But, though made one, they were to pay tenths and firstfruits as if they were two. The infamous abuses to which the treason laws of the new loyalty
* y] Henry VIII. 24. Lingard. Sanders says that whereas before Henry there was only one-eleventh of alloy in silver coinage, eleven ounces of alloy were mixed with two ounces of silver at the time when he died (p. 169, ed. 1588).
+ This Act has never been printed. See note in Stat, of Realm, iii. p. 984.
+ This was probably the outcome of Audley's former attempt against the clerical jurisdiction, above, p. 291. The Parliament complained in the preamble that the bishops did not carry out the King's will in appointing their officers. 37 Henry VIII. 17.
384 Parliainent. [ch. xir.
were easily subject, were strikingly displayed when the legislature found it necessary, by a special statute, to make it felony for any person to drop in a public place an anonymous libel accusing another of treason.*
The King graced by his presence the last day of the session, and is said to have pronounced a charac- teristic oration in answer to the eloquent address of the Speaker. " For your subsidy we thank you," said his Majesty; "you have considered the great charges which we have lately sustained, not for our pleasure but for your defence, not for our gain but to our cost. But what faith you have in me, to have given into my hands all chantries, colleges, and hospitals ! If I, contrary to your expectation, should suffer the ministers of the Church to decay, or learning, which is so great a jewel, to be minished, or the poor and miserable to be unrelieved, you might call me no lover of the public good, and one that feared not God. But your expecta- tion shall be served more godly and goodly than ye desire. There is one thing to which I require you, and that is charity and concord, which is not among you. The one calleth the other heretic and anabaptist : and he calleth him again papist, hypocrite, and pharisee. Are these the signs of fraternal love ? I must needs judge the fault and occasion of this discord to be partly by the negligence of you, the fathers and preachers of the spiritualty. For if I see a man living in adultery, I must judge him to be a lecherous and carnal person. If I see a man bragging and boasting, I cannot but deem him a proud man. I see and hear daily that you of the clergy preach one against another, teach one contrary to another, inveigh one aeainst another. Some be stiff in their old Mumpsimus, others be too busy and curious in their * Ch. 21 and 10.
I545-] Hemy's last Speech in Parliament . 385
new Sumpsimus : but few or none preach the sincere word of God, as they ought to do. How can the poor souls live in concord, when you yourselves sow among them discord, bringing them to darkness when they look to you for light ? Avoid these errors ; set forth God's Word both by teaching and example ; or else I, whom God hath appointed His Vicar, and high minister here, will see these divisions extinct and these enormities corrected, according to my very duty."
He then addressed the laity with equal severity. " You rail on bishops, speak slanderously of priests, and taunt preachers. If you know surely that a bishop or a priest teacheth perversely, come and declare it to some of our Council, or to us : and be not judges yourselves, of your own fantastical opinions and vain expositions, for in such high causes ye may lightly err. You have the Scripture in your mother tongue : but this is permitted you to inform your consciences and instruct your households, not to make Scripture a railing and a taunting stock against priests and preachers. I am very sorry to know how that most precious jewel, the Word of God, is disputed, rhymed, sung and jangled in every alehouse. I am equally sorry that the readers of the same follow it so faintly and coldly in living : for of this I am sure, that charity was never so faint among you ; and virtuous and godly living was never less used ; and God Himself among Christians was never less reverenced, honoured, and served." Such were the last, the memorable words spoken by the author of the revolution to the assembly throuofh which he had carried it out*
* It is difficult to believe that this speech is the invention of Hall, who gives it, and that Henry made no speech. But we may share the wonder of Burnet that no record of it is to be found in the Lords' Journals, though they note the King's presence. Nor is there any record
VOL. IL C C
386 Scotland. [ch. xh.
Scotland, as historians have observed, was left by the defeat of Solway Moss in the same extremity as by the defeat of Flodden. The same English monarch, after both events, saw prostrate at his feet an exhausted country, stripped of king and of nobles, governed by an incapable Regent in the name of an infant. But the burden of the French war and his own increased infir- mities deterred Henry for a time from attempting again to follow the steps of Edward the First. He resorted to his earlier policy. Marriages were proposed between his daughter Elizabeth and the son of the Scottish Regent, between his son Edward and the " child of Scotland," Mary. A perpetual peace was offered to Scotland, on condition of the renunciation of the French alliance. The pacification would not have been un- acceptable to many of the temporalty, to the large English party, which had been lately augmented by the returned prisoners of Solway Moss. Many of the long train of nobles and gentlemen whom that curious catastrophe had cast into the power of Henry went back from the feasts of Greenwich and the arguments of Lambeth less persuaded of the malignity of England and the danger of heresy than they had been before ; and burdened with pledges drawn from them in their captivity. On the other hand, the King received early warning from his envoy, the astute Sadler, that the spirit of the nation had been roused by defeat, and that it would be futile to make these negotiations the cloak for a design on their independence.* The national party was the Catholic party, and was led by
of the eloquent panegyric of the Speaker, to which it is said to have been in answer.
* "They be minded rather to suffer extremity than to come under England." They would have " their realm free, and live within them- selves, after their own laws and customs," Sadler to Parr, Mar. 1543. State Pap. V. 271.
I545-] Cardinal Beton. 387
the clergy ; and at the head of the clergy was Beton Cardinal of St. Andrew's, the nephew and successor of that Beton who had been the rival of VVolsey in diplomatic skill. This celebrated personage, a true ecclesiastic of the middle ages, a man of haughty and intrepid spirit, united in himself the churchman, the statesman, and the warrior. He broke the webs of diplomacy by rousing again the hostilities of the border. Throuoh him the rehVious element rose to
o o
the pre-eminence which it was henceforth destined to maintain, in one form or another, in all the transactions between Scotland and England.*
The Pope, for his own reasons, assisted Beton by a Legation which he sent into Scotland. The Patriarch of Aquileia, Marco Grimani, succeeded in crossing the seas, and appeared there with the full authority of the Holy Father. He brought, it was believed, a sum of money, and letters of encouragement from Pole.f Henry treated this Italian emissary and his commission with a mixture of caution and contempt.;}; On the one hand, he made the Patriarch of sufficient consequence to require his ally the Emperor to break with the Scots because of him.^ He refused, on the other hand, to
* "The kirkmen labour to empeche the establishment and unity of these two reahns, upon what grounds ye can easily conjecture." lb.
t Privy Council to Sadler, May, 1543, State Pap. v. 285. This Grimani seems to have been a curious Legate. He had been a naval captain-general. He died soon after his return from Scotland.
X It is curious indeed to remark the petty dimensions to which all the Italian enemies of Henry are reduced in the despatches of his agents and Council. From Pole downwards they figure as fools, rascals, varlets, and beggarly plotters, and at the same time that their pretensions were derided, they ran no small danger of their lives.
§ " Because that through the coming of the Patriarch and an ambas- sador out of France, with a little money, they be evilly revolted again, and have declared themselves enemies." — Council to Bonner, Nov. 1543. State Pap. ix. 536. At this time Henry always spoke of the Scots as rebels.
C C 2
388 Scotland. [ch. xh.
allow a messenorer from the Patriarch to come into England. " The Patriarch's man shall not come from Scotland into England," said he, " seeing on what terms the Patriarch's master stands with me. And I wish the Patriarch's man's master, and the Patriarch's man's master's master, more charity."* But the Patriarch did his work. The " perpetual peace " and alliance between the two kingdoms came suddenly to an end ; and Henry withdrew his ambassador Sadler from Edinburgh, at the same time threatening that city with " the revenge of his sword, to the extermination of them to the third and fourth generation."!
In the horrible expedition of fire and sword that followed, the Earl of Hertford executed the wrath of Henry against Edinburgh in an operation which might be taken for the type of the Tudor wars against Scotland. The beautiful mediaeval town, made of wood, was set on fire, and blazed for three days ; but the castle and the defenders of the castle were left un- touched. The murderous ravages of Hertford spread far and wide ; towns, towers, houses, farmsteads, parish churches, fell in indiscriminate ruin : and men of strange nations and unknown weapons, Italians, Germans, Spaniards, even Greeks — the mercenaries whom Henry had learned to take into his pay — assisted in the reduction of the Scottish strong- holds. But most the rage of the invaders was turned against the magnificent fortified abbeys of the south ; and Jedburgh, Kelso, Roxburgh, Melrose, owed their desolation not to the later raofe of the Scottish
* Henry complained that the Bishop of Rome ill-treated any of his servants that he caught ; he refused to allow " the Patriarch's man " to come into England ; and this was " wishing his master and his master's master more charity." Priv. Council to Suffolk, Dec. 1543. State Pap.
V. 354-
t State Pap. v. 334.
1546] A ssassmation of Betoit. 389
Reformation, but to the hired army of the tyrant of England. It was in retiring from the sack of the last-named place that a body of the invaders lost their laurels, and felt at Ancram Moor the sudden vengeance of an injured land. A second expedition followed in the next year, as ferocious as the first : and then Henry paused, or quailed. The indomitable nation remained unsubdued, though, as usual, half devoured ; and, unless he meant to exterminate the Scots, it was evident that he had done nothing. A hasty, ill-founded, and transitory peace ended one of the most shameful wars in which any civilised country was ever engao-ed. Having failed with the sword, Henry took up the dagger. His great adversary Beton, at the summit of his power, was assassinated in the Castle of St. Andrew by a gang of conspirators who were in communication with the King of England, and had received at least the promise of his pay. The nefarious project was first suggested to Hertford by a Scottish man named Wishart, who was admitted to an audience with the King himself, that he might explain it more perfectly. There seems no reason to doubt that this man was the lauded Scottish martyr of the same name. With the murder of Beton the memorable passages of Henry in Scotland reached an end.*
* Considerable controversy arose when, some fifty years ago, the historian Tytler first alleged the probability that George Wishart the martyr was in the plot against the life of Beton, The more recent researches leave little doubt of it. i. It was "a Scottishman called Wishart" who first proposed to Hertford, on the part of some gentlemen, to seize or slay the Cardinal on his way to St. Andrew's, or to burn his abbey and town of Arbrough, and the houses of all the other bishops and abbots thereabout, and to apprehend all who opposed the English amity. Hertford to the Kt?ig, April, 1544, State Pap. v. 377. 2. This Wishart was probably George, who would be selected to convey the plot to Hert- ford because of his former knowledge of England. He had resided there before, had been in trouble there about heresy, and had carried a faggot at Bristol. 3. George Wishart, who was strangled and burnt a few months
390 TJie Heretics. [ch. xn.
Crome, Latimer, and Shaxton, three of the sufferers who had endured hardness under the Six Articles, appeared again about this time. Crome, in preaching one of the Lenten sermons in the Mercers' Chapel, inconveniently founded an argument against purgatory on the late Act for dissolving chantries and chapels. " If trentals and masses can avail the souls in purgatory," said he, " Parliament did not well in giving away mon- asteries, chantries, and colleges, which served principally to that purpose. But who can doubt that Parliament has done well in dissolving and giving them to the King ? Then it is plain that chantries and private masses do nothing to relieve them in purgatory." The dilemma might be indissoluble : but it was an unpleasant thing to have recent measures cast up and put in that way in the pulpit. Doctor Crome ought to have known that
before the assassination of Beton, predicted at his own death that Beton would follow him soon. It seems natural to conclude that what he pre- dicted he foreknew, unless we accept the alternative explanation of a not unknown writer of historical sketches, that the martyr had a special revelation at this time. Mr. Burton, the latest authority on Scottish history, makes no doubt of the identity of George with the Wishart who went to Hertford and to Henry. As to King Henry's part in the busi- ness, it is admitted by his modern admirers : but I may as well give what I have found in the fifth volume of the State Papers, i. When Hertford laid Wishart's proposition before him, he answered that " he would not seem to have to do in it ; " that it was " not convenient to be communicated to him," but that if it were executed it would be " an acceptable service to his Majesty, and also a special benefit to the Realm of Scotland." Sadler was ordered to write to the Earl of Caselis to that effect.— 77/^ Cmmdl to Hertford, May, 1545, p. 449. 2. Sadler then wrote to the laird of Brunston, one of the assassins, that it would be an accept- able service to God to take Beton out of the way ; that the King would not hear to do or meddle in the matter ; but that he would undertake that the King's liberality and goodness would not fail those who did him honest service. Nay, he himself undertook, of the Christian zeal which he bore to the commonwealth of Scotland, to see that the reward were paid iminediately upon the deed executed. Then would the country flourish, and God's word, and His truth. July, 1545, p. 470. The assas- sination came off in the following May. Three of the actual murderers were among the men who were first named in it by Wishart.
1546.] The Troubles of Dr. Croine. 391
the King desired to grasp fruit without disturbing doctrine.* • An order was sent to him to recant at Paul's Cross ; and he received at the same time from Haynes, the Dean of Exeter, a special warning to do it handsomely ; and not, like some of his fantastic brethren of London, to begin his recantation by saying, " I come not to recant." Crome failed how- ever to satisfy the official listeners, and was called before the Privy Council. He put a bold face on it ; and affected extreme surprise and perfect innocence. No man, he said, could find fault with his behaviour at Paul's Cross, where he had truly fulfilled his promise. Laying his hand on his heart, he added that " he knew himself better than any other man did, and he thought that he should have been commended, not blamed." The official critics demurred in some sort : but the Doctor might belike have carried the day by deport- ment, if it had not been for one among them. The active, the rising, the tenacious Doctor Cox was there, and unexpectedly displayed a talent which was fatal to Doctor Crome. Crome's discourse at Paul's Cross he rehearsed from the beginning, touchingevery substantial part, and noting the manner, voice, and gesture of the preacher ; declaring also " certain vain tales, out of the purpose there intended," with which Crome had lightened his unpleasant task. Never had the Council heard any matter more lively, soberly, and plainly handled. Crome was confounded ; his asseverations were repelled, and he was put to plain rebuke as one who had said what was not true. H is terrible adversary finished him off with a special expostulation on his
* Mr. Froude says that Crome was " unwise " — an unwise clever man. Very likely : only that is Mr. Froude's standing designation of every man — every clergyman, I mean — who pushed Henry's actions to their logical consequences against Henry's will.
392 The Heretics. [ch. xh.
own part : " You deluded me, Master Crome ; me, who travailed with the King's Majesty on your behalf; you deluded me ! " The Council applauded the splendid peroration, and turned to inquire into the original cause of trouble, the Lenten Sermon in the Mercers' Chapel. To this matter Crome at first flatly refused to answer, but yielded upon being warned of the danger of con- tumacy. He was sworn, and examined in ecclesiastical fashion upon certain interrogations. From his answers it appeared that he had been encouraged by several persons ; and that when the articles of his recantation were sent him, which he was to have set forth at Paul's Cross, one of his abettors had said that they could not be set forth with a good conscience ; and that he doubted not but that Crome would declare them " honestly," that is to say, dishonestly. Hence Crome's " folly " : but from the depositions (which were sent to the King) the Council concluded that others were more to blame than he was. He made a full submission and a more conclusive recantation at Paul's Cross, 27 June, which he uttered in the presence of the Council, and the Mayor and Aldermen.*
Among those whom Crome reluctantly implicated on this occasion was Latimer :t and that adventurous divine speedily found himself in the chamber of that strange new heresy court, which absorbed the functions and adopted the procedure of the Ordinaries of the Church. It was laid to his charge that he had coun-
* State Pap. i. 843, 846. Fox says that it was the charitable prelates who charitably brought Crome coram nobis, and made him recant, and so burning hot was their charity that they would have dissolved him and his logic in burning fire. Well, there were two or three prelates in the Privy Council that day.
t Wriothesley says that Crome accused many persons, some of whom came to great trouble, and were even put to death in consequence, p. 167. This must refer to Lascelles, &c. Below.
1546.] New Troubles of Latimer. 393 .
selled Crome to promise one thing and do another. His answer not being satisfactory, he was put on oath, certain written interrogations were delivered to him, and he was taken into a room where he might answer them in quiet, while the Privy Council proceeded with the examination of some other heretics, who were sus- pected of confederacy with Crome. Presently, when he had answered two or three of the questions, Latimer sent word to the Council that he would proceed no further unless he might speak with them. Tunstall and another went to him, but he would be satisfied only with the attention of all. Being re-admitted, he told them that they were using him more extremely than the Turk would use him : that he had been ligfht and incautious to swear to answer questions which he had not considered ; that it was sore to answer to another man's fault : and that he doubted whether it was the King's pleasure to have him thus called and examined : and he desired to see the King himself. He said that he had been deceived that way once before, when he left his bishopric, having been falsely told by Crumwel that it was the King's pleasure that he should resign it. And he added that this was all procured against him by the malice of some, and particularly of the Bishop of Winchester. The Bishop, he said, had once had words with him in the presence of the King : and had written to Crumwel to protest against his famous sermon before Convocation (preached in 1536). He enlarged himself greatly on those old griefs, which he represented in a tragical manner. Gardiner, who was present, gave him a full answer. " You do me much wrong," said he ; " you have no cause to be offended with me. Though I am not content with your doctrine when it is not of the sort that appertaineth, yet for your person, 1 have loved,
394 ^^^^ Heretics. — Fourth [ch. xn.
favoured, and done much for you." The Council rebuked the examinate for his unseemly language and insinuations : and finally persuaded him to answer the interrogatories. But he performed this in such sort that they declared themselves " as wise as they were before," save that they found that " he was as Crome had been." In the afternoon Heath, the Bishop of Worcester, and the rest of the doctors, were set " to talk friendly with him, to fish out the bottom of his stomach, that the King might see further into him " when he arrived. But nothing more is known of the matter so far as it concerned Latimer.*
The other persons who were questioned about Crome at the same time were Huick, a physician; the Vicar of St. Bride's; "the Scottish Friar"; and Lascelles, a gentleman. As for the first, he troubled the Council with " long writings and small matters," and " trusted them so well," they ironically remarked, that he desired his writings to be brought to the King, not by them, but by two or three gentlemen of the Privy Chamber. His cruelty to his wife, whom he had thrust out of doors for no cause, struck them how- ever more forcibly than his exercitations, theological or other. He had the assurance to say that it was an excellent monarch who had advised him to put her away "without calling her before justice or common officer, or hearing of her by any indifferent person."
* Fox says that Latimer, after being examined on Crome's case, " at length was cast into the Tower, where he continually remained prisoner till the time that blessed King Edward entered his crown." This asser- tion seems to be utterly without foundation. Latimer was not imprisoned at this time, but, as Heylin says, "betook himself to the retiredness of a private life, but welcome at all times to Archbishop Cranmer. " Fox's story, which is repeated by Latimer's modern editors, seems founded on some doubtful words of Augustine Bernher, the editor of his Lincolnshire Sermons. Park. Soc. Edition, pp. 319, 320.
1546.] Persecution nndey the Six Articles. 395
The Vicar of St. Bride's they reported to be less bold than the rest ; and as for the Scottish friar, who was probably Alexander Seton, they found him " more meet for Dunbar than for London." He had neither wit nor learning, but framed his sayings after his audience, and would say anything, so that he might escape.
These somewhat humorous proceedings began to take a tragical cast when the business reached Las- celles. This gentleman was one of Crumwel's friends, and a man of o-reater resolution than the rest of the advisers of the inconstant Crome. When he was put under examination by the Council, he refused to answer to any matter of Scripture, unless he had the King's express commandment and protection ; adding that "it was neither wisdom nor equity that he should kill himself." This the ecclesiastical Council remarked was requiring to be pardoned before the King knew that he could be pardoned, or whether his answers should bring to light things that might be pardoned or not. As nothing could be made of him, he was com- mitted to prison, where he wrote an explicit denial of the Corporal Presence in the Sacrament. He thus brought himself under the Six Articles : the fourth persecution under which now broke out : and he was one of a company of martyrs who suffered in Smith- field in the summer of this year. His fellow-sufferers were Nicholas Belenian, or Otterden, a Shropshire priest ; John Adams, a tailor ; and the celebrated Anne Askew. Little is known of any of them but the last.
Anne Askew, as she is generally called, was married to a gentleman of Lincolnshire of the name of Kyme, who is said to have turned her out of his house be- cause of her heresies. She is said to have been well descended and highly educated. She was well known
396 Fourth Pevseciition under [ch. xn.
in Lincoln, where on one occasion she stayed nine days, haunting the Minster and reading the Bible there, in the hope of an argument with some of the priests. They, as she boasted, came about her by two and two, by five or six, minding to have spoken with her, but ever slinking away without a word. She came up to London in the beginning of the year 1546 : and im- mediately fell under suspicion of heresy. She was apprehended by the London authorities : and has left copious narratives of her various examinations, con- taining her definitions of the faith, her arguments and opinions. First she was examined at Sadlers' Hall, before the Quest, by one Christopher Dare. Then she was examined before the Lord Mayor, the Bishop's Chancellor, and the rest of the commission that sat in the Guildhall. She victoriously confuted every ad- versary, quoting many texts. She was sent to the Counter for eleven days : and it may give us a notion of the prisons of the Tudors that she was maintained there by the devotion of her maid, who went out and " made moan to the 'prentises," and so got money to relieve her. While she was there, the Bishop of London sent a priest to give her good counsel, " which," said she, " he did not." Among other things he asked her if she would be shriven. She answered that if Doctor Crome, or one of two others whom she named, might be sent to her, she would be content. " I," said the priest, "or any other that shall be sent, shall be as honest as they." She answered in the words of Solomon, " By communing with the wise I may learn wisdom, but by talking to a fool I shall take scalth." The fool departed. She was then brought before the Bishop of London in the company of some of her relations and other friends. Bonner did his best to bring her off safe, offering her
1546.] the Six Articles : Anne Askew. ^fTl
every kind of loophole. He wrote in his register an orthodox confession of faith, and he brought it to her to sign. She told him that she believed as much of it as the Holy Scriptures agreed unto : and bade him add that. He told her sharply that she should not teach him what he should write : and went into the great chamber, where he read what he had written to the assembled com- pany. All agreed that she had favour shown to her and ought to sign. She took the pen and wrote : " I, Anne Askew, do believe all manner of things contained in the faith of the Catholic Church." Bonner lost his temper at this, and flung into his chamber in a rage : nevertheless he was persuaded to return and grant the troublesome lady to be bailed. In a few days she was set at liberty.*
But though she had escaped the bloody fangs of Bonner not without ease, Anne Askew was soon in trouble again : and this time she was brought before the Privy Council at Greenwich. It was the old ques- tion of the Sacrament. In reply to the Lord Chan- cellor she said that her opinion was that she received in the elements the fruits of the most glorious Passion of Christ. The Bishop of Winchester desired her to make a direct answer : and she said that she could not sinor the Lord's sonof in a strangfe land. He told her that she spoke in parables : and she answered that so it was the better for him, for that he would not accept the plain truth. He called her a parrot ; and she said that she was ready to suffer rebuke gladly. Five
* Fox. Bale's Examinations of Anne Askew. Comp. Wriothesley (155), who says that she was examined at Guildhall, 18 June, with one Robert Lakins, a serving-man, and Joan Sawtry, of London ; but no witnesses appeared against them, save Lakins's fellow-servant against him. They were then tried by jury and acquitted, and discharged on paying their fees. This seems to agree with what Fox says. But how does it agree with the Act about the twelve witnesses ? Many particulars of Askew's career are given in Nichol's Narratives, and Strype, i. 598.
398 Fourth Persecution under [ch. xn.
hours she was before them : Lord Lisle, Lord Parr, Lord Essex, successively encountered her with their best theology, but, as she proudly related, " they were not unanswered for all that." The next day they had her up again, and their lordships again spent their wits on her to no purpose. The Bishop of Winchester offered to speak with her familiarly ; and she told him that so to Christ did Judas. He offered to speak with her alone, but she refused. He warned her that she would be burned : her answer was, that neither Christ nor His Apostles put any creature to death, and that God would laugh his threatening to scorn. They drew up an orthodox confession for her to sign. She would not put her name to it, and was sent to Newgate, though she was in great sickness.
In Newo^ate she wrote her " Confession concernino- her belief"; very full of texts of Scripture, and sub- scribed, " Written by me, Anne Askew, that neither wisheth death nor feareth his might, and as merry as one that is bound towards Heaven. " She wrote also a letter to the Lord Chancellor, and another to the King, the latter containing another confession of faith. She was then taken before Bonner and Sir Richard Rich, "at the sign of the Crown," and they urged her with all their power to make herself conformable. But, as she said, she esteemed not their glozing pretences. The unfortunate Shaxton was then sent to her.
Shaxton, since he had been deprived of the bishopric of Salisbury, seemed to have cast his lot unreservedly among the heretics. After his long imprisonment in the Counter in Bread Street, he appears to have become the minister of Hadley, where he took some occasion to deny the Corporal Pre- sence in the Sacrament. On this he was summoned to London, and departed telling his people of his
1546.] the Six Articles : Aniie Asketo. 399
resolution to persist in the truth, whatever became of him. He was indicted, and condemned to be burned.* The King however, fearing that the fire was getting too high, when it threatened one who had held a see, sent Bonner and Heath to him: under whose ex- hortations Shaxton recanted precipitately, lamented that he was fallen in his old a^e into the error of the Sacramentarians, thanked the King for his goodness, and subscribed a paper of thirteen most explicit articles in condemnation of his former opinions. f The incon- stant champion was now required to give proof of the sincerity of his repentance by essaying to convert Anne Askew. She received him with scorn. " I said to him that it had been good for him never to have been born, with many other like words." He departed without glory from the determined woman ; whom Rich now sent to the Tower.
She had not been there many hours before the Lord Chancellor, Wriothesley, and Sir Richard Rich came to examine her again. They questioned her of the maintenance and support which it was suspected that she received from some of the ladies of the Court. Lady Suffolk, Lady Sussex, Lady Hertford, Lady Denny, Lady Fitzvvilliam, most of them the wives of great new monastics, were suspected : and the inquis- itors endeavoured to discover the rest of her sect.
And now came one of the most shameful passages in English history : Anne Askew continued obstinate : and nothing could be made of her. Crumwel's rack was conveniently at hand, and they ordered her to be laid upon it. As the Lieutenant of the Tower
* Besides Crome, Latimer, and Shaxton, there was another eminent clergyman in trouble at this time for heresy, Doctor Taylor, afterwards Bishop of Lincoln. But he acknowledged his error so candidly that nothing was done against him. State Pap. i. 878.
t Burnet, Coll. iii. 29.
400 Fourth Persecution under [ch. xn.
appeared not to execute his office with great severity, Wriothesley and Rich are said to have thrown off their gowns, and exerted their strength at the pulleys. " Then did they put me on the rack, because I con- fessed no ladies nor gentlewomen to be of my opinion : and thereon they kept me a long time : and because I lay still and did not cry, my Lord Chancellor and Master Rich took pains to rack me in their own hands till I w^as nigh dead." When she was removed, she swooned ; and on her recovering she " had two long hours reasoning with the Lord Chancellor upon the bare floor." She was then put to bed, " with as aching and sore bones as ever had patient Job," thanking God therefor. The day after this illegal villainy, they got her out of the Tower, and sent her by water to Blackfriars. Thence they carried her in a chair back to Newgate to await the fire.*
When the day of execution came, Anne Askew was brought to Smithfield in a chair, being unable to walk because of the torture. She and the three other martyrs were bound to their stakes, in the presence of a vast concourse of spectators. Wriothesley, Norfolk, Russell, the Lord Mayor, and other officials took their places on a bench under St. Bartholomew's Church : and the pulpit was ascended by the miserable Shaxton. He had been selected to preach the sermon over those
* Wriothesley's Chron. 169. Burnet allows that Anne Askew was racked, but cannot think that Wriothesley and Rich helped in it. This, he says, rests on Fox, and "Fox gives no warrant for it." Burnet evidently only read Fox's own narrative (which contains one or two revolting circumstances that I have omitted) : he did not read Anne Askew's own narrative, which Fox gives in addition, and which Bale had previously published. Cf. Nichol's Narrat. 305. As an instance of the modern fixed idea that all persecutors were ecclesiastics, it may be worth adding that Dickens, in his popular ChihV s History of Ettgland, says that she was racked by priests. " Two priests who were present actually pulled off their robes and turned the wheels of the rack with their own hands," &c.
1546.] Six Articles : Anne Askew. . 401
whose fate he had not dared to share, and to invite them to the safety which he alone had deigned to win. Anne Askew heard him attentively, and made running com- ments on his discourse, sometimes confirming what he said, sometimes remarking, " There he misseth, and speaketh without the book." This strange and resolute woman was evidently more absorbed by the sermon than by the prospect of her own sufferings. When the fire was about to be applied, a sudden alarm sprang up among the great men on the bench lest the powder, which they thought to be placed by error under the faggots, should blow them about their ears. Lord Russell calmed his colleagues. The powder, he assured them, was fastened to the bodies of the heretics, not under the faggots : it might indeed blow the heretics out of their pain, but those consequences which sometimes followed the ignition of powder in contact with matter capable of propulsion, needed not to be apprehended even by those of the spectators whose office gave them, it might be, the warmer station and the nearer view. Then, with a loud ex- clamation from the Lord Mayor of " Fiat justitia," the torch was applied with the confidence of safety ; and all was soon over. Anne Askew's opinions seem not to have been very original. She was in some sort a follower of Frith. In one of her confessions of faith she denies that the doctrine of the Corporal Presence ought to be taught as necessary to salvation.*
That no drop of degradation might be wanting in the cup of Shaxton, he was appointed to preach at Paul's Cross a fortnight after : and to give there a solemn rehearsal or exposition of the whole matter. The election of sheriffs, which was to have been held
* Stow and Wriothesley say that Anne Askew was burned July i6. Some others say June.
VOL. II. D d
402 Miserable Fall of Shaxton. [ch. xii.
in the morning of the day fixed, was put off to the afternoon, that all might be there to hear him : and a vast crowd assembled, when with weeping eyes the unhappy penitent (how changed from him who once held proud debate with the Vicegerent of the Supreme Head!) told the sad story of his fall and reconciliation. He related how he had been led into the heretical opinion of the Sacrament of the Altar through erroneous books. He bade the people take warning by him ; to avoid and abolish the heretical books by which he had made so deep a lapse.* If this unfortunate man had been endowed with the constancy of martyrdom, he might have been the first English bishop who was burned for heresy. As It was, he was the first English bishop that ever made so pitiable a public figure. He certainly seems, for some unknown cause, to have been treated with peculiar malignity In his hour of humiliation. t
* Wriothesley, 170.
+ Shaxton seems to have been reduced to poverty at this time ; he probably lost all after this final degradation. A few months after he is found begging for one of the free chapels that were being dissolved under the new Act. State Pap. i. 875, 878. He became master or warden of the Hospital of St. Egidius in Norwich, which was surrendered in 1547. Rym. XV. 168. His shame was not allowed to sleep in the following reign. In 1548, one Crowley published a book confuting his recantation, and giving a severe letter which was written to him by his late, his disappointed, parishioners of Hadley, after his disgrace. They were annoyed that he had not finished his course gloriously. [Strype, iii. 228.) To complete the story of Shaxton's fall, I may add that, as soon as his see of SaHsbury was known to be vacant, the Pope, who kept on boldly appointing by the old process of provision for every vacant bishopric in Henry's dominion of Ireland, thought that he might try the effect of providing for a vacancy in England also, if peradventure he could find any man willing to risk, or rather forfeit, his life by proceeding into the rebel kingdom in the character of the Pope's provided. He offered the elevation to Pole, who was perhaps poorer than he should have been, and apt to remind the papal treasury a little often of his necessities. " Never," answered Pole with energy and eloquence. " Never ! Shall I, who have refused the flesh of the English Egypt, be seen to fly now upon the bones ? I might as well be made bishop of Antioch or
1546.] Proclamation about Religion. 403
Another martyr, named Rogers, who suffered in Norfolk under the old Duke, at the instigation, it is alleged, of Rugg, Bishop of Norwich, completed the list of those who were put to death through the Six Articles;* and at the same time a new Proclamation ended the long roll of Henry's edicts concerning religion. By this final effort to secure uniformity the King commanded Tyndale's New Testament, Cover- dale's New Testament, the works of Tyndale and of Coverdale, the works of Frith, Wickliffe, Joye, Roy, Basil, Bale, Barnes, Turner, and Tracy, to be sur- rendered by all who had them, and delivered to the sheriff, bishop, or other officer, by the last day of August. To encourasfe those who had such books to come forward with them, the sheriffs and other officers were commanded not to be curious to note their persons, but only to burn the books openly. The usual un- specified penalties — his Majesty's extreme displeasure, imprisonment and fine at the pleasure of his Majesty, —were attached to this manifest ; but two additional provisions, which marked the full growth of tyranny and the just contempt of the tyrant for Parliament and Parliamentary law, distinguished the last of Henry's Proclamations. The offender might expect not only
Alexandria as have this promotion, from which no fruits can come to me. Bad men would laugh, and good men would say that such was the fate of all who trusted the Court of Rome. My old friend Tunstall, the most learned of my countrymen, warned me well, when he found me taking the part of Rome. He said that I was leaving a certainty for the greatest uncertainty, and that my simplicity would be deceived. ' Believe me,' said he, ' for I have tried them.' I answered that, if I walked in simplicity, I could not be deceived ; but now I both walk in simplicity and am deceived. Something should be done for me, for I am one who has been in the thick of the battle, and am returned wounded from the strife ; something should be done that I may have time to nurse and heal my wounds." To Contarini, Aug. 16, 1539. £J2^. ii. p. i86. Shaxton's successor was Salcot, alias Capon, of Bangor, a man who made the bones barer. * Fox.
D d 2
404 True Nature of these Persecutions, [ch. xh.
" the imprisonment " but also " the punishment of his body at his Majesty's will and pleasure." The latest of those Acts by which Parliament had so willingly facilitated the operations of the Privy Council had assigned nine members of that body as the smallest number that might punish the subject. Henry lessened the number to four.*
I have now divided by their years, and traced to their various instruments or authors, the mass of exe- cutions for religion which disgraced the last years of Henry the Eighth : and which have sometimes been described as if they had occurred without interruption in one vast outbreak of reactionary bigotry under the Six Articles. The burden of these crimes is laid as a matter of course, by one writer after another, upon the clergy, and especially upon the bishops ; but the reader will by this time have perceived that the clergy had wonderfully little to do with them ; that they broke out whenever the Kine desired it, and ceased at his command ; and, above all, that the King con- trolled or checked them whenever their flames seemed likely to reach persons of consideration. f Of this last
* This Proclamation is given by Fox and Wilkins, iv. i. 8 July, 1546.
t Fox, as always, lays the blame of these persecutions on the bishops. Mr. Froude, in his narrative, talks of the prey slipping from the grasp of Winchester ; and imputes the executions to" the Anglo-Catholic party." Burnet says, more truly, " one of the King's angry fits took him at the reformers, so that there was a new persecution of them." When it con- cerned heresy, especially heresy against the royal orthodoxy, the " Anglo- Catholic party " consisted of the King, the Council, the clergy, the two houses of Parliament, the corporations of all towns, all other officials, and all the rest of the nation beside the heretics. One of Mr. Froude's notes on these afYairs is as follows : " The body of the Council certainly were acting with Gardiner. Latimer's examiners were Wriothesley, Nor- folk, Essex, Sir John Gage, Sir Anthony Browne, Sir Anthony Wingfield, the Bishops of Durham and Winchester, and, strange to say, Lord Russell. On the other side were only the small but powerful minority composed of Cranmer, Lord Parr, Lord Hertford, and Lord Lisle." I can find little trace of these fixed parties, least of all in processes about
1546.] Case of Sir George Blage. 405
unnoted but important characteristic, one more proof shall be given from the records of the long and trouble- some processes that rose out of Doctor Crome ; and with this I will conclude the whole business. About the time when Askew and her companions suffered, the indiscreet zeal of officials rose to assail with the horrid dangers of heretical pravity a person of superior rank, a member of the Privy Chamber, an intimate of the King himself : yea, one to whom the King was wont to extend the familiarity of the appellation of pig. Sir George Blage was in the congregation that heard Crome's sermon at Paul's Cross. Walkinof about in the church after it, he met Sir Hugh Caverley and a gentleman named Littleton, who told him that they understood Crome to have said that the Mass profited neither for the quick nor the dead. Blage answered that belike the Mass might profit a gentleman when he rode on hunting, to keep his horse from stumbling. His orthodox or treacherous companions related this stupid retort to the authorities. Blage went the round of the Council, of the Guildhall, and of New- gate : and was condemned to the fire. The tragical prospect aroused the just anxiety of the royal court. The King perceived the whispering in his chamber, a thing which he could never endure : he demanded the cause; and the agitated old Lord Russell advanced, and
heretics. Whatever men thought, all acted alike against the heretics whenever the King sounded the note. There was nothing strange in Russell acting in any way whatever against them. Lisle and Parr, men of the New Learning, we have seen examining Anne Askew along with Essex, but there is no particular significance in the conjunction. They rather favoured her, and she told them that " it was a great shame for them to counsel her against their knowledge." They were not acting with Gardiner in any particular way, nor was Gardiner taking any particular lead. Cranmer's name is not mentioned in these affairs, but he would have done like the rest if it had come in his way. Perhaps he was not in that part of the Council at the time.
4o6 £xecutio7i of Surrey. [ch. xh.
in the name of all explained how serious the matter was. A man of coat and figure, a denizen of that court, was actually condemned to shine among the rascal torches of Smithfield. A royal pardon, the usual expedient, instantly quashed the proceedings, and rescued the endang-ered favourite,*
The attainder of the survivins^ Duke of England, Norfolk, and of his son the brilliant Earl of Surrey, the last acts of this reign of blood, bore perhaps rather a personal or factious than a political significance. But they depressed the Old Learning at the last moment : they left the field open for the ravages of the Seymours : and in the expectations of the hour it was believed that Winchester would follow Norfolk and Surrey to the Tower.f Ambition, if not treason, may perhaps be traced in the conduct both of the father and of the son : in the son rashness, and perhaps folly and profligacy. For these crimes the head of the first poet of the age rolled upon the block : and an humble
* Fox. Wriothesley, 169. "Ah, my pig," was the exclamation of an indulgent monarch when the danger was over. " Your pig would be roasted if you were not better to him than the bishops," is the recorded reply. But perhaps, as the bishops are not mentioned throughout the case, this may be one of Fox's turns.
t Hiles, the voluminous heretic letter writer, wrote, January 26, that he had heard that " that spirit of godliness, or rather of popery, the Bishop of Winchester," had succeeded Norfolk and Surrey in the Tower. Orig. Lett. p. 256. His friend Burcher wrote, December 31, that it was for a secret attempt to restore the dominion of the pope and of the monks that Norfolk, "a most bitter enemy to the word of God," had been arrested with his son. Unless Winchester were also caught, he added, the evangelical truth could not be restored. " Let us then pray the Lord that He may defend His Church, which is oppressed on every side." lb. p. 639. Winchester was indeed in some disgrace at this time, but it seems to have been for resisting an exchange of lands with the King. State Pap. i. 883, 884. He himself declared long afterwards that he was actually employed by the King to a fortnight before his death. At his trial in the next reign, he produced a letter of the king's, reproaching him about this exchange of lands. See his " Matter Justificatory " in Fox's first edition, p. 785.
T547-] Death of the King. 407
confession, which might recall the despairing admis- sions of the brave Lord Leonard Grey, would not have sufficed to save the life of the queller of the Pilgrimage of Grace, but that death anticipated his ruthless master. Surrey was tried on the 13th of January at the Guildhall, where the splendid eloquence which he exerted in his own defence availed him nothing. The faithful Parliament met on the day following for the business of the King's pleasure. Four days after- wards the attainder of Norfolk was brought in. On the next day the attainders of Norfolk and of Surrey were read twice. They were concluded and com- mitted on the day following. On the day after that, January 21, Surrey was executed. On the 24th of January the attainder of Surrey's father was returned from the Commons and expedited. On the 27th a message came from the King to expedite the already expedited bill. At midnight the King died. When the Parliament met in the morning, the Lord Chan- cellor, almost weeping, announced the news to an assembly which could scarce refrain from tears. But they revived their spirits by the recollection of the rising virtues of Prince Edward, and by the reading of part, " a good large part," of the will of their dead master : which was communicated aloud by Sir William Paget, concerning the succession and the government of the country during the minority, concerning the payment of the King's debts, and the performance of his promises. Then the Chancellor declared the Parliament to be dissolved : and ordered all the peers to wait in town for the coronation. ''^
* Lords' Journals. The entry about the King's death is, " Obiit die Veneris, primo mane, cujus animge propitietur Deus : quae res dici non potest quam erat luctuosa omnibus, et tristis auditu. Cancellarius vero ipse vix potuit prae lacrimis effari. Tandem vero sedato fletu et refectis
4o8 Character of Henry tJie Eighth, [ch.xii.
Henry had long been in a declining state of health, suffering severe pain and uneasiness from his corpulence and the diseases of his constitution. He seems, however, to have been able to exert his will to the last, and never to have fallen so low as to be entirely at the mercy of the men around him. It was to the advantage of the courtiers, so long as he lived, implicitly to obey him. They bore with his irasci- bility, and followed him without murmuring even when he desired the destruction of many among them. Particular ambition might have been dangerous to the loyal society of which he was the head, and the extinction of one or two was always better than the peril of all. Henry was indeed the man who was fittest to direct the revolution of the rich against the poor. His stupendous will was guided 'by certain primary and unfailing instincts : his fierce temper would brook the domination of no human being. The subtlest flattery failed to insinuate itself into him, the haughtiest spirits got no hold upon him ; arduous or splendid services awoke in him no sentiment of royal confidence. The proud Wolsey, the astute Crumwel, to whom in succession he seemed to have abdicated his kingship, found that they had no more power over him than the last dicer whom he had enriched. When he met with a conscience that resisted his enormities, his resentment was implacable. These qualities, how- ever, were less apparent in his dealings with his brethren of the throne and sceptre than in his treat- ment of his own subjects. In more than one contest
animis, videlicet recordatione Principis Edwardi divina indole imbuti, turn etiam lectione bonae magnasque partis Testamenti dicti Domini nostri Regis defuncti, id quod factum est publice per Guil. Paget, scilicet de successione in Regno, de gubernanda Republica durante minore aetata jam dicti Principis Edwardi, de solvendis debitis, ac prasstandis promissis."
1547-] Charactev of Henry the Eighth. 409
of obstinacy with the Emperor he came off baffled : and he found his match in Francis. In truth there was something unintelligent in the incapacity of attach- ment, the inaccessibility to kindly feeling, which was Henry's strength. The savage creatures would bite every hand ; the services and kindness of the keeper exempt him not from the precautions which must be taken by the stranger who approaches them. The well known lineaments of this monarch expressed his character. That large and swelling brow, on which the clouds of wrath and the lines of hardness might come forth at any moment ; those steep and ferocious eyes ; that small, full mouth, close buttoned, as if to prevent the explosion of a perpetual choler ; these give the physiognomy of a remarkable man, but not of a great man. There is no noble history written in them : and though well formed, they lack the clearness of line which has often traced in a homelier visage the resi- dence of a lofty intellect. A great tyrant tries the nature of men : nor have we the right, if we witness, to exult over the spectacle of the humiliations, the frailties, or the crimes of those whose fears, whose cupidity, whose arrogance were excited by such a sovereign as Henry. Under him all were distorted, all were made worse than they would have been. It is the last baseness of tyranny not to perceive genius. Of Seneca and of Lucan the slaughterer was Nero. Henry the Eighth laid the foundations of his revo- lution in the English Erasmus, and set up the gates thereof in the English Petrarch.
CHAPTER XIII. A.D. 1547. Edward VI.
The obsequies of the late monarch were performed with a solemnity which increased from the hour of his death to his deposition in the tomb. He lay twelve days in state, at first in the chamber of death, then in the chapel of his palace, encircled day and night by thirty watchers, with continual divine service, masses, requiems, and prayers. Lights innumerable burned before him, and the splendid hearse on which he reposed was surrounded and canopied by escutcheons, streamers, and devices of black and cloth of gold. Meanwhile his gift to London of the hospital of St. Bartholomew, and the church of the late Grey Friars, the scanty relics, it must be confessed, of a larger prey, was publicly declared. The Bishop of Rochester, ascending the pulpit of Paul's Cross, January 30, proclaimed that the royal donor, by letters patent, had bequeathed the one for the recovery of the poor, the other to be refounded in his behalf, augmented by some other endowments, and known thenceforth by the name of the parish of Christchurch. At the same moment when this was announced, the newly founded edifice, which had echoed so often the worship of a religious order that Henry in his life had pursued with peculiar severity, was opened by the celebration of a Mass.
I547-] Funeral of Henry the Eighth. 411
Eight days afterwards the King's alms to the poor was distributed : when twenty-one thousand men, women, and children, appearing at the Leaden Hall and at the Church of St. Michael in Cornhill, received the grati- fication of a groat apiece. On the next day a solemn dirge was sung in every church in London : in every church a hearse was placed with two tapers burning before it : and a knell was rung with all the bells. A mass of requiem followed on the morrow ; and this solemnity was observed, not only in London, but throughout England. Five days afterwards, February 14, the body of the deceased sovereign was placed on a sumptuous chariot, and borne with solemn pomp towards the final resting-place. The " image of repre- sentation," his waxen image, moulded from his person and dressed in his clothes, according: to a custom which lasted to the beginning of the present century, was set upon the coffin ; and presented to the people for the last time the aspect which they loved or feared. A vast procession of official mourners, draped in the richest habits, their horses trapped to the ground, pre- ceded and follov/ed : the roads were widened, the over- hanging branches of the trees were lopped that the order might in no point be broken : an enormous concourse of people thronged everywhere around to gaze : and in every parish along the way the royal almoner dis- pensed money for the poor from two escutcheoned carts which came behind.* The funeral halted for the night at Sion, where a second hearse, made of wax, emblazoned, lighted with tapers, hung with hatchments and devices, and towering to the height of nine stories, received and lodged the royal burden : which the next morning was conveyed to Windsor. There it was met at the town's end by the college in surplices, by
* He left a thousand marks for the purpose. See his will.
412 Funeral of Henry tJie Eighth, [ch. xm.
the dean and choir in rich copes, by six bishops in their mitres ; and carried to St. George's Chapel. Another waxen hearse, of richer decoration, and rising to the prodigious altitude of thirteen stories, was erected there, and in it the King reposed until the morrow. Then, on the day of interment, the company re- turned in state from the castle to the church : the special mourners, who had hitherto worn their hoods upon their shoulders, entered two and two, with their hoods drawn over their heads ; the Mass was sung, the last rites were performed ; and the body of Henry the Eighth descended solemnly to his final resting-place, the grave of his third wife, Jane Seymour.* The mourn- ing of England was echoed by France : and Francis, the late antagonist of Henry, forgot old griefs to testify by decent ceremonies that he had lost a former intimate and ally, whom he was soon to follow to the grave.f
In the funeral of the dead monarch the leading part was taken by Gardiner. He headed the bishops and priests who prayed and chanted round the royal hearse in the chapel of the palace. At Windsor he, as pre- late of the Garter, received the car-borne corpse. On the day of the interment he stood at the high altar, and was the chief celebrant of the Mass, while Cran- mer sat with the rest of the bishops on a bench. By him the sermon was preached : the body was committed to the grave by him. But when it came to dealing with the living prince, the parts of the great rivals were exchanged : and while Gardiner was rejected from the counsels of the ruling faction, his character not less than his position drew them to the Primate. When the young prince was brought up to the Tower
* Strype (iv. 290), Repository A ; Wriothesley, 178, 181 ; Fuller, t Francis, who died in a month or two, received in return the compliment of a mass in St. Paul's, which was sung by Cranmer.
I547-] Coronation of Edward tJie Sixth. 413
by his uncle, Cranmer received him on the bridge, and with the rest of the Council took the oath of allegiance in the chamber of presence. Even before the prince was crowned, it came into the mind of Cranmer, so great was his loyalty, that it would be desirable for himself and the other bishops to renew their com- missions as functionaries of the new King. He therefore issued, or caused to be issued again, with- out delay, those curious instruments in which, in the late reign, the bishops had acknowledged themselves the commissaries of the Supreme Head.* When the coronation was made, Cranmer took the occasion of marking his opinions by the manner in which he arranged and performed the ceremonies. He pre- sented the new King to the people as their lawful and undoubted sovereign, before he administered to him the oath to preserve the laws and liberties of the realm. Hitherto the oath had been exacted before the consent of the people was demanded, to keep it in memory that the English monarchy was elective. t Instead of a sermon he addressed the new Kingr in a speech or oration, in which he hailed him as God's Vicegerent and Christ's Vicar, as a new Josiah who was to reform the worship of God, destroy idolatry, banish
* Acts of Council, Feb. 6, p. 13, Dasent. Cranmer's commission, of Feb. 7, is given by Burnet. Coll. No. 2 : cf. Strypes Cranmer, Bk. ii. ch. i. : the coronation was on Feb. 20. We have already seen enough of these commissions, p. 167 of this volume. Gardiner made some protesta- tion about the matter, and was severely rebuked by Paget. Tytler, i. 24. (See also p. 551).
t The alterations were made by an order of the Council, who " upon mature and deep deliberation " resolved that " divers of the old observ- ances and ceremonies afore-time used at the coronations of the Kings of this realm were thought meet to be corrected " ; and also " that many points of the same were such as by the Laws of the Realm at the present were not allowable." They alleged the tender youth of the King, and the necessity of shortening the ceremonies. — Order for the Coronatio7t, Burnet, Coll. No. iv.
414 The Will of Henry I lie Eighth, [en. y.in.
the Bishop of Rome, and remove images : in which he told him that the various ceremonies which had been used in crownine him were of no direct force or necessity, that they added nothing to his dignity, and that he would have been a perfect monarch without them : in which he declared before the living God and the nobles of the land that he had no commission to denounce his Majesty as deprived, even if he missed in all the performances to which he had sworn.* Cran- mer was moving hand in hand with the men who, as they had already overset the will of the late King, were prepared to disturb the settlement of religion which he had left, by further innovation. Gardiner had gone as far as he would go ; he had complied with everything hitherto, but he was determined now to stand upon the existing settlement, and to resist the further alteration which he foresaw. He was about to enter on the most memorable and the most honourable part of his career.
The will of Henry the Eighth, a voluminous docu- ment, was left in the keeping of Sir William Paget, a very unscrupulous person. The whole of the trickery that went on about it, both before the breath was out of Henry's body and before his body was under the ground, will never be known ; but it is sufficient to observe that in the most important particular — the government of the country during the nonage of Edward — the will was in itself impracticable. A body of executors of equal powers, bound to certain ex- plicit conditions, and guided by an assistant body of councillors ; such a scheme could hardly have subsisted a year among the noblest patriots, among men devoid of emulation and cupidity, who sought always to adorn authority by virtue, and to submit private ambition to
* Strype's Cranmer, bk. ii. ch. i.
I547-] ^ Protectorate erected. 415
the welfare of the State. How was it to subsist for ten years with the outriders of a revokition, whose only bond of union was the necessity of maintaining them- selves and holding down the country by their united strength ? Such men could not be equals, because that each would feel in himself the right to push his own advantage as far as any other, even at the risk of the safety of all. They required a leader who might control them all, and yet be of the like spirit with them ; who should go in and out before them, even as the late king had done. And from their midst it was necessary for them to extrude the useless or the wavering. The position of the Earl of Hertford, the uncle of the young king, commended him for the superiority ; the original scheme of the will was forth- with changed into a Protectorate under his name, and the two boards of executors and councillors, which the will had created, were thrown into one Privy Council. The list of executors, when Paget exhibited it, was observed not to include the name of Gardiner. A pretext was soon found for excluding and disgracing the Lord Chancellor, Wriothesley, who was one of the original executors, because he spoke against the alteration of the Will and the elevation of Hertford. The Great Seal was taken from him, and bestowed in due time on the more congenial Rich. Thus the ruling faction rid themselves of the only ecclesiastic and of the only layman who might have opposed the further advance of the revolution. The crown debts ought to have been paid first of all, according to one schedule of the will : for Henry was willing to have his debts paid after he was dead. But the faction were more desirous to enrich and ennoble themselves. The crown debts remained unpaid, and Paget pro- duced another, a separate, a suspicious schedule.
4i6 The Ruling Faction. [ch. xm.
accordino- to which the late king- had designed to make a creation of nobiHty with proportionate estates, some of which were taken from the Church.* Even before they crowned the new King the faction in the Tower proceeded to make the creation. The new Lord Protector was made Duke of Somerset ; his brother, Sir Thomas Seymour, was made Lord Seymour of Sudeley ; Parr, Earl of Essex, Marquis of Northamp- ton ; Dudley, Viscount Lisle, Earl of Warwick ; Wriothesley, Earl of Southampton ; Sir Richard Rich, Lord Rich ; Sir William Willoughby, Lord Wil- loughby ; Sir Edmund Sheffield, Lord Sheffield.! Some of them helped themselves liberally to the monasteries and monastic sites, of which a orreat number still remained with the Crown, after all the prodigality of Henry. | The usurpation of Somerset, and one of the most disastrous periods of English history, was now begun. The calling of Parliament was delayed to the end of the year, though that indeed would have oriven no check to the designs which were meditated ; and in the interval a series of violent measures was effected by which England was shaken to the centre. New books, new doctrines
* Hertford was to have six of the best pi-ebends, two of which, at his request, were changed for a deanery or a treasurership in one of the cathedrals. His son was to have three hundred pounds a year out of the next vacant bishopric. — Collier and Lingard.
t Henry's will may be seen in Fuller, Heylin, or Rymer. The schedule about creating nobility is not in it.
X Somerset took the site of Glastonbury ; the site of Sion, where he made his abode ; Sion Hospital ; the little houses of Holme and Win- burn in Dorset ; and the little house of Tame, which had just been granted to the new see of Oxford ; — six places in all. Lord Seymour took Abingdon, Hayles, Winchelcombe, and Bardsey; Warwick took the six little houses of Calke, Hirst, Kilburn, Ludlow, Penkridge, and Coombe, and the whole of the great abbey of Colchester, worth about /500 a year. Southampton took the site of Shaftesbury ; Northampton that of Pipewell. — Tanner sub locis.
I547-] Violent Measures : Attack on Images. 417
were forced upon the realm : in a new war with Scotland the armed force was paraded on which the usurper and his partisans relied in the last resort : a new Visitation, ordered in the name of royalty, pene- trated or threatened every corporate body in the kingdom ; and church robbery went on unchecked. The doings of unbridled fanatics and unscrupulous self-seekers made the late tyranny seem in comparison a time of law and order : and men who crroaned beneath the Seymours and the Dudleys were presently crying out for the Church and the laws of Henry the Eighth. Even so, in times of bad government, had men clam- oured for the laws of Edward the Confessor, or the Charter of John : though Edward the Confessor and John were two as weak and incompetent kings as ever swayed the English sceptre.
Of the change of the times the first indication was given by an attack on the images yet remaining in the churches. Even before the signal had been given by Cranmer in his coronation speech, the curates and wardens of St. Martin's in Ironmong-er Lane in Lon- don, pulled down the images in the church, white- washed the frescoes, and in the rood-loft set up the royal arms instead of the crucifix. Their zeal was premature : the Lord Mayor, the Bishop, and general indignation investigated and denounced their conduct ; but the humble submission which they made appears to have saved them from punishment* In the Lent, however, which immediately followed, Bishop Barlow of St. David's, and Doctor Ridley, who was now one of Cranmer's chaplains, preached at Paul's Cross against images and some of the other ceremonies ; while Cranmer's Commissary, Glazier, inveighed before the royal court against the observance of Lent. Soon
* loth February. See Burnet. VOL. II. E e
4i8 Gardinev's Character and Position, [ch. xm.
afterwards, in May, an outbreak of mobbish violence took place in Portsmouth, where, as in other seaports, the heretics were strong. In the churches there the images were pulled down : and in one of them the figure of Christ crucified, which was carved in an alabaster table, was contemptuously used, the table broken, an eye bored out of the image, and the side pierced.*
It was upon this that Gardiner began his memor- able resistance to the proceedings of this reign. What- ever inconsistency, or at least whatever changes of opinion this prelate may have shown in after times, he appears to have been throughout the reigns both of Henry and Edward the only high ecclesiastic who thoroughly knew his own mind. For this one quality, valuable in such a revolution, the Church owes him remembrance. He had witnessed with approbation the measures of the late reign : the ousting of the Pope, the ruin of the monasteries, and even the de- struction of shrines and images, so far as the dis- tinction was made o-ood between those that were superstitiously abused and those that were not. Per- haps he had been subdued in some measure by the force of the great tyrant, who was wont to boast that none but himself could manage the high and singular Winchester. The mind, the charity, the temper of Gardiner, all were logical. His curious face, refined but whimsical — a face marked by mental operation, noble in feature, but somewhat familiar in expression, might have been the face of a courtier or of an ascetic ; perchance of an inquisitor ; of a martyr perhaps. It was the face of the man who made an idol of Henry the Eighth, and who abhorred Cranmer and Cranmerism with a feeling which diffused itself
* Gardiner's Letters in Fox, below ; also Strype.
I547-] His Fij'st Letter to Somerset. 419
through every faculty.* Gardiner now took his stand upon the settlement which Henry had left, a settle- ment which Henry vainly termed a Pacification,! and according to which the Catholic system was to be pre- served amidst all mutations, and a line drawn beyond which the tide of innovation should not flow. This settlement he saw about to be overturned by the men whom Henry had appointed to maintain it. As soon as the select preachers began to inveigh against all images, and the mob to destroy them, Gardiner began to resist. To the new Protector of the realm he addressed a letter — the first of the remarkable series of letters which proceeded from him at this time— in which he complained of Barlow's sermon at Paul's Cross, declaring the course proposed by him to be immature and dangerous. " His lordship of St. David," said he, " will open wide the gate to folly. If he and such others have their minds cumbered with any new platform, let them draw the plat, hew the stones, dig the sand, and chop the chalk between this and the King's full age : and so present their labours to
* As we shall have much to do with Gardiner, I append his portrait, drawn by a less friendly and more vigorous hand. " This doctor had a swart colour, an hanging look, frowning brows, eyes an inch within the head, a nose hooked like a buzzard, wide nostrils like a horse, ever snuffing into the wind, a sparrow mouth, great paws like the devil, talons on his feet hke a grype, two inches longer than the natural toes, and so tied to with sinews that he could not abide to be touched, nor scarce suffer them to touch the stones. And nature having thus shaped the form of an outward monster, it gave him a vengeable wit," &c. So wrote Ponet, who displaced Gardiner in Winchester for a \\me.— Quoted by M ait land; Essays, Ji.
t " Our late sovereign lord was wont to say, which I never forget, speaking of himself, ' Man had not looked to the Pacification! He saw men desirous to set forth their own fancies, which he thought to have excluded by the Fadiication."— Gardiner to Crattmer, Strype's Cranm. App. XXXV. An easier name than the Via Media Anglicana, which a modern historian applies.
E e 2
420 Gardiner s Position. [ch. xm.
the King when he comes of age, and not disturb mean- while the state of the realm." To Ridley, for whom he seems to have entertained considerable respect, he wrote at the same time in a less sarcastic strain, sending him a copy of his letter to Somerset. Ridley, he said, had done well to confirm the doctrine in religion set forth by the late King, and to travail with his audience to confute the Bishop of Rome's pretended authority. Those matters were plain and without controversy. But it was another thing for him to inveigh against images and ceremonies, and in particular to touch upon the belief that holy water drove away devils. " What we have we should not deprave," said he, " and, seeing we have images, we should not despise them in speech to call them idols, nor in deed, to cut and mangrle them. All the matter to be feared is excess in worshipping." As to holy water, he argued that the creature of water might have the office of driving away devils, as the staff of Elisha, the shadow of Peter, the handkerchief of Paul had the office of healing.*
When the outrage happened at Portsmouth, a place within his diocese, the vigilant bishop wrote again to the Mayor of Portsmouth, and to one Captain Vaughan, whose soldiers were supposed to have been concerned in it. " Such men," declared he roundly, " as be affected with the principle of breaking down images are hogs, and worse than hogs, and have ever been so taken in England, being called Lollards. The opinion of destroying images is utterly disliked in
* He gives other instances, and among them " the King's cramp rings," or " the gift of curation ministered by the kings of this realm, which hath been used to be distributed by them in rings of gold and silver." Adding that he had been often asked for them in France. There are many other curious things in these letters of Gardiner, which are in Fox. Cf., for cramp rings, Burnet Coll., bk. ii. No. 25.
I547-] Somevsefs Answer to Gardiner. 421
Germany : and I myself have seen the images still standing in the churches of the Lutherans. Such as hold that opinion are esteemed the dregs cast out by Luther, after all his brewings of Christ's religion." Vaughan sent this letter to Somerset, and Somerset now wrote a long reply to Gardiner ; in which he frankly acknowledged that further measures were contemplated in religion, and that in the matter of images it was designed to replace Christ and His saints by the ensigns of the King. " Your letters are witty and learned," said the Lord Protector, " but you fear too much. It is true that in our late sovereign's days, though abused images were taken away, that was not the abolishing of all images. But still it is better to abolish those that remain than to have them for a standing disturbance among contending preachers. We have to provide, on the one hand, that the King's images, arms, and ensigns be honoured and worshipped after the decent order and invention of human laws and ceremonies ; and on the other, that other images shall not be partakers of that reverence, adoration, and invocation which derogates from the honour of God. Images are often called books, and certainly in the late reign they were more favoured than the books of God's Word, for they were left standing to those who most abused them by superstition ; but when God's Word was abused by contention, it was removed almost from all. As to the facts and words that have come to your ears, they are not so heinous as they have been made." On this the Bishop went in per- son to Portsmouth, and demanded to see the men who were said to have provoked the outrage by superstitiously abusing the images which had been destroyed. His inquiries ended in the result which often follows the strict investigation of the alleged
422 The First Book of Homilies, and [ch. xm.
causes of revolutionary violence. No such men could be produced. He then made an exhortation to the soldiers, as they stood in their ranks with their weapons, and so departed in amity, the captain declaring that he was nothing offended with anything that was said in the sermon.*
But not only to images and ceremonies, the alterations that were meditated and the opposition of Gardiner were extended to the more important matter of doctrine. New doctrines, and with new doctrines new books, were to be introduced into the realm by authority. The last and most elaborate of the formularies of the late reign, the Necessary Doctrine and Erudition of a Christian Man, had been desiofned to have been the final Confession of Ensfland. But, as it has been seen,t even in the Convocation which passed that important declaration of faith, another device for religion was brought forward in the form of certain Homilies, which had been composed by certain of the prelates, of whom the chief no doubt was the Primate. The attempt to get these Homilies passed seems to have been defeated at the time. But Cranmer now took the matter again in hand, without waiting for Convocation. A Book of Homilies — the present first book of Homilies of the Church of England — was prepared and printed, authorised by the royal authority, and ordered to be read in churches every Sunday. Of this work it may be sufficient to say that, though a collection of sermons cannot be held to have actually superseded a formal confession of faith, it bore strongly against the Necessary Doctrine, for it ignored the sacramental system of the Church. In a series of twelve discourses intended for
* Gardiner's Letters in Fox ; Strype, iii. 53. t Above, p. 314.
I547-] Erasmus s Paraphrase projected. 423
the public instruction of the people in religion there was no mention whatever made of the Sacrament of the Altar, either under that or any other appellation ; there were only incidental allusions to Baptism, and one other of the seven sacraments acknowledo^ed in the late King's Book ; the Sacraments were not deemed worthy of separate exposition, and had not even a single Homily to themselves.*
At the same time another work of hostile tendency to the old system was imprinted by authority and urged upon the realm. The last Acts and Proclama- tions of Henry the Eighth had prohibited the New Testament of Tyndale, the New Testament of Cover- dale, and the other versions and commentaries which were deemed heretical.! It would therefore have seemed too flagrant a breach of Henry's settlement to have sanctioned one of these books, for the purpose of educating the subject in the New Learning and depraving the Old. But there was a work in readiness which, by its very moderation, might answer the pur- pose better than the furious forbidden versions. The Paraphrase of Erasmus on the New Testament, which began to appear in the first part of the century, had long been celebrated abroad. Part of it had been dedicated to Henry the Eighth. No form so con-
* The Book of Homilies, as it was at first published, bore the title of " Certain Sermons or Homilies appointed by the Kitig's Majesty to be declared &^ read, by all parsotts, vicars, and curates, every Sunday in their chnrcJies, where they have cure." In the Preface they were ordered to be read every Sunday at High Mass, in such order as they stood in the book, except any sermon were preached. They were twelve in number at first, but were subdivided into .thirty-two soon after, in 1549. The book was first printed by Grafton in July, 1547, and still remains the First Book of Homilies. In tone it was very severe against the old system and its abuses. See, for instance, the Homily on Good Works.
t See above, pp. 325, 403.
424 Erasmus s Paraphrase. [ch. xm.
venient for religious satire could be devised as a paraphrase of the sacred history of Christianity ; but in the hands of the greatest literary genius of the age the instrument had been wielded with delicacy as well as with effect, A thousand covert touches turned the history of Christ and the Apostles into the history of the time. The Jewish priests and doctors, devoid of charity, filled with pride, and only learned in their own blind glosses ; the temple blazing with gold and precious stones, and but a den of thieves ; the pompous services, and continual sacrifices, which purified no heart, and pacified no conscience ; the city of Jerusalem thronged with contentious zealots; these made an allegory, of which the meaning was not far to seek. And yet no apparently hostile design was indicated ; and in his animadversions the great author bore more severely upon the rulers of the world than upon the rulers of the Church.
A translation of this celebrated work had been begun some time before by several persons, chiefly by Nicholas Udal, the father of English comedy, with the countenance and aid of Henry's last wife, Parr. This was now brought to light, and taken in hand again by more than one contributor with all despatch. The first volume, which was published instantly, was furnished with a preface which, amid the most extra- vagant flattery of the young King, was in reality a studied laudation of the Council and the Protector. " Henry," said Udal, the author of this pedantic effusion, " was the Philip who had you for his Alex- ander, oh, my young Prince : he was the Moses, you are the Joshua. You have in your father a great example. But you are also fortunate in having such noble and wise counsellors as God has given you. Look at those young kings of Israel, Manasseh and
I547-] UdaFs Preface thereto. 425
Josiah, and see the advantage of having good coun- sellors. Before their days the priests of Baal, those crafty jugglers, and the false prophets, who studied lucre under the pretence of holiness and of religion, so bewitched the princes of Israel that they were utterly blinded and seduced. Then came Hezekiah, and made a Reformation ; but the priests of Baal and the false prophets played mum in his days, following the necessity of the times, until his son Manasseh was on the throne. They put on their true colours then ; their opportunity was good, for the king was a babe, and had no good counsellors. They had their way ; for it was not enough for the young Prince to be the son of a good father, unless he had good counsellors. But Josiah (who came after the interval of Amon) had good counsellors, who would not suffer him to be so seduced and abused as Manasseh had been ; and he, by the aid of good counsellors, reigned and pros- pered, though young. Now look at these two examples, most gracious Sovereign : and blessed be your Majesty of God's own hand, who hath provided for you most noble and worthy counsellors. And besides them you have a guardian. Philip of Macedon (to whom I have likened your father) rejoiced that he had not only a son, but an Aristotle for his son's tutor. You are even happier. You have two uncles, and one of them a Somerset. What a protector, what a guardian ! How faithful, how able, I cannot declare. And the same of your other godly counsellors. Oh, happy King of such worthy counsellors ! Oh, happy counsellors of such a toward King!"* This volume was now ordered to be set up in every parish church.
* This fulsome production, of which the above is a feeble summary, contains a panegyric on Henry the Eighth, which seems to have escaped the notice of his modern admirers. It is finer than anything that they
426 Gardiner opposes the new Books, [ch. xm.
Some persuasion was used to induce Gardiner to give his sanction to all these publications. Cranmer wrote a letter to him, announcing- the project of the Homilies, and reminding him of the Convocation to which they had been presented at first, as a stay devised by the bishops against the errors of ignorant preachers. Gardiner wrote a full reply, of which he sent a copy to the Protector. His letter is lost, but he seems to have urged that the settlement of doctrine made in the late King's Book, the Necessary Doc- trine, was sufficient, and ought to be maintained. On this he received from the Archbishop a second epistle, in which the authority of the former Convocation (at which the Homilies had been presented but not passed) seems to have been again alleged ; and Gardiner was invited to take a share in the composi- tion of the Homilies. In this letter Cranmer used the unfortunate expression that the late King had been " seduced " into making the settlement of religion which he had made ; and added the insinua- tion that the late King " knew by whom he was compassed." Gardiner replied in a tone of dignified remonstrance. The late King's Book, he said, had been acknowledged by Parliament, and was the doctrine of the realm ; it had been published and read in Cranmer's diocese of Canterbury : and the Archbishop had formerly commanded a fanatical preacher not to preach against it."* There could be no seducing to the truth, but from the truth ; if there had been any seducing from the truth, his Grace of Canterbury,
have quoted in his behalf. The comparison of the two Seymours to Aristotle is bold and striking, especially if it be true that one of them, not the Lord Protector, could not write. Somerset wrote a good hand.
* One John Joseph, a renegade friar of Canterbury, who was now high in favour, and one of the preachers on the General Visitation of the Kingdom, soon to be mentioned.
JSiiikiM
I547-] His Second Letter to Somerset. 427
being so high a bishop, would, it was right to think, never have yielded to it. " And therefore," added Gardiner with cutting severity, "after your Grace hath four years continually lived in agreement of that doctrine under our late Sovereign Lord, now so suddenly after his death to write to me that his Highness was seduced, it is, I assure you, a very strange speech."* The late King, he proceeded, had hrst reforhied and then moderated religion ; but men would not look to his Pacification. As for writing a Homily, he could do it as easily as write that letter; and if he did. it would not be to separate Faith from Charity, as Cranmer had in his Homily of Salvation, but to declare that Faith was the gift of entry into life, and Charity the gift of life itself. However, he declined to do it, lest his Homily, in such Homilies, or Company, should quarrel with others of the trade. And he looked that the people, who had done their duties well enough for five years without Homilies, would get to heaven, though they were troubled with none thenceforth. f
At the same time he wrote to Somerset again, sending him again the copy of his answer to Cranmer. He represented to the Protector that the Convocation, to which Cranmer referred, had been held five years before; that the proposition about Homilies took no effect then, much less might be put in execution now ; and that it could not be undertaken, in his judgment, without a new authority from the present King. To
* The reader will have observed that Udal also used the word •' seduced," in reference to the late King. It was probably the current explanation of the New Learning to justify their present proceedings.
t Gardiner's second Letter to Cranmer is in Strype's Cranm. App. XXXV. His Letters to Somerset are in Fox. Cranmer's part of the corre- spondence is not extant. The theological reader will be aware of the importance of Gardiner's objection.
428 General Visitation Proposed, [ch. xm.
introduce a new order of thincrs was to create a new cause of punishment against them that offended: "and punishments," said he, " are not pleasant to them that have the execution of them ; and yet they must be executed, for nothing is to be contemned." An areu- ment which may sound strange from the mouth of one who has descended to posterity with the fame of a relentless persecutor.
But such considerations availed little to arrest the course which was now meditated. A general Visitation of the Kingdom, on the model of the Visitations of the late reign, was the extensive scheme which occupied the mind of the Lord Protector — a scheme which, during the nonage of the King, seemed premature to all but those who thirsted for riches or siehed for change. The kingdom was divided into six circuits among thirty Visitors, consisting part of laymen, part of clerical officials, with a preacher attached to each company. The laymen were not residents in the places to be visited, but lawyers, notaries, and placemen. Of clergy there were only ten, including the six licensed preachers. Three seem to have been sufficient to visit a place ; the original Visitors were sometimes, it would appear, increased or replaced by others.* As in the Visitations of the late Supreme
* The list of thirty is given in Strype's Cranm., bk. ii. ch. ii. For York, Durham, Carlisle, and Chester: Boston (Dean of Westminster), Sir Jn. Herseley, Dr. Ridley, Preacher, Edw. Plankney, Register. For Westminster, London, Norwich, and Ely : Sir Ant. Cook, Sir Jn. God- salve, Dr. Nevison (a lawyer), Jn. Gosnold (a lawyer), Dr. Madew, Preacher, Pet. Lilly, Register. For Rochester, Canterbury , Chichester, and Winchester : Sir Jn. Hales, Sir Jn. Mason, Sir Ant. Cope, Dr. Cave (a lawyer), Mr. Briggs, Preacher, Ralf Morice, Register. For Salisbury, Exeter, Bath, Bristol, and Gloucester : May (Dean of Paul's), Haines (Dean of Exeter), Sir Walt. Buckler, Mr. Cotisford, Preacher, Jn. Redman, Register. For Peterborough, Lincoln, Oxford, Coventry, and Lichfield: Taylor, Dean of Lincoln, Dr. Rowl. Taylor, Mr. John Joseph
I547-] Instructions of the Visitors. 429
and his Vicegerent, the power of the bishops, of the archdeacons, and of all other ordinaries was entirely suspended by an inhibition which was issued as early as the beginning of May.* The Visitors were to carry with them the new books, and sell them every- where : they were furnished with Injunctions and Articles to be inquired : and they seem to have had authority to add other Articles and Injunctions at their
(once a friar of Canterbury), Preacher, John Old, Register. For Worces/er, Hereford, Llandaff, St. David's, Bangor, and St. Asaph's : Mr. Morison ("once husband to the Earl of Rutland's wife"), Mr. Syddell, Mr. Farrar, (after Bishop of St. David's), Preacher, Geo. Constantine, Register, Rawlins, Welsh Preacher. Look also at Wilkins, iv. 8. Burnet has printed some Injunctions which were ministered at Doncaster by seven Visitors, and says doubtfully that " this seems to have been about the end of Henry's reign" (Ref. p. ii. bk. ii. Rec. 21). But Collier and Wilkins are probably right in thinking that these Articles belonged to the present Visitation, though none of the seven Visitors were of the original thirty. It must be remembered that Visitors had the power of composing Articles of their own, besides the King's Injunctions ; and also, it is likely, of acting by deputy. Some of these Doncaster Injunctions or Articles are curious repetitions of old customs. Thus, in going about the church with holy water, the priest was to say three or four times :
" Remember your promise made in baptism, And Christ His merciful bloodshedding ; By the which most holy sprinkling Of all your sins you have free pardon."
In giving holy bread he was to say,
" Of Christ's Body this is a token, Which on the Cross for our sins was broken. Wherefore of His death if ye will be partakers. Of vice and sin ye must be forsakers."
Fox says that these verses were ordered, before this time, by Latimer, to be used by the clergy of his diocese of Worcester. They were, however, at least a century older ; and the former of them has recently been printed from an old English service for aspersion, which is in a MS. of the Sarum Breviary, preserved in the Sarum Chapter Library. — See An Early Vernacular Service, by Mr. Kingdofi, Devizes, 1S77.
* The suspension of the ordinary power was relaxed a month after, in June {Wilkins, iv. 14) ; but the Visitors renewed it at the end of August, after the Scottish expedition. lb. 17.
430 Injunctions of Edward the Sixth [ch. xm.
will. As the signal of the further alterations which were designed, the evening Service of Compline on Easter Tuesday, in the King's Chapel, was sung in English, though as yet there was no law for it.*
The Injunctions which these Visitors carried with them were the celebrated Injunctions of Edward the Sixth. They were in part a reproduction of the former two sets of the Injunctions of Crumwel, and of Henry the Eighth. All that related to the King's supremacy, to the Scriptures in English, and the Bible of the greatest volume, and to the instruction of the people in the Pater Noster, the Ten Commandments, and the Creed ; all that related to the discipline of the clergy, to parish registers, to the repairing of church buildings, and the maintenance of scholars out of the benefices of the clergy ; and all that related to the payment of tithes, was repeated from the former two sets of Injunctions, which were ingeniously combined with little variation, although close inspection might detect some signs of the prodigious changes which had been wrought in the condition of the Church in the interval of ten years. In particular it was found necessary to exhort the people to give more to the poor, now that they were delivered from bestowing their substance in pardons, pilgrimages, candles, decking of images, giving to friars, and other suchlike blind devotion. Charity seemed to have waxed no warmer since blind devotion had been taken away.
The new parts, the additional mandates, which made the Injunctions of Edward something more than a republication, were not unimportant ; and they displayed a mixture of caution and determina- tion. As to the public services in the churches, some advances were made towards the final victory of the
* Collier, Heylin.
1547 •] (Tis to Public IVoi^ship. 431
English over the Latin language, although the great liturgic reformation was delayed for some time longer. The lessons were ordered to be read in English,* and also the Epistle and the Gospel at High Mass. The English Litany was enjoined: but all processions about churches or churchyards were forbidden, upon the pretext of avoiding contention " by reason of fond courtesy, and challenging of places in procession." The Litany, which had been sung in procession from the dav that Auofustine landed in Kent, ceased to be a procession from the time that it assumed an English dress. It was ordered to be sung immediately before High Mass, by the priests "with others of the choir," kneeling in the midst of the church : and by the abolition of processions, a great part of the beauty of public services was swept away.f At the same time the ancient difference, and choice of longer and shorter Litanies, were implicitly rejected : and this solemn form of precation, like so many other things, assumed the livery of uniformity.j When a sermon, or one of the
* The language in which this order is conveyed may now sound puzzling. It was ordered that in the morning a chapter in English out of the New Testament should be read '''■ immediately after the lessojts" and at evensong a chapter out of the Old Testament. And on days when there were nine lessons, three of them were ordered to be omitted to make room for this English reading ; at evensong " the responds with all the memories" were to be omitted for the same purpose. It may be observed (i) That in the old books the lessons or lectures were short pieces of Scripture in the daily service, and that they varied in number from three to nine, according to the greatness of the day. (2) Those days on which nine lessons were appointed were, in the Primitive Church, days on which the doctrine of the Holy Trinity was particularly exhibited. {Durand, v. 2. 50.) (3) These lections were followed by sentences called responds and memories.
t Antiquity might be alleged for both ways of performing Litanies. — Palmer's Orig. Liturg.
X Indeed in the Articles to be inquired, which were administered in this Visitation, it was expressly asked whether any other Litany were used. See towards the end of this chapter.
432 Injunctions of Edward the Sixth [ch.xih.
Homilies was to be had, the Prime and the three services of tierce, sext, and nones, which were properly- called the Hours, were ordered to be omitted; and since either a sermon or a Homily was ordered to be had on every Sunday, it is evident that a considerable, perhaps a beneficial, curtailment of the Sunday morning service was effected. Prime and Hours beine 2fone, only Lauds and Matins were left ; and thus the order of morning prayers was brought very nigh to what it now is. Henry's Primer was again proclaimed to be the only allowed manual of private devotion. His form of bidding prayers, which allowed of prayer for the dead, was retained.
As for ceremonies, the three lights which Crumwel or Henry had allowed, after putting out so many candles and waxen tapers before images and shrines, were reduced to two, which were to be set only upon the high altar, before the Sacrament.* Some curious, not ungraceful, and harmless superstitions were reproved, but allowed. They were " casting holy water upon his bed, upon images, and other dead things : or bearing about him holy bread or St. John's Gospel : or making of crosses of wood upon Palm Sunday, in time of reading of the Passion : or ringing of holy bells, or
* This celebrated Injunction is as follows: The clergy "shall suffer from henceforth no torches nor candles, tapers, or images of wax to be set afore any image or picture, but only two lights upon the high altar, before the Sacrament ; which, for the signification that Christ is the very true light of the world, they shall suffer to remain still." Henry had allowed three lights : in the rood-loft, before the Sacrament of the Altar, and above the sepulchre. See above, p. 82. The lights of rood-lofts and sepulchres were now implicitly forbidden, and the altar lights were made two instead of one. The Injunctions by this alteration may be said to have returned to the standard number of lights on the altar, according to old usage. For in old times (i) it seems to have been held improper to celebrate without one light at least ; (2) two lights seem to have been most usual; (3) more than two were often used. — Chamber's Divine Worship in Engl. 285.
I547-] ^s to Images and Pictures. 433
blessing with the holy candle," to drive away sin, devils, dreams, and fantasies. To these were added the keeping of private holidays by bakers, brewers, smiths, shoemakers, and other such craftsmen ; a custom which still merrily subsists among some. As to images, the distinction between those that were superstitiously abused and those that were not was still retained, and not without reason ; for under cover of this distinction, license was given for a destruction far more lamentable and irreparable than that of images. All pictures and paintings of feigned miracles that were in walls, glass windows, or else- where in churches and houses, were ordered to be utterly destroyed. Feigned miracles were found as difficult to be discerned from true miracles, as abused images from other images. Thenceforth began that villainous scraping, coating, or whitewashing of frescoes, and that indiscriminate smashing of windows, which obliterated in countless number the most various and beautiful examples of several of the arts ; and at a blow took from the midst of men the science, the traditionary secrets, which it had taken five centuries to accumulate.*
This formidable Visitation was to have started early in the summer, but it was delayed by foreign events ; nor was it until the Lord Protector was
* This Injunction ordered " all shrines, coverings of shrines, all tables, candlesticks, trindles, or rolls of wax, pictures, paintings," &c., to be destroyed. The former words are merely repeated from the Injunc- tions of Henry the Eighth, and are unmeaning, as all shrines, coverings of shrines, (Sec, had disappeared long enough. The words " pictures, paintings," &c., were added to Henry's clause, and they gave a fresh point of departure in destruction. The Injunctions of Edward may be seen in Wilkins, iv. ; they have been epitomised by Heylin, Fuller, and Collier. I have read somewhere that the breaking of painted windows would have been wider, but for the necessaiy expense of replacing them with other plain ones, to keep the wind out.
VOL. II. F f
434 Contine7ital Affairs. [ch. xm.
departed on his celebrated Scottish expedition that the commissioners stepped forth upon their circuits.
In the height of their struggle with the Emperor the Protestants were anxious to secure the alliance with England which had been so persistently evaded by Henry the Eighth. The Elector of Saxony, in pursuance of the last of the futile propositions of the deceased monarch, is said to have sent com- missioners into England, who, however, returned with- out effecting a treaty, but with a secret present of fifty thousand crowns — half of the sum which the Protestants had required from Henry for the honour of heading their League.* This transaction drew the attention of the Council to their relations with foreign powers, and Paget, the ablest authority among them, exhibited to them the whole position of affairs, in a masterly paper which he composed for their instruction. His maxims were unmistakable. "It is necessary," said he, " to make us strong both at home and abroad. At home this must be by an establishment of unanimity among ourselves, and by
* See last chapter. Francis Burgart seems to have been one of the commissioners who were sent. The resolution of the Council, in the MS. Council Book, is as follows: " Burgarthus—Franciscus— Council to D. of Saxony with other ambassadors from other Protestant States : their earnest petition for a good sum of money for their relief in considera- tion of their present necessity occasioned by their wars with the emperor ; which request and petition the Council thought meet not to be utterly rejected ; and therefore it was thought and ordered that Sir Wm. Paget should communicate to Lord Burgarthus that in case his Majesty the D. of Saxe and other free towns did continue and persist in their League he would find the means ; these should be— to said D. of Saxe of 50,000 crowns, with other provisions relating to the same." — See also Froude, iv. 24. Mr. Froude first drew attention to this German embassy (iv. 24), which seems unknown to our earher writers. It must, however, have been that one which came just before the death of Henry, of which Sleidan says (sub anno 1547) " Smalcaldicorum legati, quum Gallise regem adissent, Britanniam petunt, ut idem apud utrumque perficerent. Sed jam turn graviter Rex Henricus aegrotabat."
I547-] Position of England, 435
gathering of riches, as much as may be conveniently,
and with doing some things with little charge above
use. For this we have commodity enough, and shall
have time sufficient, if only we follow it out of hand.
Abroad we must oret the surest friends that we can
to join us. There is the French king, who is anxious
to recover Boulogne, but may be induced to leave
it upon honourable conditions. There is the Bishop
of Rome, ardently inflamed to recover this realm,
and the Emperor ready with all his power to serve
the Bishop's turn. The Emperor may perhaps be
induced to quit the Bishop of Rome, but little faith
is to be given to the promises of either of them.
The Venetians are powerful, and might be useful to
our purpose ; nor would it be difficult to bring them
to a league. The Protestants remain, and with them
we may reckon Denmark, Norway, and Sweden. If
we join them, we shall exchange peace for war ; we
shall somewhat impair our means to wax rich ; we
may draw the Emperor, the French king, and the
Bishop of Rome at once upon our necks, for the
Emperor would be made our open enemy, and the
French king might join him against us, in the hope
of recoverinor Boulogne. On the other hand, if we
join not with the Protestants, the French king may
be expected to join them, and that whether the
Emperor beat them or not. For, if the Emperor
win, the French king will fear the loss of Savoy
and Piedmont ; and if the Emperor be overthrown,
the French king will the rather join the victorious
Protestants, throw his whole power on Milan, and
attack us subsequently. The best way is to keep
them from agreeing, and from being any of them
the greatest. If this cannot be brought to pass, we
must remain in our former doubt and fear. Beyond
F f 2
436 The Mercenary Army. [ch. xm.
question, we must work undelayedly our strength at home. And, as to the Protestants, we may consult whether it may be better to join with them, and have of them such a friend as we may, rather than have no friend at all, and how far forth we may be entered already with them."*
The unerring instinct of tyranny had taught the late monarch during his later years to gather together the rudiments of a standing mercenary army. In Italy and France his agents had taken into his pay a considerable number of " men of war," of captains with their attendant bands of soldiers, who were ready to sell their swords to any master. The latest fashions and inventions in arms and armour had been diligently purchased for him.f As the same policy had been continued after his death, there was now in the service of the Protector and the Council a force of trained foreign fighting men, impervious through their tempered armour to the pike of Scotland or the English bow, and able to maintain a fire from the new invented arquebus, which might scatter dis- may among the ranks of a far more numerous but worse armed enemy. Of the two advices of Paget, the latter was prudently preferred. The affairs of the Continent were left, as heretofore, to arrange them- selves, and it was resolved to display and employ the forces of the Council or faction in the easier and cheaper undertaking of a war with Scotland. The murderers of Beton had defended the castle of St.
* Paget's paper is printed in Strype, iii. 87 ; who says that the con- sultation of the Council on foreign affairs was held in August. If so, the paper must have been written some months before, for Paget seems ignorant of the decisive battle of Muhlberg, in which the Emperor defeated the Protestants in April.
t The last two volumes of Henry's State Papers are full of these contracts.
1 547-] Character of Sonierset. 437
Andrew's as^ainst all the efforts of the reoent Arran down to the death of Henry the Eighth. With them the Lord Protector now concluded a treaty, by which they engaged themselves to maintain the English claims upon Scotland ; to procure the marriage of their infant queen with the boy of England ; to aid an English army in obtaining possession of her person ; and to deliver their castle to English commissioners when these purposes had been effected. Arran here- upon called in the aid of the French, renewed the siege, and took the castle in the month of July. In the next month Somerset entered Scotland at the head of twenty thousand men, and advanced upon Edinburo^h.
Somerset, the Protector or usurper of England, was a man whose character has been variously esti- mated. According to one author, he was of small renown for courage or deeds of arms.* And yet he had ravaged Scotland in two of the most horrible expeditions of fire and sword that are recorded in the annals of any country. He had been in command at the time of the rout of Solway Moss. He was now at the head of an army which was about to win one of the most sanguinary battles that was ever fought. It is more certain of him that he was unfit to be the head of a faction. He both treated the men who had concurred in his advancement with osten- tatious haughtiness, and, worse than that, they were not sure of him. He was fond of popularity, he bid for the caps of the people, he delighted in the shout that hailed him as the poor man's friend. Nothing could be conceived more contrary to the principles of the revolution ; and the monitory Paget warned him in vain of this disquieting and dangerous tendency.
* Hay ward.
438 Scotland. [ch. xm.
It is true that there was not a man among them more greedy of church lands than the Lord Protector ; but a common quaHty cannot be a distinguishing character.
At the head of an irresistible army, accompanied by an armed coasting fleet, the Protector swept through Scotland without opposition, till he arrived within a few miles of Edinburgh. There he found the forces of the Scottish kingdom marshalled under Arran, and prepared to dispute the passage of the river Esk. They exceeded him in numbers by a third ; they held an excellent position, which they had fortified with some pieces of ordinance. They are even said to have had some arquebuses used for the same purpose. Their camp was filled with kirkmen and friars, who exhorted them to stand for the cause of the nation, and promised them a speedy victory over the heretics. The armies remained in sight of one another for one or two days, during which a bloody skirmish was fought. The Scots had only to keep their position, which appeared impregnable ; and the manoeuvres of the invaders were directed to draw them from it. As the latter were developing some movement for this purpose, in the early morning of the second or third clay, they were amazed and delighted to see the whole army of the enemy suddenly quit their camp, and advance impetuously to the attack. Some inexplicable impulse had seized the Scots, not only to forfeit for themselves, but to transfer to the English the advan- tage of which they had been possessed. They rushed across the river, which the English were about to have crossed, sustaining a galling fire from the English fleet. They rushed across several fields on the other side, coming on, according to an eye-witness, " more like horse than footmen," and so found themselves, breath-
I547-] The Battle of Pinkie. 439
less and somewhat disordered, in the immediate pre- sence of the English army. The foremost division of them halted to receive the instant charge of the English cavalry. Repeating the national tactic of Bannockburn, the pikemen formed their, impenetrable ring, hanging togfether so close — the front rank bent almost to their knees, those behind thrusting forth their pikes held in both hands — that it was impossible for cavalry to break the hedge of crossing spears. Their war-cry was, " Come here, loons ; come here, heretics !" and with this they received and repulsed the charge of Grey's horse. But this success was only momentary. The rest of their forces, exposed to the counter attack of the whole English army of all arms, found their old formation useless. They were, in fact, an unarmed mob in com- parison with the well furbished host which they had ventured to assail. Their pikes might repel cavalry, the long knives or daggers which they carried might have been useful in close fight, but they had to do with an enemy whose strokes came from far. The Italian arquebusiers and the German lanzknechts poured in a deadly fusilade ; the artillery thundered ; the English bowmen on the flanks, on this, their last great field, sent forth a cloud of arrows. In an instant great gaps appeared- in the Scottish spear-hedges ; the attack increased in fury ; the cavalry charged again, and all was headlong rout. The pursuit which followed was such as might be expected when footmen without covert or defence fled from horsemen a long summer's day. It was extermination. The country was covered for miles with the white and mangled bodies of the flower of Scotland ; while the impunity of the victors recalled the days of Crecy or Agincourt. Such was the battle of Pinkie, the last great blow dealt against Catholic Scotland by the force of the English
440 Gardiner's Opposition [ch. xm.
Reformation.* But her usual destiny saved the indom- itable nation. Never was so vast a victory so feebly used. The Duke of Somerset burned the abbey church of Holyrood, planted some garrisons, and returned to England after a campaign of fifteen days. A feeble and desultory war followed, which was marked by all the atrocity of the Tudor wars with Scotland. Wher- ever the English power could maintain itself, the English Reformation was held to be extended : and abbeys and other religious foundations were either dissolved or subjected to ruinous exactions.f But the English lost one stronghold after another, and the last struggle between the kingdoms died away in a manner which might recall the end of the hundred years' war with France. Such was the issue of Henry the Eighth's revival of the Scottish claims of Edward the First.
The warlike policy which led to so much useless slaughter, had been opposed, like the other measures of the time, by the resolute prelate of Winchester. " Let Scots be Scots," he exclaimed in one of his letters to the Protector, " until the King be come of age." He offered from the first a determined resistance to the general Visitation, which began to be carried out about the end of the campaign. He complained of the severity of the inhibition, declar- ing it to be a thing the like whereof had never been
* Mr. Froude and Mr. Burton both give spirited descriptions of Pinkie ; but perhaps they scarcely bring out enough the entire helpless- ness of the Scottish army against the new invented arms. See also Grafton.
t Some curious particulars are given in Mrs. Green's Addenda to Calend. of Eliz. 1601-3. The goods of the Abbot of Dryburgh were distrained. P. 332. The Warden of the Grey Friars of Dumfries was carried to Carlisle. lb. The Abbot of New Abbey, near Dumfries, was taken captive, but broke away, and hurt his leg. P. 366. The Abbot of Selside was compliant. P. 368.
1 547-] to tJie General Visitation. 441
in his time, that bishops should be restrained from preaching, save in their own cathedral churches. He inveighed severely against Bale, a rising pen, who had just written his Elucidation of Ann Askew s Martyrdom : a tract which, now that his authority was suspended, the Bishop had seen openly sold in Winchester market.* He complained of Cranmer, and even of his old friend Tunstall, the only prelates left in the Council, for their neglect and forgetfulness of the late King's Book, and their delight or acqui- escence in alteration. He objected against the new Injunctions that they were untenable in law, because the royal commandment could not avail against an Act of Parliament, nor against the common law. Such at least, said he, was the opinion of the lawyers : and no man had better reason to remember the opinion of lawyers than he had. He had seen, he said, the clergy put under a praemunire for executing the King's commandment contrary to the laws. He had seen a man's head cut off for executins: the King's commandment contrary to the laws. On one occasion, when he had ventured to remonstrate in the House of Lords agfainst the doctrine that a man authorised by the King could be punished for doing what the King bade, he had been told by the late Lord Chancellor Audley to hold his peace, lest he should fall into a praemunire himself.f As he seemed likely to be troublesome, one of the Visitors, Sir
* Lett, to Somerset 21 st Mar. and 6th June, in Fox. If it be remem- bered that Gardiner had just pubhshed his Declaration against Geo. Joye, it will be confessed that he was not idle at this time.
t Gardiner to Somerset, 14th Oct., in Fox, and partly in Burnet, Coll., No. 14. This letter was written after he was put in the Fleet ; but he wrote a " vehement " letter to the Council before that event ; which letter is lost. I have done no great violence to history in sup- posing that what he wrote to Somerset was substantially what he wrote to them.
442 Gardiner before the Coimcil. [ch. xm.
John Godsalve, sent him a letter of warning, telling him that he might lose his bishopric. Gardiner replied that he had kept his bishopric sixteen years without offence of God's law or the King's, and that if he could depart from it in the like manner, he should think the tragedy of life well ended. When the Visitation should reach his diocese, he said that he would use no Protestation against it (the dangerous course, it may be observed, which had just been taken by his brother of London), but a plain Allega- tion, as the matter served, and as truth and honesty should lead him to speak. He declared himself to be a loyal and true subject : but maintained that he had a right in the realm not to be enjoined against an Act of Parliament : and this he said that he had signified to the Council.* The Council, not being satisfied with this line of conduct, summoned him before them. He repaired to London, leaving orders with his chaplain, chancellor, and register to receive the Visitors with all respect, if they should come in his absence. To the priests of his diocese, who waited on him for instructions in his journey to town, he gave the same advice.f
Gardiner appeared before the Council, September 23rd. At first he told them that he would receive the Injunctions so far as he was bound by the laws of God and the realm. This, which seemed to involve an appeal to the Constitution, was not unnaturally misliked ; he was pressed to a more explicit answer, and threatened with severities. He then said that it would be two weeks before the Visitation could reach his diocese, and that in the interval he was willing to go to Oxford, and there dispute the question with any learned man. This being refused, he offered * Burnet, Coll., No. 13. t Strype, iii. 84.
I547-] He is committed to the Fleet. 443
to hold a more private conference with any learned man in his own house in London. And when this was rejected, he told them that, as his conscience then was, God's law and the King's law forbade him to comply, but that he might change, like the dis- obedient son in the Gospel, being very open to con- viction. They then told him that he stood committed to the Fleet, on which his answer was, " My lords, I think it hard, unless there were a greater matter, to send me to prison for declaring beforehand what I minded to do, before anything has been by me actually done to resist the Visitation : who have all the meantime to think on the matter and repent me." He was then removed, and carried to the Fleet, bearing, as he said, no grudge against his enemies, and making no complaint.* By this preventive stroke the Council were relieved of die opposition which the Bishop might have offered in Parliament during the approaching session : nor less were the clergy deprived, in the important Convocation which ensued, of their most able leader.
In Bonner a more unequal resistance to this illegal investigation had been terminated in the same event a few days before. The Visitation began at West- minster, September 3rd ; when the appointed Visitors, Cook, Godsalve, two lawyers, a licensed preacher, and a register, met the Bishop, Thirlby, and the chapter; ministered their Injunctions and Homilies:
* Letter to Somerset, Oct. 14, in Fox. The order for his committal is as follows : " The Bishop of Winchester having written to the Lords of his Majesty's Council, and beside that spoken to others impertinent things of the King's Majesty's Visitations, and refused to set forth and receive the Injunctions and Homilies, for that, as he said being examined by their lordships, thereupon, they contained things dissident with the Word of God, so as his conscience would not suffer him to accept them, was sent under the safe leading of Sir Ant. Wingfield to the Fleet." — MS. Privy Council Book, p. 229 [p. 131 in Dasent's now printed Acts].
444 Bomiers Protestation. [ch. xm.
and executed the rest of their commission without opposition.* Two days later the same party arrived at St. Paul's, and held their session there. When the preacher had preached, the commission of the Visitors was read, the oath of supremacy was ministered to the Bishop, and he was required to present such things as needed to be reformed. He desired to see the commission : whereon the Visitors said that they would deliberate further on his request, but proceeded, never- theless, to call before them the chapter and the other ministers of the Church, to whom they ministered the oath, and read some Interrogatories and Articles. They then delivered to the Bishop both the printed Injunctions and some others in writing, and the Homilies. Bonner received them with the words : " I do receive these Injunctions and Homilies with the Protestation that I will observe them, if they be not contrary and repugnant to God's law and the statutes and ordinances of the Church:" and he desired this Protestation to be enrolled amongf the acts of the court.f This boldness, though offered with an humble
* I have already said that these Visitors had the power of adding what Injunctions they chose to the printed code which they carried with them. Those which they gave to Thirlby at Westminster are printed in Strype (iii. 74). One of them is curious, as throwing some hght on the disputed question of the way in which the public services were divided at this time. Divine service was ordered to be done and ended in every parish church in Westminster by nine of the clock on every Sunday morning; to the intent that the priests and laity might resort to the sermon to be made in the cathedral church, unless there were a sermon in their parish church. The same order was given in the London diocese : all the priests were commanded to be done with the divine service by nine o'clock, and go to Paul's Cross to hear the preaching ; and there is a story of the dreadful end of a bad priest of Eastcheap, who said " I will make an end of service at the prescribed hour, seeing I must needs so do. But so long as any of these heretics preach at the cross, as nowadays they do, I will never hear them, for I will not come there. I will rather hang." And he hanged, rather. — NichoVs Narrat. 23.
t Fox says that he immediately added with an oath that he never
I547-] He is committed to the Fleet. 445
mien, far exceeded the conduct of Gardiner, who was content with alleging the illegality, but protested not against the execution of the Visitation. It was followed by an inglorious retreat. Bonner was summoned before the incensed Council, when he offered a sub- mission " full of vain quiddities," as they said.* This not being accepted, he was compelled to make a re- vocation as humble and explicit as terms could set it out, and to pray that this acknowledgment of error might be inserted in the records immediately under his Protestation " for a perpetual memory of the truth." But his contempt was not purged thereby, nor his punishment averted. He was sent to the Fleet, September i8th, and there he lay two months. Soon after that a pretext was found for dismissing even the gentle Tunstall from the Council, which consisted thenceforth only of Cranmer and laymen.
The Council were indeed resolved to have in St. Paul's the perfect exemplar of the alteration of worship which they were bringing in. As soon as Bonner was out of the way the English Litany was sung there without procession, between the choir and the altar, the singers kneeling half on one side and half on the other. On the same day the Epistle and Gospel were read at Hiah Mass in the EnMish tongue, according to the I nj unctions. | Soon afterwards the more important work of the destruction of images in the great Church was begun. To lay low the pride of Canterbury had been the more peculiar achievement
read these Injunctions and Homilies. What that may mean it is difficult to see, for he had only just received them. Fox has just before recorded the humility of his demeanour.
* Council Book, ap. Burnet.
+ Fox; Heylin ; Burnet, Coll., No. 12.
X Heylin.
44^ St. Pater s ravaged: [ch. xm.
of the late reign.* But the great church of the capi- tal city, never having been changed in constitution, nor passed from the clergy to the monks, had escaped hitherto the extreme desolation which had befallen her beautiful but monastic sister. The vast fabric, fairer than Canterbury Itself, unrivalled in the multitude of chapels, images, and altars which it inclosed, still stood a temple that was a collection of temples. In the sepulture of the illustrious or wealthy dead it was then what Westminster has since become, a monument of English history, embossed with stately tombs and characteristic effigies. Innumerable services were performed within it every day for the souls of the countless donors and benefactors whose piety or pride had enriched the foundation. Upon this splendid prey an army of smashers was now let loose, but few details of the devastation which ensued have been preserved ; and the fire which a hundred years afterwards de- stroyed the edifice itself, may allow us to regard or regret the less the barbarity of a former ruination. But so ardent was the zeal and so difficult the work of the destroyers, that two of them were slain and others were wounded in the toil of demolition.! And so keen was the desire of the reformers to make without delay a penny of the spoil, that brasses of the richest workmanship, and the curious and costly rails which had defended the tombs, were sold to coppersmiths
* The sack of Canterbury, however, it should be observed, was still going on, or rather had been renewed, in this reign. In July the Council had issued an order to the dean and prebendaries to deliver up a silver table that stood on the high altar. This was followed in a few days by another order to them to deliver up even the jewels and plate which Henry the Eighth had allowed them to retain for the service of their Church. Council Book {ap. Collier) p. 239 [Dasent, 139]. This order was, however, designed to prevent the Canterbury chapter from converting the jewels into money.
t Grey Friars' Chronicle.
I547-] the Image JVav in London. 447
and tinkers very cheap.* This great act of destruc- tion was followed by the forcible removal of images from the churches throughout London — a work in which Bellasis, the former comrade of Leo^h and Lay ton, now Archdeacon of Colchester, particularly distinguished himself.f But even in London, not less than in other parts of the kingdom, the enthusiasm of private zeal or peculation appears to have outstripped the exertions of the commissioners.^
The spirit of Gardiner was not subdued by impri- sonment, and his remonstrances against the Visitation became more distinct and acute in the solitude of the Fleet. When he had been there about a fortnight the Archbishop of Canterbury made a characteristic effort to subdue or to conciliate him. He sent for him to the house of May, the Dean of St. Paul's ; whither he went, as he tells us, '' with some orazine of the world," beino- conducted, it would seem, through the street by the Bishop of Lincoln, Holbeach. He found the Arch- bishop in the company of Ridley, who by this time was made Bishop of Rochester, of Doctor Cox, and of some others : and a curious interview passed between
* Dugdale's St. Paul's, p. 45. + Heylin.
X " Sundry persons upon some vain, brutish, or rather their own rash- ness, have now lately attempted in several places of the realm to make sale of the ornaments of the plate, jewels and bells of sundry churches : wherein as they have demeaned themselves otherwise than became them, and given a very ill example, we, thinking it convenient both to have a stay made, that the like be not from henceforth attempted, and also to have perfect knowledge how and to what uses the money received for any of the things aforesaid hath been employed ; we have thought good to require you that, unless the King's Majesty's commissioners for the Visitation have already taken order therein, ye cause due search and inquiry to be undelayedly made by your ministers, what hath been taken away, sold, or alienated out of any church or chapel of your diocese, and by whom, and to what uses the money growing thereupon hath been em- ployed," &c. Letter of Council to the Bishops, Oct. 17, 1547. — Wilkms iv. 17.
448 Gardiner and Cranmer. [ch. xm.
them. Cranmer began upon his Homily of Salvation, the former subject of contention. " I will yield to you in that Homily," answered Winchester, " if you can show me any old writer that writes how Faith excludes Charity in the office of Justification : it is against the plain words of Scripture : and it were sore to swerve from Scripture without any doctor to lean to." The Archbishop then fell to arguing : " and," said Gardiner, "overcame me, that am called the Sophister, by sophistry." When he had heard Cranmer's argu- ment, he denied it, refusing however to make any declaration on his own part, and keeping his answer till others should be present than those that were there. " You like nothing unless you do it yourself," said the irritated primate. Winchester denied that he was guilty of that : and thanked God that he had never been the author of anything either spiritual or temporal. " All the realm have received these Homilies without contradiction, save you," said Canterbury. " I think they have not read what I have read in them," said Winchester. Canterbury then brought forward his last argument ; that if Winchester would conform, he might hope to be made a Privy Councillor again. " You are," said he, " a man meet in my opinion to be called to the Council again : we daily choose and add others that were not appointed by our late sovereign lord." These, as Gardiner wrote, when he had returned to the Fleet, " were worldly comfortable words ; but," added he, " I have not, I thank God, that deceit which my Lord of Canterbury thought to be in me, or would seem to think so."*
From the Fleet he wrote to Somerset in a sarcastic and indio'nant strain, informing him of the aro-uments
* Letter to Somerset, in Fox ; compare Strype's Cranm., bk. ii. ch. iii.
I547-] Gardiner in the Fleet. 449
and inducements which Cranmer had used ; and complaining of the severity with which he was treated.
" Here I remain, as one divided from the world ; no friend, no servant, no chaplain, no barber, no tailor, no physician. If your Grace should give me any com- fort, ye might be noted to favour Winchester's factions, as some term it ; though I never joined myself with any man, nor secretly encouraged any man to be of my opinion. Our late Sovereign suffered any man to speak his mind, until the matter was established by law. But my Lord of Canterbury borrows of your authority the Fleet, the Marshalsea, and the King's Bench, to establish what he is pleased to call truth in religion ; though it be not established by any law of the realm, but be contrary to a law of the realm. I have never seen such a kind of captivity as I sustain. Has he the strength of God's Spirit, and all learning in God's laws ? Then let him drive me to the o-round with the sword of God's doctrine ; and not borrow the sword of your Grace. As to that Homily of Salvation, if I were his extremest enemy I should have wished him to take that piece in hand, and to handle it as he has done. To say that Faith excludes Charity has for it neither Scripture, nor antiquity, nor sufficient argument. He argues that, whereas charity is a work of the law, and we are justified without all works of the law, we are justified without charity. I have an answer to that, which is twelve hundred years old. Such an argument must either impeach his learning, or if he knew the fault in it, his lack is greater another way. This matter of justification by faith only, and the question whether Faith exclude Charity in Justifi- cation, may be a grave matter in learning ; but what pertains it to the use and practice of the Church of
VOL. II. G g
^^o Gardiner s Third Letter to Somerset, [ch. xm.
England ? I put a difference between use and know- ledge. The knowledge of justification is of weight, and many have wept in entreating of it, both here and in Germany. But we are all justified in the Sacrament of Baptism before we can talk of that justification that we strive for ; nor can there be a time in which the knowledge of the justification that we strive for can be practised ; for when we fall after baptism, we must rise again by the sacrament of penance. All must confess this, unless they be such as deny all sacraments, and be gone so far in the sifting of faith only, that they have left nothing but faith alone, and have spent a great deal, or rather, all of their faith in handling of it. My Lord of Canterbury told me that he only meant to set out the freedom of God's mercy. That might be done more plainly by setting forth the constantly received Faith of the Church in the Baptism of Infants." Thus would Gardiner have saved England from one of the gravest and yet most inconclusive disputations of the age, the disputation concerning the various parts which constitute man's justification. Anon his indig- nation breaks forth a^ain ag^ainst Cranmer, though in truth Cranmer was less answerable for his imprison- ment than others of the Council. " He tries," said he, " to persuade men in the same way in which men are made to kneel in Rome when the Bishop of Rome goes by ; for they are knocked on the head with a halbert if they will not. Why should I be put in prison for not receiving some works of human com- position as if they were the Gospels of God ? I was never in prison before ; certainly my mind was never so quick as it is now, for I have spoken to no man for seven weeks. But if my Lord of Canterbury think that I shall go mad in solitude, he is deceived ; for I have the Paraphrase and the Homilies to study. Every day
I547-] His Criticism of the Homilies. 451
I wax better learned in them. The Paraphrase I call in one word Abomination ; both for the malice of Erasmus, and the arrosfant icrnorance of the translator, who knows neither Latin nor English. And yet these new Injunctions lay upon the realm a charge of twenty thousand pounds to buy that book ! As for the Homilies, the Homily of Salvation has as many faults in it as I have been weeks in prison.*
" Compare the Paraphrase with the Homilies," proceeded the Bishop, " and they strive one against
* For his opinion about Justification, Fox calls Gardiner "an insen- sible ass, who had no feeling of God's Spirit in the matter." Hallam thinks it to be " obviously certain " that the command to set up Erasmus's Paraphrase in the parish churches was not complied with. — Lit. of Eur. i. 373. It is certain, however, that the first volume at least was dissemi- nated so far as the visitors could do it ; and it is found in remote parts, to which it could not have come by chance. There is one in Cartmei Church, in Cumberland, put there by the Prestons a hundred years after the publication, it is true ; but perhaps only replaced where it had been at first. In the very valuable " Inventories of Church Goods in Berk- shire in 1552," out of sixty-three churches there were three that had the Paraphrase. In Hertfordshire, out of one hundred and forty, there is only one, Cheshunt. But it must be remembered that very few of these inventories contain any mention of any books whatever. Inventories edited by Money a7id by Cussans. In 1552 Bishop Hooker ordered the Paraphrase to be procured in his dioceses of Gloucester and Worcester. Injunctions'xa. Later Writings, 139.
It must also be remembered that the parish clergy were required to get the Paraphrase for their own use, in addition to the copies for the churches. The first volume of the Paraphrase contained the Gospels and Acts, with various Prefaces. It is curious that in the preface to St. John, Udal affirms that the translation of the paraphrase of that Gospel was begun by the Lady Mary; and that she, "with over painful study and labour of writing, cast her weak body in a grievous and long sickness ;" whereupon the work was finished, at her command, by Francis Malet. The second volume appeared in 1549. It contained the Epistles, and Leo Juda's Paraphrase of the Revelation. It was dedicated to Edward by Coverdale, and contained Tyndale's Prologue to Romans. The chief translator in this volume was John Old, who was employed in this visita- tion, and has given some account of what was done in it in the preface to Ephesians. (See towards the end of this chapter.) The better known Leonard Cox also had a share in it. Both the volumes were printed by Whitchurch.— 5if£' Key, Udal, and Malet in Bale's Centuries.
Gg 2
452 Gardiner s Third Letter to Somerset, [ch. xm.
the other, though they are both to be distributed by the same hands. I have shown that the Homihes divide Faith from Charity in Justification: the Para- phrase joins them together. The Homihes teach how men may swear : the Paraphrase teaches the contrary very extremely. The Homihes teach that subjects owe tribute and obedience to their princes : the Para- phrase teaches that between Christian men there should be no debt nor right, but mutual charity. Indeed Erasmus tends throughout his work towards the dissolution of laws and duties : and pays home as roundly against princes, as bishops have been touched of late in pleas. But compare these Homilies with the doctrine of the late King's Book, which was established by Parliament : and the contradictions are still more numerous. The doctrine of the Parliament includes Charity in Justification, which the Homilies (as it has been seen) exclude. According to the Homilies, Justification is nothing else but the remission of sins : the doctrine of the Parliament maintains that Justification consists of more parts than the remission of sins. The Homilies number the hallowing of bread, palms, and candles among papistical abuses : the doctrine of the Parliament wills them to be reverently used. And here the Homilies not only contradict the doctrine of the Parliament : but they also contradict, even more flagrantly, the very In- junctions which are issued with them : for the Injunctions allow all those ceremonies! The printer must have thrust in an Homily of his own device ! Furthermore, the Homilies have the words of St. Chrysostom untruly alleged, and call that Faith which he calls Hope : nay, they even put one sentence of Chrysostom for another : and that not by oversight, but the better to serve the purpose of the maker of
I547-] His Criticism of the Homilies. 453
them. This is a defamation of the truth. Truth is able to maintain itself, and needs no untrue allegations."*
Somerset sent Gardiner a physician, as his health required : but kept him still in prison. The Parlia- mentary session drew on : and the Bishop protested again and again, though in terms of studied respect, against his incarceration. • No charge was made against him, but he was kept away from his place in Parliament, while measures of vital concern to the Church of England were passed in rapid succession. There was good reason for keeping him away. He told the Protector that he meant to have attacked Cranmer in the House of Lords upon the Paraphrase of Erasmus, which he had studied so thoroughly, and in which he found matter of such a nature, that, when it was brought forward, the Archbishop would only be able to answer that, " he would never have thought it," for that to own that he had knowingly advised such matter to be set forth to the people would touch him too near. " As his Lordship of Canterbury would have it that the late king was seduced," added Gardiner, " it was possible that the Lord Protector was seduced also : and therefore it were good for him to hear, and to hear in good time."
The Parliament met on the fourth of November. The packing and other arrangements were confided to the adroit Sir Ralph Sadler, a man of the times, well versed in the negotiations of the late reign : who had been originally the clerk of Crumwel, when Crumwel was the servant of Wolsey. By him the business was managed so well, that there was no need of change hereafter : and the same Parliament was continued
* All this part of the letter, which is the ninth of the Winchester correspondence, is omitted by Fox with an et catera. The deficiency is supplied in Strype's Crani/ier, App. xxxvi.
454 Parliament. [ch. xm.
from session to session throughout the reign of Edward. Lord Rich received the Great Seal in place of the discarded Southampton. The Speaker of the Commons was Sir John Baker, Chancellor of the Court of Firstfruits and Tenths. Fresh from his Scottish victory, the Lord Protector was observed to assume the royal style, and almost the royal state. He wrote himself " By the grace of God Lord Pro- tector of the realm." His seat was upon the throne, at the right hand of the seat royal itself*
The first statute of Edward the Sixth breathes an air of exultation. Life and liberty seemed to be restored by the ending of the late tyranny. The troubled reign of Henry was over ; his stern policy might be now relaxed, and in a golden age freedom restored might reap the fruit which he had sown. " As in tempest or winter," said the lawgivers, " one course or garment is convenient, in calm or warm weather a more liberal case and lighter garment, so the strait and sore acts of laws made in one parliament might be repealed and taken away in the more calm and quiet reign of another prince." They therefore annulled at a blow all the hideous laws of treason and felony, which had been deluging England with blood. They abolished that invention of their predecessors, the punishment of boiling alive for poisoning. The)^ repealed the notorious Act of Proclamations, the Six Articles, and the restrictions set upon the publication or reading of the English Bible. They restored, with some exceptions, the privilege of clergy. Passing further into antiquity, they obliterated all the old heresy laws, from the time of Richard the Second downwards ; and religious
* He took out Letters Patent for this: "to appoint him the place of honour in the High Court of Parliament." — Leinan's Calendar, p. 3.
I547-] Great Statute of Repeal. 455
liberty itself, the birthright of the future, seemed to be reached in one gigantic leap, when they declared that "all and every Act or Acts of Parliament concern- ing doctrines or matters of religion, and all and every branch, article, sentence, and matter, point and forfeit- ure contained, or in any wise declared in any of the same Acts of Parliament or Statutes, shall from henceforth be repealed, and utterly void, and of none effect."
But it soon began to appear that some reservations must be made from the grants or the remissions of a generous enthusiasm : partly from the necessities of the times, in the interest of the legislators partly. Many of the severities which were now abolished, were renewed by degrees in this or in succeeding sessions : and of the machinery of the revolution, enough was erected again to enable the revolution to proceed, albeit under somewhat different conditions. For example, if the old heresy laws were' repealed, so that it was no longer lawful to proceed against heretics by statute, yet still the fiery penalty of heresy re- mained, according to the common law. What became, then, of a Bill which was introduced " to amend the common law of the realm"?* One remarkable ex- ception again might be observed to the general mild- ness of the repealing statute. By that mild statute itself, it was made felony and treason to deny the King to be Supreme Head of the Church of England and Ireland, or to affirm any other than the King to be Supreme Head. The reason of this was as follows. Althouo-h in the late reiorn all w4io denied the one, or affirmed the other of these propositions, were quickly beheaded, hanged, or burned, yet it so happened that the Act of Supreme Head itself was not penal, but
* Commo7is' Journal, 2 and 5 December.
45^ Act to make Vagrants Slaves, [ch. xm.
only declaratory,* and the offenders who suffered had been caught under other statutes of the reign. If, therefore, those other statutes were now repealed, it is evident that Supreme Head would have been left without the protection of high penalties, if a provident legislature had not intervened. The liberty, further- more, and mercy of this great repealing statute, which took away so many treasons, felonies, and heresies, stood in contrast with another repealing statute, which was passed at the same time, concerning vagrants. As all the laws of heresy were repealed, so all the laws of vagrancy were repealed by this Parliament. As in the one case, however, a new code was sub- stituted gradually, and new offences in religion were created : so in the other case a new code was supplied at once. Godly statutes, it was declared, had been made against vagabonds in time past, with penalties of death, whipping, or imprisonment : but somehow, in spite of them, it appeared that vagrants and vaga- bonds increased in the realm more than in other regions : and there had been a foolish pity and mercy in those who should have seen the godly statutes executed. They were therefore withdrawn : and a new, and it may be presumed a more godly code, was substituted for them. If any man brought before two justices a person who had lived loiteringly for three days, the justices might brand the said person in the breast with the letter V for Vagabond, and give him to the informer for two years as a slave : to be fed on bread, water, small drink, and refuse meat : and made to work by beating, chaining, or other- wise, to such work as he were put to, were it never so vile. If he ran away he was to be branded on the forehead and cheek with an S; and adjudged a
* 26 H. VIII. i.
I547-] Act concerning the Sacrament . 457
slave for ever. If he ran away the second time, he was adjudged a felon. Any man who held a slave might put a ring of iron about his neck, arm, or leg. A clerk convicted of vagrancy was not exempt from these provisions, except that his first term of slavery was made one year instead of two : and that the person who took him was bound under surety to the ordinary to put him to service. A clerk convict, who could not make his purgation by law, might be given as a slave for five years by the ordinary to any man thus bound. These provisions concerning clerks are said to have been inserted because of the expelled religious, who were wandering about in real or pretended destitution. It is not probable that this atrocious law was ever carried into effect : it was repealed in two years. It would sound less shocking then than it sounds now: for it is well known that bondmen were still a numerous, and perhaps not ill contented class in England. But that it should have been passed at this time illustrated the spirit of the revolution of the rich against the poor.
Some severity moreover was deemed to be not unnecessary towards those of the heretics who were irreverent talkers against the Sacrament of the Altar. The Parliament complained that the Sacrament, because of certain abuses formerly committed in it, was de- praved and reviled by ignorant and wicked men, " who not only disputed and reasoned irreverently of that most high mystery, but also in their sermons, preach- ings, lectures, communications, arguments, tales, rhymes, songs, plays, or jests, called it by such vile and infamous words as Christian ears abhor to hear rehearsed." A penal statute was therefore enacted, that offenders might be tried at quarter sessions within three months of the alle^^ed offence, and suffer
45^ Parliament: Act to [ch. xm.
imprisonment or make fine on conviction, at the pleasure of the king. On such an occasion the bishop of the place was to be present, or have a deputy at the sessions. A second part of the same statute conveyed the important order that the Eucharist should be administered under both kinds,* and forbad the minister to refuse it without a lawful cause. A check was thus given to excommunication, a power which is said to have been much abused in the past. The composition of this statute gave ample evidence of the doctrinal reformation which was at hand. It was orarnished with texts and marg-inal references to places of Scripture. The Sacrament of the Altar was called in it the Supper of the Lord, the Communion and Partaking of the Body and Blood of Christ : and it contained directions to the clergy how to exhort the people, which were ex- pressed in words that came from the Order of Holy Communion, which Cranmer was now preparing, and which remain in the present Liturgy.f
The bishops had been sufficiently disparaged in the late reign, and their nomination had been formally declared by law to lie with the king. But it had not been deemed necessary hitherto to abolish the old process of the congd d'dlire, or licence to elect, which was addressed to the dean and chapter.| It was now, however, resolved to depart from Henry's settlement
* " However there is no enacting clause concerning the priest not taking it alone : nor are there any penalties annexed."— /^^'t'z/^'^ Engl. Law, iii. 452.
t " Wherein should be further expressed the benefit and comfort promised to them which worthily receive the said Holy Sacrament, and the danger and indignation of fire threatened to them which shall presume to receive the same unworthily : to the end that every man try and examine his own conscience before he shall receive the same." — I Edw. VI. i. Cf. Strype, iii. 97.
+ See Vol. I. p. 182 of this work.
I547-] appoint Bishops by Letters Patent. 459
in this particular : and, with the ready help of their Primate and themselves, to depress the bishops a little more. An Act was passed " for the election of bishops," in which it was ordered that they should be appointed by letters patent of the king, not by the old process. It was said, and very truly, that the old process was merely a shadow and pretence of election : but still the old process was a proof that freedom of election had once existed. The shadow of freedom was now for the time obliterated, on the argument that it seemed to be derogatory to the prerogative of the crown : and the bishops were de- clared in plain terms to be but ecclesiastical sheriffs, so far as their appointment to their sees was con- cerned. Their writings and processes were com- manded to be in the king's name only, they being added as witnesses : and their seals of office were to be engraven with the royal arms. But it was found anon that all this humiliation was needless. It made no difference, no difference could be made, in the loyalty of the bishops : and the Act was soon repealed.*
The list of towns fallen to decay through the dissolution of the monasteries had been headed in the later statutes of the late reign by the great ecclesiastical city of York. But though the remedy of reparation had been ordered to be forcibly applied, the state of York still seemed not good. Both within the walls and in the suburbs it appeared that there were many parish churches which had been formerly good and honest livings for learned incum- bents, being supported by the private tithes of rich
* I Edzv. VI. i. This Bill is called in the Lords' Jourjials, " a Bill for the Admission of Bishops by the King only." After the first reading it was committed to the Archbishop of Canterbury, to whom it owed its final form. It was repealed by i Eliz.
460 Parliament : Act to dissolve [ch.xih.
merchants, and the offeruiors of a Qrreat multitude of inhabitants. But now, through the ruin of the city and of her trades, these parishes were become so poor, that none would take them, unless it were " some chantry priest, or some late religious person being a stipendiary." Such persons, who undertook the duties which all others refused, the Parliament called " unlearned and ignorant persons, and blind guides/' who kept the people in the dark, " to the great danger of their souls." The remedy which they ordered for the cure of this spiritual destitution was, to pull down some of the churches, and unite the parishes.
The late king had received for the term of his natural life from the late Parliament the power of visiting and suppressing colleges, hospitals, chantries, free chapels and other such corporations. He had begun to exert this power vigorously, when death stayed his hand. Parliament now renewed the termi- nated statute in favour of the present prince. A long, elaborate, and somewhat hypocritical Act set forth the superstitious errors which had caused such donations to be made and the godly uses to which they were to be applied. " By reason of the ignorance of the very true and perfect salvation through the death of Jesus Christ, and by devising and phantasying vain opinions of purgatory and masses satisfactory," said the Parlia- ment, " a great part of superstition and errors in Christian religion hath been brought into the minds and estimations of men " ; and these chantries, trentals, obits, and such foundations, mi^ht be turned to erecting of grammar schools, augmenting of the universities, and providing for the poor and needy. After the ensuing Easter, therefore, they were all to be made over to the king, who might send commissioners to visit, inquire, and confiscate, as his father had been
1547 •] Chantries and Colleges. Ajoi
empowered to do ; but all such commissioners were to be bound, as they should answer before God, to execute their commissions beneficially towards the deans, masters, wardens, incumbents, and ministers of the institutions which they visited, and towards the poor. The property involved in the Bill was not comparable in amount with that which had gone with the monasteries, but it was so mixed and miscellaneous that a momentary hesitation seized a few of the men who had not resisted the suppression of monasteries. Cranmer himself seemed by this time to have had enough of surrenders to the crown on the plea of public advantage. He spoke strongly against the Bill, urging that things should remain as they were until the king should be of age. He is said to have hoped that by the delay of the measure, the chantry lands might be devoted to increasing the livings which had been reduced to poverty in the course of the revo- lution. The Bishop of London, who by this time was out of prison, the Bishops of Durham, Ely, Norwich, Hereford, Worcester, and Chichester, sup- ported the Primate in the first division. In the last division, Cranmer absented himself, Worcester did the like, and Norwich voted with the court.*
The Act condemned to destruction all enilds and fraternities other than the merchant and craft oruilds. Throughout the country there existed combinations of a mingled religious and social nature, which answered to the benefit societies of modern times. These applied their funds to pay a stipendiary for masses, to arrange
* Lingard : Lords' Journals. Heylin has observed that hospitals, which were included in the grant to Henry, were not included in this Act. The omission may have been more than accidental : it may have been due to the opposition in the Commons : but it made no difference : for, when the Act came in force, and the visitation of chantries began in the next year, hospitals were included in the Injunctions of the visitors.
462 Parliament: sweeping [ch. xm.
for the burial of members, to defray the expenses of annual feasts, or the performance of mysteries and pageants. They were the centres of life in towns and villages. To destroy them and seize their property, because their customs and observances were mixed with superstition, touched the people very nearly. It seemed as if there was nothing secure, as if there was to be a universal reversion into private ownership, and an utter abandonment of the old principle of corporate holding, which has always been at the bottom of the institutions that make nations great. Corporate holding has ever been the safeguard of poverty. It has enabled men even to profess poverty, and yet be great.
When the bill came down to the Lower House, it was strongly opposed by some of the members, especially by the burgesses for Lynn and for Coventry.*
* The burgesses were assured at any rate that the guilds of their towns would be respected. The Council promised this, and next year the corporations of Lynn and Coventry took care to remind them of it. The passage in the Council Book is minute and interesting. I am not aware that it has been printed before. " Whereas in the last Parliament holden at Westminster in November the first year of the King's Majesty's reign, among other articles contained in the Act for colleges and chantry lands, &c., to be given unto his Highness, it was also insisted that the lands pertaining to all guilds and brotherhoods within this realm should pass unto his Majesty by way of like gift : At which time divers there being of the Lower House djd not only reason and arraign against that article made for the guildable lands, but also incensed many others to hold with them, amongst the which none were stifier, nor more busily went about to impugn the said Article than the burgesses for the town of Lynn in the county of Norfolk, and the burgesses of the city of Coventry in the county of Warwick ; the burgesses of Lynn alleging that the guild lands belonging to their said town were given for so good a purpose, that is to say, for the maintenance and keeping up of the pier and sea-banks there, which being untended to would be to the loss of a great deal of low ground of the country adjoining, as it were great pity the same should be alienated from them as long as they employed it to so necessary an use : And semblably they of Coventry declaring that where that city was of much fame and antiquity, sometime very wealthy, though now of late years brought unto decay and poverty, and had not to the furniture of the whole multitude of the commons there, being
1 547-] Nature of the Chantry Act. 463
The arguments of these active members would have moved the House to reject the most sweeping clauses
to the number of eleven or twelve thousand houseling people, but two churches wherein God's service is done ; whereof the one, that is to say the Church of Corpus Chn'sti, was specially maintained of the revenues of such guild lands lying only in houses and tenements within the town as had been given heretofore by divers persons to that use, and others no less beneficial to the supportation of that city. If therefore now by the Act the same lands should pass from them, it should be a manifest cause of the utter desolation of the city as long as the people, when the churches were no longer supported nor God's service done therein, and the other uses and employment of these lands omitted, should be of force constrained to abandon the city, and seek new dwelling places which should be more loss unto the King's Majesty by losing so of the yearly fee from them, and subversion of so notable a town than the accrue of a sort of old houses and colleges pertaining to the guilds and chantries of the said city should be of value or profit to his Majesty as long as his Highness should be at more cost with the reparations of the same than the yearly rents would amount unto. In respect of which their allegations and great labours made herein unto the House, such of his Highness's Council as were of the same House, there present, thought it very likely and apparent that not only that article for the guildable lands should be clashed, but also that the whole body of the Act might either sustain peril or hindrance, being already engrossed, and the time of the Parliament's prolongation hard at hand, unless by some good policy the principal speakers against the passing of that article might be stayed. Whereupon they did participate the matter with the Lord Protector's grace and other of the Lords of his Highness's Council : who pondering on the one part how the guildable lands throughout this realm amounted to no small yearly value, which by the article aforesaid were to be accrued to his Majesty's possessions of the crown ; and on the other part weighing in a multitude of free voices what moment the labours of a few settlers had been of heretofore in like cases, thought it better to stay and content them of Lynn and Coventry by granting to them to have and enjoy their guild lands, «S:c., as they did before, than through their means, on whose importance, labour, and suggestions the great part of the Lower House rested, to have the article defaced, and so his Majesty to forego the whole lands throughout the realm. And for these respects, and also for avoiding of the promise which the said burgesses would have added for the guilds to that article which might have ministered occasion to others to have laboured for the like, they resolved that certain of his Highness's Councillors, being of the Lower House, should persuade with the said burgesses of Lynn and Coventry to desist from further speaking or labouring against the said article, upon promise to them that if they meddled no further against it, his Majesty once having the guildable lands granted unto him by the
464 Convocation. [ch. xm.
of the Bill, if they had not been taken off by the court party upon an assurance that the corporate property and lands would be resigned only to be restored. This promise, however, was kept only in a few cases.
On the meeting of the Convocation of Canterbury, the Latin sermon was preached by the new Bishop of Rochester, Nicholas Ridley. This celebrated man has left few remains to vindicate the reputation for theological learning which has been demanded for him by modern biographers. But he was a learned man : in his way he was a moderate man : and certainly he was
Act, as it was . . . unto him, should make them over a new grant of the lands pertaining then unto their guilds, &c., to be had and used to them as afore : which thing the said Councillors did execute, as was desired, and thereby stayed the speakers against it, so as the Act passed with the clause for guildable lands accordingly. And now, seeing that the mayors and others of the said city of Coventry and town of Lynn, by reason of that promise so made unto them, having humbly made suit unto the Lord Protector's grace and Council aforesaid that the same may be performed unto them, which promise his grace and the said Council do think that his Highness is bound in honour to bestow, although it were not so indeed that these lands which belonged to the guild at Lynn cannot well be taken from them, being so allotted and employed to the maintenance of the pier and sea-banks there which of necessity, as was alleged, require daily reparations : no more than the guilds and chantry lands at Coventry upon the aforesaid considerations could conveniently (as was thought) be taken from them without putting the said city to apparent danger of desolation : It was therefore this day ordered, and by the accord and assent of the Lord Protector's grace and others of his Highness's Council decreed, that Letters Patents should be made in due form under the King's Majesty's great seal of England, whereby the said guild lands belonging to the two churches at Coventry should be newly granted unto them of the city for ever : and the lands lately per- taining to the guild of Lynn also granted unto that town for ever, to be used to such like purpose and intent as afore time by force of their grants they were limited to do accordingly." — May, 1548; Council Book MS. in the Privy Council Office. I have modified what I formerly said of this great Act of spoliation, in consequence of a correspondence with Mrs. Creighton. The Act in no particular remained a dead letter, as I formerly thought : but only the religious and social guilds were directly affected by it, not all guilds. Mr. Rogers calls those that were destroyed " the benefit societies of the middle ages." Hist, of Prices, iv. pref. x.
I547-] Character of Ridley : of Holbeach. 465
a man of great resolution. He had been for some years familiar with Cranmer, by whom he had been advanced in Canterbury. His decision of character supported the Primate, the gravity of his manners commended him to all who knew him ; and he rose into notice at a very opportune time for the credit of the Reformation. But his temper had a vehemence which sometimes betrayed him into rashness, and in his nature there was something of severity and even of hardness. He arrived well, however, when the most honest champions of the New Learning were growing old, lukewarm, or disgusted. Holbeach, the prede- cessor of Ridley in Rochester, was now translated to Lincoln. He was a man entirely subservient to the court ; a promoted monk, who had been the last prior and the first dean of Worcester, who had been Latimer's suffragan with the title of Bristol, and had been put forward by Latimer to preach before the late king."^ His character seems to have been insigni- ficant in itself; but he signalised his advancement to his new see by an act which excited some attention even in those days of sacrilege. On the day of his institution he signed away all, or nearly all, the estates of Lincoln : f and it was remarked by the superstition or indignation of the age, that, when he approached to take his throne in his cathedral church, the great tower of the minster, confessing the presence of the
* Latimer's Reinaifis, p. 412.
t Strype says that he alienated thirty-six rich manors, but not by his own fault (iv. 168). The surrender is in Rymer, xv. 66; the fatal day was September 26, 1547. He also alienated the episcopal palace in London. He got in return some impropriations and the hall of Thornton, which he leased the same year to Sir Edward North. Thenceforth that great and venerable diocese consisted " in the propriety of rectories and tithes above all others." In his four years the city churches all went to rack, and most of them were demolished. — Willis.
VOL. IL H h
466 Convocation. [ch.
XIII.
spoiler, suddenly trembled, staggered, and fell down. The liberal Barlow, who had sat successively on St. Asaph and St. David, received about this time a new translation and the see of Bath and Wells. He had been employed in the first part of the year by the Lord Protector to preach up the war with Scotland : of which he could say the more from his former ex- perience in the Scottish embassies of Henry. His new preferment rewarded his services ; but it was not obtained without a consideration ; and the present or bribe of eighteen or nineteen manors of the see, all situate within the county of Somerset, was a con- venient assistance to the maintenance of the dignity of the Duke who protected England.*
The Convocation, which now met, deserves to be memorable in the annals of the Church of England for a bold attempt which the clergy made to recover a long lost privilege, and for the determination which they manifested for the first time since their famous Submission to Henry the Eighth, of making the most of the position which had been left to them, and of exerting the activity which still seemed to be within their scope. The beginning of a new reign inspired them with renewed hopes ; nor was it unreasonable in them to expect to be allowed to end the long sus- pension of the ecclesiastical laws, and to act at least within the narrow limits which had been prescribed to them nearly twenty years before. They took up the constitutional question exactly at the point at which it had been left, and added an important incident to the history of the rights of Convocation. We may rather admire their boldness than wonder that they
* Heylin, who charitably observes that the gift of a part preserved the rest. Both these prelates were married men.
I547-] Petitions of the Clergy, 467
failed at such a time. Their faihire was complete, for they failed even to provoke a struggle, but their attempt was proper, for it was in itself a protest ; they left to posterity the intimation of the skill and know- ledge with which they would have contended, if a contest had been possible ; and they imparted to their fall from power some shadow of the dignity of a continuous and gradual decline.
The Most Reverend and the bishops, soon after they were met, received from the clergy of the Lower House four remarkable petitions. The first was, that ecclesiastical laws might be made and established by a commission of thirty-two persons, according to the statute made so long, and so often and so emptily repeated. The cause which the clergy alleged for their importunity was the danger which, in the un- settled condition of the laws, beset all ecclesiastical judges in their proceedings. The second and most memorable petition was, that the clergy of the Lower House of Convocation might be allowed to sit in the Lower House of Parliament, in the House of Commons, according to the ancient custom of the realm and the tenor of the kinor's writs for the summoningf of Parlia- ment. And, if that could not be granted, they required that statutes and ordinances concerninof reliction and causes ecclesiastical might not be passed in Parliament without their sight and assent. The third of ' their requests was, that the books, which they were informed to have been made by the prelates and doctors com- missioned under the late king to revise the public services in the churches, and to devise an uniform order therein, might be submitted to them. Here they referred, it can scarcely be doubted, to the unpublished " Rationale " which had been prepared by the great Commission which Crumwel had appointed in the
H h 2
468 Sketch of the Parliamentary [ch. xm.
last year of his life. One of the works of that Com- mission, the Necessary Doctrine, had been submitted to Convocation, as we have observed. We have observed also that their other work, the " Rationale," had never seen the light.* The last petition of the clergy was, that men who received any spiritual pro- motion mi^ht have some allowance made for their necessary living and other charges in the first year, when they had to pay the abominable exaction of the firstfruits.f
These Petitions, in all probability, went no further than the archives of the Primate, and of the prelates to whom they were addressed. .But they may have
* See above, p. 311.
t The words of their petitions, as found in the so-called Stillingfleet MS. in Lambeth, were as follows : —
"First. That ecclesiastical laws may be made and established in this realm, by thirty-two persons, or so many as shall please the King's Majesty to name or appoint, according to the effect of a late statute made in the 35th year of the most noble king, and of most famous memory. King Henry VIII., so that all judges ecclesiastical, proceeding after those laws may be without danger and peril.
"Also, that according to the ancient customs of this realm, and the tenor of the king's writs for the summoning of Parliament, which be now, and ever have been, directed to the bishops of every diocese : the clergy of the Lower House of Convocation may be adjoined and associated with the Lower House of Parliament: or else that all such statutes and ordi- nances, as shall be made concerning all matters of religion and causes ecclesiastical, may not pass without the sight and assent of the said clergy.
"Also, that whereas by the commandment of King Henry VIII. certain prelates and other learned men were appointed to alter the service in the Church, and to devise other convenient and uniform order therein, who according to the same appointment did make certain books, as they be informed ; their request is, that the said books may be seen and perused by them, for a better expedition of divine service to be set forth accordingly,
" Also, that men being called to spiritual promotions or benefices may have some allowance for their necessary living and other charges, to be sustained and borne, concerning the said benefices, in the first year wherein they pay the firstfruits."— Wilkins, iv. 15.
I547-] Position of the Clergy. 469
moved in the sensitive mind of Cranmer something of pity or remorse for the fallen state of his humbler brethren : he may have reflected that he had duties to perform towards them, not less than towards the Court and the House of Lords : and it was about this time that he is said to have discovered and exclaimed that the clergy were all become beggars. In that advanced stage of the Reformation, the clergy still retained the memory of the past : and the ques- tions which they raised may enable us to turn for a moment to the scenes of the earlier English freedom. The second, the most important of their Petitions, was constitutional, according to the English antiquity to which they appealed : but perhaps it escaped them that antiquity, in this respect, might be alleged to have been annulled by the legal changes of the last few years. They appealed to the ancient custom of the kingdom, and to the words of the writ which was issued by the king, summoning the clergy to every session of Parliament. From the time of the first and greatest of the Edwards, the bishop of every diocese, in the writ which summoned him to Parlia- ment, was ordered to direct the prior of his cathedral church, the archdeacons of his diocese, one of the proc- tors of the chapter, and two clergy proctors, to attend him thither.* This was a part of the symmetrical
* This was contained in the celebrated clause Prtemunientes, which first appeared in the writ of the year 1295. It ran thus : " Prasmunientes priorem et capitulum ecclesi^e vestrce, archidiaconos, totumque clerum vestrje diocesis, facientes quod ibidem prior et archidiaconi in propriis personis suis, et dictum capitulum per unum, idemque clerus per duos procuratores idoneos, plenam et sufficientem potestatem ab ipsis capitulo et clero habentes, una vobiscum intersint, modis omnibus tunc ibidem ad tractandum, ordinandum et faciendum nobiscum et cum ceteris praelatis et proceribus et aliis incolis regni nostri, qualiter sit hujusmodi periculis et excogitatis malitiis obviandum." There was an equivalent clause in former writs of Edward's reign. — Stubbs, Charters, 471.
470 Sketch of tJie Parliamentary [ch. xm.
remodelling • which the English system received at the hand of that oreat monarch : and he designed that, as the bishops and the baronial abbots sat in the Upper House of Parliament, so the inferior clergy should have their place In the Lower. In this he is believed, and with reason, to have endeavoured to return to the primitive English antiquity which pre- vailed before the Conquest : in which the assemblies of the temporal and of the spiritual estates sat together. But, as in that primitive antiquity the synodal character of the spiritual assembly was preserved, the clergy deliberating and voting apart from the laity when the matter required, so under Edward the synodal cha- racter of the Convocations was not impaired, and they met regularly during his reign, notwithstanding that the clergy were summoned to Parliament. There are in- dications to show that the clergy actually sat by their representatives in the House of Commons down to the end of the fourteenth century — -for a hundred years, that is, after the death of the great king : and the privilege was lost only by disuse, the clergy preferring, as before this time, to vote their aids in their own as- semblies, or Convocations, which concurred in time, but not in place, with the Parliamentary sessions. The clergy now, feeling the dangerous error into which their predecessors had fallen in allowing so valuable a privilege to lapse, endeavoured to retrieve it. They were still summoned to Parliament by the king's writs. Might not these writs have full force restored to them : and, while the Convocations remained with their synodal character untouched, might not the clergy appear once more in those terrible assemblies where the most momentous questions concerning themselves were daily debated and decided without their know- ledge or consent ? This dream, which was probably
I547-] Position of the Clergy. 471
inspired by their great leader, Gardiner,* was suffered to dissipate itself without an awakening touch. But the temporal lawyers, if they had been made aware of it, might perhaps have convinced the clergy that their claim to sit in Parliament was not only obsolete, but that it was become invalid. They might have told them that the writs on which they relied were not of invariable tenor, but that they had received successive alterations, which seemed to mark the wavering influ- ence of the clergy, and to limit their Parliamentary functions, even in the days in which they sat in Parliament.f They might also have argued that a chanee had been introduced since the Submission, which, by implication, did away with the reason of the whole demand. Before the Submission, the clergy had been summoned to their own assemblies, the Convocations, by their archbishops, who issued writs in that behalf. But, after the Submission, it had been
* Gardiner, in one of his letters to the Protector, which Fox has preserved, seems perhaps to intimate that if he had not been put in prison he meant during this parhamentary session to have acted on the letter of the writ, and brought up the proctors of Winchester to sit in the House of Commons ! " I cannot discuss by conjecture why evidence is thus put off in my case that hath been wont commonly to be granted to all men. If it should be of any man through policy to keep me from the Parliament, it were good to be remembered, whether my absence from the Upper House, with the absence of those I have used to name in the Nether House, will not engender more cause of objection, if opportunity serve hereafter, than my presence with such as I should appoint."
t According to the clause Prcemunientes, of 1295, the clergy were summoned to a full share of parliamentary business, '■'ad tractandiim, ordinattdum^ et faciendum." But, in the very next year after the appear- ance of that clause, they were summoned only for the great business of granting money " ad ordinandicm de quantitate et niodo subsidii" Four years afterwards they were summoned, in 1300, " ad facietidum et con- sentienduvi his quce tu?tc de coinmuni consilio ordinari contigeril.'" In later times the writ ran sometimes '^ ad faciendum et consentiendum :" sometimes only " ad consentiendum : " which from the fifth year of Richard II. has been the invariable form.— Hallam, Middle Ages, ii. 263.
472 Convocation. [ch. xm.
enacted that they should be summoned, Hke the temporal assemblies, " only by the authority of the king's writ."* Thus, although in one writ the king might order the bishop of every diocese to bring his representative clergy to Parliament : yet in the other writ, which was issued simultaneously, he summoned the clergy to Convocation, The royal authority and name were now used in both the writs: and thus it seemed to be intimated to the clergy, that, though the one royal writ was allowed to remain unaltered, yet it was abrogated by the other ; that their Convoca- tions were their Parliament, and that they were to have no other.
The clergy, however, were resolved to persevere. After waiting about three weeks, hearing nothing from the bishops, they nominated certain of themselves to inquire what had been done in their suit : intimating, at the same time, that, if need were, they would choose delegates from their own body to act for them, and " effectually follow the same suit in the name of them all."t But now they added another, a more practi-
* 25 Henry VIII. 19. Bishop Stubbs, in his great work, observes that the parliamentary question could only affect those Convocations which were called by the king's command ; and that there were many Convoca- tions not so called before Henry the Eighth. — Const. Hist. iii. 320.
t " In septima sessione (9 Dec.) communi consensu nominati fuerunt solicitatores ad obtinendum effectus sequentes : viz. That the petition made to have this House adjoined to the Lower House of the Parliament may be obtained. Item : that a mitigation of the sore penalty expressed in the statutes against the recusants for the non-payment of the perpetual tenth may be also obtained. And the same day were likewise appointed .... to associate Mr. Prolocutor to my lord of Canterbury to know a determinate answer what indemnity and immunity this House shall have to treat of matters of religion, in cases forbidden by the statutes of the realm to treat in." — Wilk. iv. 16. The words of .their address, which is preserved in the Stillingfleet MS., 1108, in Lambeth, were these :
" Where the clergy in the present Convocation assembled have made humble suit unto the most reverend father in God my lord Archbishop of Canterbury, and all other bishops, that it may please them to be a mean
1 547-] Fitrther Request of the Clergy. 473
cable request. By their Submission, and the Act thereon founded, they were forbidden to treat or deH- berate about ecclesiastical laws without the king's
to the King's majesty and the Lord Protector's grace that the said clergy according to the tenor of the King's writ, and the ancient laws and customs of this noble realm, might have their room and place, and be associated with the Commons in the Nether House of this present Parliament, as members of the commonwealth, and the king's most humble subjects. And if this may not be permitted and granted to them, that then no laws concerning the Christian religion, or which shall concern especially the persons, possessions, rooms, livings, jurisdictions, goods or chattels of the said clergy, may pass nor be enacted, the said clergy not being made privy thereunto, and their answers and reasons not heard : the said clergy do most humbly beseech an answer and declaration to be made unto them, what the said most reverend father in God and all other the bishops have done in this their humble suit and request, to the end that the said clergy, if need be, may choose of themselves such able and discreet persons, which shall effectually follow the same suit in the name of them all.
"And where in a statute ordained and established by authority of Parliament at Westminster, in the twenty-second year of the reign of the most excellent Prince Henry VIII., the clergy of the realm, submitting themselves to the king's highness, did acknowledge and confess accord- ing to the truth, that the convocation of the same clergy hath been and ought to be assembled by the king's writ. And did promise further, in verba sacerdotii, that they never from henceforth would presume to attempt, allege, claim, or put in ure or enact, promulge, or execute any new canons, constitutions, ordinances, provincial or other, or by whatsoever other name they should be called in the convocation, unless the king's most royal assent and licence made to them be had, to make, promulge, or execute the same ; and his majesty to give his most royal assent and authority in that behalf, upon pain of every one of the clergy doing the contrary, and being thereof convict, to suffer imprisonment and make fine at the king's will. And that no canons constitutions or ordinances shall be made, or put in execution within this realm, by authority of the Convocation of the clergy, which shall be repugnant to the king's preroga- tive royal, or the customs, laws, or statutes of this realm. Which statute is eftsoons renewed and established in the 27th year of the reign of the said most noble king, as by the tenor of both statutes more at large will appear. The said clergy being presently assembled in Convocation by authority of the king's writ, do desire that the king's majesty's licence in writing may be for them obtained and granted, according to the effect of the said statute authorising them to attempt, treat, and commune of such matters, and therein freely to give their consents, which otherwise they may not do upon pain of peril promised.
"Also, the said clergy desireth that such matters as concerneth
474 Convocation. [ch. xm.
licence. They requested therefore that the king's licence might be granted to them for that purpose. Herein they sought not, it will be observed, to recover the power which they had lost in the memorable struggle of the former reign — the power of making ecclesiastical laws without the assent of the kine. They endeavoured to make the best of their position ; to take up the question where it had been left, to have the licence granted which, on the terms of the former settlement, might be granted ; and to be allowed "to attempt, treat, and commune" of such matters "as pertained to canons, ordinances, and constitutions to be made," and " to give their consent freely therein," without the overhanging fear of pains and penalties. Whether they meant that the laws to be made should originate with Parliament, or with themselves, or with either indifferently, they left open to construction : but at least they demanded some share in the matter. They attempted furthermore to remonstrate against the growing custom of holding religious disputations in Parliament, representing that disputable matters of religion might be debated with quiet and good order in their own H ouse : " whereby," said they, " the verities of such matters should the better appear, the doubts be opened and resolutely discussed, the consciences of men be fully persuaded, and the time well spent." And here all things slept. The clergy might appoint, nominate,
religion which be disputable, may be quietly and in good order reasoned and disputed among them in this House, whereby the verities of such matters shall the better appear. And the doubts being opened and reso- lutely discussed, men may be fully persuaded with the quietness of their consciences, and the time well spent." — Wilkins, iv. i6.
For a further account of this memorable Convocation see Strype's Cranmer, bk. ii. ch. iv. The " solicitatores " of the clergy were Roland Merrick, John ap Harry, John Williams, and Elizeus Price. Those whom they appointed to accompany the Prolocutor to Cranmer were the Dean of Winchester and Doctor Draycot.
I547-] Communioji in both kinds. 475
expostulate, depute, and inquire as much as they pleased, but no man regarded, and there was none that answered. Their attempt drew no attention : and their assemblies sank into insicrnificance for the rest of this reign. Such was the end of the constitutional struggle between the convocations of the clergy and the temporal estates in the sixteenth century.
As to their other business, the clergy concurred with the Parliament in the only good measures that were passed in this year. The representations which they made to Cranmer assisted the repeal of the Six Articles : they unanimously agreed in the Communion under both kinds :* and they regarded with favour the abolition of celibacy. In their last session they re- solved that all canons, laws, and usages which forbad the marriage of priests or of religious persons should be declared void and of no obligation. Their bill for this purpose was sent to the lay assemblies, where it was carried through the Commons, but lost in the Lords : and the emancipation of the clergy from the yoke of their bondage was deferred to another year.f
In regard to the second of these measures, the Communion in both kinds, we possess, it may be con- jectured not without confidence, some relics of certain deliberations which preceded this renewal of the primi- tive order of the Church : but whether the Convocation bore part in these deliberations (albeit the matter was concurrently before them) seems doubtful. A set of Questions concerning the Mass is extant, with the Answers returned by no fewer than seventeen bishops, that is, by almost the whole of the Upper House; and
* In quinta et sexta sessione hujus synodi, nemine reclamante, com- munio sub utraque specie stabilita fait. — Wilk. iv. i6.
t Collier, Froude, v, 67. Strj'pe says that it was not despatched because it only came into the Lords two or three days before the end of the session (iii. 20).
47^ Convocation : The Questions [ch. xm.
by two doctors, one of whom was the Prolocutor of the Lower House of the clergy. Another, a shorter set, is extant which was answered by three or four of thd bishops : and there is another set without answers. These Questions rangre over the various clerical abuses of the Mass : and investigate the nature and the in- stitution of that high m3^stery. The Answers are learned and moderate : they refer the abuses, which they condemn, to their true origin, not priestcraft and tyranny, but the indifference of the people, who in times past could not be got to come to the Communion, but left the ministers to perform alone in the solitude of empty churches. Beyond doubt they expressed the mind of the clergy in general.*
* These Questions and Answers concerning the Mass were first printed by Burnet from the Stillingfleet MS., ilo8, in the Lambeth Library. He calls them "Queries put concerning some Abuses of the Mass."— C<?//. to Edw. VI. bk. i. no. 25. In the catalogue to the MS. they bear the title "Answers to the Questions concerning the Sacra- ments." (See them also in Jenkyns or in Cranmer's Rem. Park. Soc.) Burnet and also Strype {Cranin. bk. ii. ch. 4.) refer them rightly to this year : Strype to this Convocation. But there are some widespread con- fusions on this whole subject, which it may be well to attempt to remove. I. Burnet, though in an indecisive manner, connects these papers with the latter part of Henry's reign. "Some had been, in King Henry's time, employed in the same business, in which they had made a good progress, which was now to be brought to a full perfection " (pt. ii. bk. i.). 2. Burnet confuses them with the work of the Windsor Commission of next year 1548 (see below, p. 493, 7iote) which drew up the iirst English Com- munion, and the first Prayer Book. Hence it seems to be thought by some excellent modern writers that there was a great liturgic commission sitting at intervals during Henry's last years and Edward's first years— (say from 1540, when Crumwel first appointed his great one) — and that this only ceased to exist when it had given to the nation the first Book of Common Prayer. There seems no reason however to suppose that the Crum- wellian Commission of 1 540-1 543, which made the King's Book, was prolonged after it had done its work. Nor, on the other hand, that these Questions on the Mass, which were answered by nearly the whole of the Upper House of Convocation and the Prolocutor of the Lower, had any official connection with the symmetrical Windsor Commission of six bishops, six doctors, and a president, though some of the persons were the same. However, to come to these Questions themselves. The
f547-]
and Answers on tJie Mass. 477
These
answered
jointly.
The clergy who were in London at this time, as far removed from favour as from power, often found them- selves exposed to insult in the street. Those vigorous
first set of them is ten (or eleven) in number, and they were answered in the following order, as they stand in the MS.
Lincolnensis. Bristollen.
Cantuarien. Eboracen.
Rofifen. Elien.
Ric. Cox. Carliolen.
John Taylor (Prolocutor). London. \
Richard, Bishopp of Coven- Worcester.
try and Lichfield. Hereford.
Wm. Meniven. Norvicen.
Dunelmen. Cicestrien.
Sarisburien. Assaven.
The only signature which gives any clue to the date is that of Richard Sampson, who so proudly writes himself Bishop of Coventry and Lich- field. He was elected to that see from Chichester, February 19, 1543. As the King's Book was passed through Convocation on the following April, it seems impossible to suppose that these Questions were of prior date than that formulary : besides, they breathe a different spirit. But if they be not of prior date, they may be of much later date. Of how much later ? They cannot be of Henry's reign at all ; for the last question in the third or last set of them is, " Why may we rot as well alter the Mass into the English tongue, or alter the ceremonies of the same, as we alter the Communion to be under. both kinds?" This has been pointed out by Jenkyns as fixing the date {Cramn. ii. 178): since to have the Communion in both kinds was the work of the first Convocation and Parliament of Edward VL It fixes the date exactly: the words "we alter" are equivalent to "we are altering" in this year 1547, and on this occasion. If it should be argued that the first set of Questions need not be of this date because the third set is, it may be answered that the first set also contains a decisive proof One of the Questions in that set is, "Whether it be convenient that masses satisfactory should continue, that is to say, priests hired to sing for souls departed." It would have been superfluous to have asked this after the session of 1547, which destroyed chantries. But was the stxond set also of this date ? Yes ; for it was sent to the same bishops who had answered the first s&t jointly : London, Worcester, &c. Their combination was suspicious, or their first answers were not satisfac- tory, and they got a second paper to answer. This is plain on inspection. At first, e.g. they, and they alone, used the word Prcsentaiion. They were asked in the second set, " What thing is the Presentation of the Body and Blood of Christ, which (is what) you call the Oblation and Sacrifice of Christ ? " How, again, came the three northern bishops to answer the Questions .' They were in the south to attend Parhament, and perhaps
478 The hjiage IVav. [ch. xm.
theologians, the London prentices, when they saw a priest, or a scholar habited in his gown, would presently " revel " or mob him, toss him, snatch away his cap or tippet, and otherwise molest him ; and to such a pass was this disorder carried, that an Order in Council was issued to check it.* By the same authority the ardour with which the war against imagoes continued to be waged required to be moderated. An invading army attacked and laid prostrate, without licence and without distinction, all the images that could be reached, though many, perhaps most of those images were non-combat- ants, that is, they had never been abused by super- stition. All such as these the Council at first ordered to be set up again ; but, on second thoughts, they remitted the matter to the Lord Protector, who was then in Scotland. The images were not set up again. It appeared, moreover, that in several churches the bells, plate, and jewels had been seized and sold, upon a presumption of leave. Order was taken for the punishment of this offence ; and Bonner was directed to inquire what might have become of the money. f
The General Visitation, meanwhile, appears to have been proceeding throughout the winter. The Visitors, wherever they went, suspended all the ordinary authorities ; they summoned before them bishops, deans, chapters, the chantry and stipendiary priests,
the Questions were given to all the bishops in their Parliamentary capacity ; but the subject was certainly before Convocation also, for it agreed unanimously on Communion in both kinds. But it is my opinion that it was only the principle of communion in both kinds that was now adopted, not the form. The form or Order of Communion was the work of the following year and of the Windsor Commission : these Questions had nothing to do with the Windsor Commission.
* Collier, ii. 239 (ist Ed.).
t Ibid. The certificate returned by the churchwardens of Bonner's diocese, " of the sale of all the church plate, ornaments, jewels, bells, and vestments " belonging to the churches, and of the appropriation of the pro- ceeds, is still in the Record Office. — CaL, Stat. Pap. Domestic, i. p. 12.
I547-] The General Visitation. ^yg
and all the other officers of every cathedral church, and required them to produce their charters, indentures, statutes, foundations, dotations, licences, installations, collations, letters of orders, and all other instruments, on pain of contempt. They then commanded these higher dignitaries to bring before them in turn all heads of colleges, rectors, vicars, chantry priests, chap- lains, stipendiaries, and schoolmasters ; and out of every parish eight, six, or four of the principal lay- men. The oaths of fidelity and allegiance, the oath against the cruel, pretensed, usurped, diabolical, and feigned authority of the Bishop of Rome, were exacted, as in the days of Henry, and the truth of all things was strictly required.* The Visitors ministered their Injunctions, and vended their Homilies and Para- phrases ; and besides these, they were furnished with Articles to be inquired, divided into three sets, accord- ing to the dignity of the persons brought before them. Of the bishops and others having jurisdiction ecclesi- astical it was inquired whether they were excessive in excommunicating, in suspending or forbidding divine service in parishes, in calling men before them ex officio, and in other branches of their office ; and in particular, whether they had " the English procession " or Litany, said or sung in their churches. Of the parsons it was asked, besides the usual questions of the King and the Bishop of Rome, whether they retained abused images in their churches, whether there were any shrines left, " or any other monuments of idolatry, superstition, and hypocrisy ; " whether they had the Bible of the largest volume in their churches ; whether they declared to their people the true use of images and of ceremonies ; and, whether they observed in all points the former Injunctions of Henry
* Wilkins, iv. 17.
480 The General l^isitation. [ch. xm.
and Crumwel ; as, in keeping a scholar at the uni- versity out of every hundred pounds of their benefices ; in having a book or register of weddings, christenings, and buryings ; and so on. They were also asked whether they had " the procession book in English," and whether they used any other Litany than that which was therein. The laymen were demanded whether decency in every branch were observed in their churches and parishes ; whether they knew any executors of wills who were unfaithful, especially in distributing money left to the poor ; and to what purpose the gifts and bequests of cattle or money, which had been made in times past to find tapers, candles, or lamps, were now employed. They were also asked whether the laudable customs of the Church, which were still allowed — holy water, holy bread, crosses of wood, blessing with the holy candle, and the rest — which were enumerated in the Injunctions, were on the one hand broken, or on the other hand abused. But it would not have escaped the acute Gardiner, if he had seen these Articles, that these allowed ceremonies were rehearsed in such a manner that it seemed impossible to use them without abusing them.* The vigour of the Visitation, in which he bore a part, made joy in the heart of John Old. He, being the register of the party of Visitors who took the dioceses of Peterborough, Oxford, Lincoln, and Lich- field, has left on record the impressions which he received from the things which he observed. He
* These Articles are given fully in Strype, iii. 75. As a contribution to the disputed point of the times of service in the churches, it may be noted that in one of them it is asked, "Whether matin mass and evensong be kept in due hours in the church." Strype seems to imply that Cranmer used these articles in a Visitation of his own diocese, which he held next year. — Life of Cranm. bk. ii. ch. ix. On this point see below, p. 513.
^547-] Threatening Incidents. 481
found the vulgar everywhere glad to hear the pure Word of God, and obediently to receive the King's Injunctions. If afterwards they changed from this disposition (nor could it be denied that some of them did) he declared the fault to lie with their curates and ministers, who were triflers and hinderers : and with certain malicious ear-whisperers, who seduced them. Nevertheless the priests were not all triflers and hinderers and sinister resisters. Some of them he found to be honest and diligent well-wishers of the truth. But there was, as he noted, another kind of priests also : the Laodicean messengers, who were neither hot nor cold, who smelt neither too much of the Gospel nor too little of Popery : but studied to please all for the sake of their pelf and promotions. The diocese of Lincoln, added Old, was a favoured region, and must increase in honesty by the laborious ministry and uniform concurrence in doctrine of the bishop and the dean. But indeed, as the Dean of Lincoln, Doctor Taylor, happened to be one of the Visitors, the concurrence between him and Bishop Holbeach may be seen to have been the more fortunate. Besides the bishop and the dean, there was in those parts the helping forwardness of that devout woman of God, the Duchess of Suffolk.*
In other parts the Visitors encountered reluctance, or even opposition. In the north a college called Kirkwall had formerly refused to surrender, and the master and fellows had been before the Council. Their disobedience would have been severely punished, but that now they yielded, and seemed sorry for their
* Prologue to Epist. to Ephes. in the Paraphrase. Strype, iii. 83. The Duchess of Suffolk, the widow of Charles Brandon, was "an ex- cellent woman, a great professor and patroness of true religion." Strj'pe, iii. 202. At Grimsthorp Castle in Lincolnshire, where she lived, she afterwards entertained Latimer to preach to her family.
VOL. IL I i
482 Proclamation agamst Irreverence, [ch. xm.
former obstinacy. They were returned and continued on the premises for the present : and in the mean time an inventory was taken of their goods. In Cornwall the parishioners of Penrith rose in tumult when the Visitors came to take an inventory of the jewels of their church : but this first muttering of the great religious risings of the west was appeased by a letter of Council, in which the people were assured that the intent of the commission was to prevent the em- bezzling of the jewels, and preserve them for the Church.* Indeed, as the Act for giving colleges and chantries to the King came not into force before the ensuing May, the object of the Visitation was rather to gather information than to urge surrenders.
The force of royal proclamations had been dimin- ished : but at the end of the year there came out a Proclamation against irreverent talkers of the Sacra- ment, which recalled the edicts of Henry by containing unspecified penalties. In this manner it was deemed necessary to corroborate the Act which the Parliament had passed about the same time to the same effect. The high mystery of the Sacrament continued to be discussed rashly and superfluously : concerning the Presence of the Body and Blood of Christ questions were asked of which the most inoffensive were, whether it were real or figurative, " having quantity and great- ness, or but substantially, and by substance only ; or else but in a manner or figure of speaking :" while others were shockingly profane. Sermons were made in churches, and tumults in alehouses and markets,
* These examples are given by Collier from the Council Book. To them may be added another. John Bost of Wickham was committed to the Fleet by the Council, and enjoined to make open and solemn declaration at Wickham of his fault, that he had "spoken and done in- conveniently against the taking down of images abused in the church of Wickham." 29 Nov. 1547. — Council Book MS. ^. 2^\.
I547-] Gratification of tJie RicJt. 483
in which the Sacrament was reviled and contemned : and irreverent and contemptuous questions were put to those who were content with the received faith, to their annoyance and scandal. For remedy, it was forbidden that any person should, in teaching or disputing of the Sacrament, affirm or deny any more terms concerning it than were taught in Holy Scrip- ture, or mentioned in the late Act of Parliament, until the King by the advice of his Council and clergy "should define, declare, and set forth an open doctrine thereof; and what terms and words might justly be spoken thereby other than be expressly in the Scripture contained, in the act before rehearsed." The new Order of Communion, the first great work of the liturgic reformation, was in fact about to appear. Against all offenders, the King's high indignation and punish- ment at his pleasure was threatened : the justices were commanded to execute the proclamation at their peril.* The pretence or the necessity of fulfilling the will of King Henry, gave the occasion of much gratifica- tion of the rich during the first year of his son. Besides the Seymours and the Dudleys, there were others who mounted as the foot of Fortune turned her wheel : and Paget, Denny, Herbert, Manners, the Earl of Shrewsbury, the Duke of Norfolk, were among those who betjan or continued to be beneficiaries
* Proclamation concerning irreverent talkers of the Sacrament, 27 December, 1547. Wilkins, iv. 18 ; Strype, iii. 127. Some of the things said in this proclamation to have been asked about the Sacrament it would be impossible to quote. The question which was the most shocking, when it was pursued into particulars, was. How the Body of Chfist was present. The way in which this was argued excited the indignation of Ridley to such a degree, that in a sermon which he preached at Paul's Cross in the November of this year, he " called them worse than dogs and hogs that would assert the question, How He was there present." Strype, iii. 108 ; Fox, 1st Edition, p. 730, But these horrible profanities were the outcome of the corporeal doctrine.
I i 2
484 Frugal Donations to Sees. [ch. xm.
of the monastic sites and manors.* On the other hand, by way of making good the same instrument, some parsimonious donations were made to some of the bishoprics and chapters, in consideration of the possessions which had been taken from them, hitherto without recompense : and in particular the deeply plundered see of Norwich received the site of the cathedral church with all the jewels and implements thereto belonging. But many of these gifts were in the way of forced exchange.!
* Paget got Noctelle in Bucks, and Hermondsworth in Middlesex: Sir Anthony Denny, a remarkable new monastic, got Waltham, and the whole of Sibton : Sir William Herbert, Malpas in Monmouth : Sir Richard Manners, Tonge College in Shropshire, a glorious old place still : Shrewsbury got Tukhill in Yorkshire : Norfolk got Thetford and another college in Norfolk. Tan7ier. The list of the gratified may be extended by looking at Strype, iii. 123: who quotes King Edward's Book of Sales, but gives no particulars.
+ Holbeach of Lincoln received five or six manors and a mansion in return for some of the possessions which he resigned. Heath of Worcester got back two or three manors and rectories, late parcel of his cathedral church : Sampson, now of Lichfield, Cranmer, and the chapters of Worcester, Winchester, St. Paul's and Eton College made forced exchanges at a disadvantage. But the new diocese of Oxford was enriched by grants to about four hundred pounds a year. Strype, iii. 117.
CHAPTER XIV.
A. D. 1548.
The return of Latimer to public life in the capacity of a licensed preacher* illustrated the beginning of
* There is in the Record Office a paper entitled " The names of certain persons that have had Hcense to preach under the Ecclesiastical seal since July in anno 1547." This list is corrected and endorsed in Cecil's hand. It is a long, but not complete one, of the licensed preachers. It is printed in Lang's Knox's Works, preface, vi. It is as follows :
Baldwin Norton, M.A.
Doctor Parker, D.D.
Rd. Queene.
Doctor Eglyombye.
Wm. Levement, Chaplain to the
Lady Anne of Cleve. Jn. Whitehead, B.D. Wm. Chamberlaine. Rt. Wilkes, B.D. Edw. Robinson, M.A. Jn. Bythe, Scottishman, M.A. Hugh Sewell, M.A. Gilbert Barkley. Henry Parrye. Thomas Beaton. Edmond Allen. Cardmaker. Hugh Latimer, D.D. Rowland Taylor, D.L. Wm. Byll, D.D. Godfrey Gibbon, B.D. Christopher Threadder. Doctor Coxe. Mr. Gilpin, M.A. Rich. Coxe, D.D.
Thos. Cottisford, Student in Divinity. Lawrence Taylor. Henry King, D.D.
Leonarde Coxe.
Thos. Roose.
Jn. Gibbes, B.D.
Rt. Home, B.D.
Thos. Lever, M.A.
Thos. Brickhedd, B.D.
Edwin Sandes.
Wm. Rede, Vicar of Grantham.
Wm. Claybourghe, D.D.
Rt. Watson, Prof. D.
Jn. Ruthe, Scottishman.
Harry Parry.
Alex. Logan, M.A.
James Pilkington, M.A.
Jn. Whitewell, B.D.
Jn. Keyron, M.A.
Thomas Gilham, Scot. B.D.
Stephen Clarke.
John Madewe, M.A.
Thos. Baley, B.D.
Mathew Parker, D.D.
Andrew Perne, B.D.
Henry Wilshaw, B.D.
Rt. Leighbourne, B.A.
John Knoxe, Scot.
Jn. Mackbraier, Scot. M.A.
Nich. Daniel, M.A.
Jn. Bradford, Clerk.
486 Latimer rettirns to public life. [ch. xiv.
the year with an event which was not insignificant. His abstinence from the pulpit had reached the severe duration of eight years, when on the first day of January, 1548, he preached at Paul's Cross the first of his later sermons and of a course which was continued weekly to the end of the month. Of the discourses which he delivered in this series there remains but one, the celebrated sermon " Of the Plough," or rather a part of it : a sermon in admiring which we must make some allowance for the broken condition of the man, his former troubles, and the honest tumult of his opinions.* In this disjointed but animated declamation
Henry Syddeale, B.D. Thos. Bernarde, M.A.
Christopher Threadder, Student in Eduiond Gest, B.D.
Divinity. Jn. Willocke, M.A.
Rt. Banks, M.A. Jas. Haddon, M.A.
Jn. Appleby, Clerk. Wm. Huett, M.A.
Wm. Hulton, M.A. Lancelot Thexton, M.A.
Edmond Pierpoint, B.D. Thos. Sampson, Clerk.
Wm. Cholwell, Student in Divinity. Jn. Sewell, Clerk. Laurence Saunders, Professor of Adam Sheppard, B.D.
Divinity. Alexander Novvell.
Rt. King, D.D. Rich. Taverner.
Rich. Hide, M.A. Henry Hamilton.
Wm. Turner, Student of Divinity. Edmond Gryndale, B.D.
Henry Marshall, M.A.
The licenses of fourteen of these preachers are mentioned in Strype's last chapter : and he mentions some others that are not here : viz. : Wm. Ayland, B.D. Jn. Madswel, B.D.
Thos. Bernard, M.A. Jn. Parkhurst.
Miles Wilson, M.A. Guy Eton.
* The fluctuations of Latimer, to whose real character I wish to pay real reverence, were described about this time by the advanced Traheron to the vigilant Bullinger. "As to Latimer, though he does not clearly understand the true doctrine of the Eucharist, he is nevertheless more favourable than Luther or even Bucer. I am quite sure that he will never be a hindrance to this cause. For, being a man of admirable talent, he sees more clearly into the subject than the others, and is desirous to come into our sentiments, but is slow to decide, and cannot without much diffi- culty and even timidity renounce an opinion which he has once imbibed- But there is good hope that he will some time or other come over to us altogether." Aug. i, Orig. Lett. 320.
1548.] His Sermon of the Plough. 487
it seems evident that the shadow of the past lay on him, and perturbed his sense of the present. He cuts both ways. At one moment he touches the real evils of the times, avarice and corruption let loose, and the starvation of public interests through private gain. The next moment he is inveighing against the old superstitions and abuses which were gone, or were going as fast as they could. He speaks of things that were not as if they were ; of the Italian bishop, as if the Italian bishop had been acknowledged still in England ; of purgatory pickpurse, as if the Reformation were but at the beginning ; of bishops taking embassies in foreign courts, as if the reign of Henry had not reached an end. In the midst of general and perhaps vague exhortations to repentance he deals some honest strokes against particular vices ; and in vehemently attacking what none now defended, he introduced some opportune laudation of more recent proceedings. Throughout his discourse it mio^ht be observed that he used the frequent word prelate as equivalent to one having cure of souls — an ambiguity which enabled him both to gratify a part of his auditory, and to imply the bishops in the denunciations which seemed to be levelled against the general body of the clergy. But this arose not from design, but from the peculiarity of his own position, who was a bishop without a see, a prelate, and yet nothing but a preacher. He seems to have thought preaching to be the remedy of all things.
" A preacher is a ploughman," said Latimer ; " a prelate is a ploughman ; and hard work it is to break the clods, and yet give no offence. The prelate, the preacher, hath hard work to bring his parishioners to a right faith, a lively faith, a justifying faith, a faith that maketh a man righteous without respect of works,
488 Latmiev's Sermon of the Plough, [ch. xiv.
as it is very well set forth in the Homily. It is hard work, and prelates ought to have good livings. The Scripture calls preaching meat that is wanted every day — not strawberries, or dainties that come but once a year ; and the faithful and wise servant is he that giveth the people their meat in due season, that is, con- tinually. But how few of them be of the sort, his Majesty's Visitors best can tell. Never so few as now. Of prelates of the other sort, of those who have any cure, of bishops, how many there be in England, good Lord for thy mercy! We have lording loiterers, un- preaching prelates, placed in palaces, couched in courts, ruffling in their rents, dancing in their dominions, bur- dened in embassies, pampering their paunches, moiling in their manors. Should ministers of the church be lord presidents ; should they be controllers of the mint ? Who controls the devil in their parishes ? Paul was not a sitting bishop, but a walking and preaching bishop ; howbeit he walked not on worldly business, leaving his plough behind him. There are, thank God, nobles and gentlemen in England fit by learning for these offices. It were a slander to say otherwise. The best ploughman in the realm is the devil. He is always in his parish : he keeps his residence. With him it is away with books, and up with beads ; away with the light of the Gospel, and up with the light of candles ; yea, it is roundly, up with all superstition and idolatry, censing, painting of images, palms, ashes, and holy water ; up with pur- gatory pickpurse, down with Christ's Cross ; let all things be done in Latin, nothing but Latin : God's Word may in no wise be translated into English. Woe worth thee, O devil! That Italian bishop yonder is thy chaplain ; and has prevailed to make us believe vain things by his pardons, to frustrate Christ's
1548.] He laments the evils of the times. 489
sole merits of His passion. And when the King's Majesty and his honourable Council go about to promote God's glory, and set an order in religion, there are blanchers among us who defend abuses, and say that they be but little things, that the people will not bear sudden alterations, and that insurrection may follow, to the peril of the realm." Thus Latimer gave whether his loquacity or his eloquence to please the great ; and yielded his approbation to the violence which was convulsing England. And yet, by his showing, the effects of the Reformation hitherto seemed not very satisfactory.
" The rich citizens of London," for he proceeded, " I must not say the proud, the malicious, the merciless men of London — no, no, that would give offence. But this I will say : that there is in London as much pride, covetousness, cruelty, oppression, and supersti- tion as ever there was in Nebo. Ye, rulers and officers, do your duties, and amend your ill living. London was never so ill as it is now. In times past men were full of pity and compassion ; but now there is no pity. In London their brother may lie in the streets for cold, and perish with hunger between stock and stock. I know not what to call it. In time past, when a rich man died, they were wont to help the poor scholars at the universities with exhibition : they would bequeathe great sums of money to the relief of the poor. In those days they maintained papists, and gave them livings. But now, when God's Word is brought to light, none helpeth the scholar nor the poor. The King hath a great many wards, and there is a Court of Wards. Why is there not a school for the wards, as well as a court for their lands ? For the love of God, appoint teachers and schoolmasters, ye that have the charge of youth ; and give the teachers
490 Various Proclamations and Orders, [ch. xiv.
stipends worthy their pains. What man is there that will let go his private commodity for the common- wealth ? Who will sustain any damage for the public commodity ? If you would leave to be merciless, and begin to be charitable, then I might speak well of you. But the same God who judged Nebo still lives. Oh, London, London, I call thee to repentance ! Repent, repent, oh, London, London!"*
A rapid shower of Orders of Council, letters missive, and royal proclamations, which sometimes seemed to abrogate one another, bewildered the nation from the beginning of the year ; and seemed in some points to assist, to retard in others, the progress of the Reformation. The first of the series, a royal Pro- clamation for the observance of Lent, indicated the expediency of abstinence from flesh, not as an act of religion, but for the good of the fisheries and the increase of cattle ; complaining that men were more inclined to break the old customs than ever before, and threatening high displeasure, arbitrary imprison- ment, and unspecified penalty, as if the Act of Pro- clamations had never been repealed. At the same time all rich or influential persons were saved from incon- venience by an extravagant system of licenses, by which they were allowed to eat on fasting days what-
* The same account of the state of London, the same exclamations, the same imputing of evil to the wrong causes, may be seen in a " Lamentation against London" printed at Nuremburg at this time. "Oh, ye citizens, if ye would turn but the profits of your chantries, of your obits, to the finding of the poor in a politic and godly provision ! London hath an in- numerable number of poor people forced to go from door to door, and to sit openly in the streets a begging. Ye will give six, seven, eight, yea, twelve pounds a year to one of them to sing a chantry. Under heaven is not so little provision made for the poor as in London." Ap. Stow, Siiriiey, i. 195. ' But misconception reached the height when a well- informed antiquary hke Stow actually imputed this destitution, not to the Reformation itself, but to the previous days of Popery !
1548.] Rest rami of preaching begun. 491
ever they liked best* Other parts of the old religion went more rapidly ; great things and small sailed down the common flood, and what seemed standing fast on one day was set adrift the next. Ashes and palms and candles on Candlemas day, which had been allowed a few months before in the Injunctions, now by a sudden Order of Council were forbidden. f A royal Proclamation against innovation came out a week after this, forbidding, under high displeasure and penalties, any person from altering or omitting any of the rites and ceremonies of the Church of England which were allowed by the Injunctions and Proclama- tions of the King, or by the statutes of Parliament. But in defendingf allowed ceremonies, occasion was taken to abrogate one or two more of them ; and now creeping to the cross on Good Friday, holy bread and holy water went after palms, ashes, and Candlemas candles. This great measure had been meditated as the next step in the Reformation when Henry died.j It is more important, however, to observe that the same edict began the restraint of preaching which was so remarkable a feature of an age of liberty ; and applied or perverted, with some increase of vigour, the ancient and admirable system of licenses to the purposes of the present policy. The bishops and clergy were forbidden to preach elsewhere than in' their own cures; none other might preach but licensed preachers, who might have their licenses not only from the archbishop, or from the bishop of the see, but also from the King or from his Visitors,^ A
* January i6, Strype, iii. 127, iv. 243 ; Heylin ; Wilkins, iv. 20. The language of this Proclamation was repeated in an Act of Parliament at the end of the year. See the end of this chapter.
t January 18, Burnet, Heylin, Collier, Wilkins, iv. 23.
X See above, p. 364.
§ February 6, Burnet (Coll. 22) has given, but Strj'pe (iv. Rep. O.) has
492 End of the Image Wav. [ch. xiv.
week after this came an Order of Council for the removal of all images whatsoever from the churches ; and thus the impossible distinction between images that were and that were not abused, which had been maintained so long, was dropped at last ; the breach was laid open for the general assault. There was probably truth in the reasons alleged for this : that fierce contention arose everywhere about images, whether this or that of them had been abused by kissing, censing, offerings, or pilgrimages ; and that many images, which by the tenor of the Injunctions had been taken down, were set up again when the Visitors were gone. But the total destruction of them was ordered, before for the purpose to which they had served in an unlettered age they were confessed to be no longer needful.*
In the midst of these changes the first great work of the liturgic Reformation was ushered into light. At the beginning of the year, in the month of January, a commission of bishops and doctors had been nomi- nated by the Council, on the implied authority of the late Act for the administration of the Eucharist in both kinds, to compose an Order of Communion in the English tongue.f In the list of the bishops, the familiar names of Cranmer, Goodrich, Ridley, and Holbeach exhibited the prevalence of the New Learn- ing ; to Thirlby, a little Gardiner, was added on the other side the weight of Skip and of Day, the new incumbents of Hereford and Chichester, of whom the
somehow omitted in this Proclamation the clause about creeping to the cross, holy bread, and holy water. It is given in Wilkins, iv. 21. The restraint of preaching was carried much farther in the course of the year. See towards the end of this chapter. Under the old system a bishop might preach anywhere and not in his own cure only.
* February 11. Burnet, Coll. 23. Wilkins, iv. 22. Most of these orders and proclamations are in Cranmer's Works, Park. Soc. and in Cardwell's Document. Ann. t Strype, iii. 134.
1548.] The Windsor Commission. 493
latter was the more notable. But the real leaders of the old party, Gardiner himself, the veteran Tunstall, and Heath, the now suspected bishop of Worcester, were omitted from the commission. The doctors were May, Cox, Taylor, Haines, Robertson, and Redman : of whom the first four may be regarded as somewhat advanced reformers : the last two, of whom the one was Archdeacon of Leicester, the other master of Henry's great foundation of Trinity College in Cambridge, were men of the Old Learning — if by the Old Learning be now understood the settlement or Pacification of Henry the Eighth.* The whole com- mission therefore consisted of thirteen, of six bishops, six doctors, and the presiding primate : and this number, this constitution was maintained in the future and greater works of the liturgic Reformation. They met in Windsor Castle through the winter : the Com- munion Book was completed by March, and came forth, heralded by a Proclamation, in which, after repeating part of the language of the late Act of Parliament concerning the Eucharist, the young King was made to warn his subjects from their rash desires of reformation : to bid them follow authority, not their own fantasies : and to promise further measures in the ordering of religion. f
* The Windsor Commission :
Canterbury : Ely. May.
Rochester. Cox.
Lincoln. Taylor.
Westminster. Haines.
Hereford. Robertson.
Chichester. Redman.
t The book bore date of March 8, see Liturgies of Ediv. VI. It was printed by Grafton, and bore the simple title of " The Order of the Com- munion." As to the commission which drew it up, usually called the Windsor Commission, I have already given reasons for thinking that Burnet was
494 The Liturgic Reformation. [ch. xiv.
This Sacramentary was a monument of the care and caution with which the Hturgic reformation, which was committed to the clergy, was conducted, in com- parison of the unscrupulous recklessness with which the more tangible parts of the ancient system were assailed. Hesitating to divulfje the orreat Catholic mystery, the selected theologians allowed the Mass, the actual oblation and consecration, to remain in Latin, only adding, or rather interfusing, an English complement of exhortations and directions addressed to the communicants. They forbad the
mistaken in referring the " Questions on the Mass," which he printed from the so-called Stillingfleet MSS., to this commission. [See above, p. 476-) Burnet's error (which arose out of the notion of a long-continued liturgic commission in the last years of Henry and the beginning of Edward, to which were to be referred the various fragments of originals that remain) has influenced most, perhaps all, of the other writers. I, Various unsatisfactory explanations have been hazarded to show how some former body was finally resolved into the compact conclave of Windsor ; and yet the Privy Council declared that the Windsor Commis- sion was appointed in consequence of the Act of Edward's first year for receiving in both kinds, without mention of any previously existing body. Letter to Bishops on the neiu Comniunioft Book, March 15, in Fox and Collier (ist ed. ii. 246) ; see below also. Or sometimes the names of the Windsor Commission and those of the Answerers of the Questions on the Mass are all flung together, as if they had been all the same. 2, A curious theory has been upbuilt : that a small commission of two bishops and six clergy of the Lower House of Convocation, which was proposed in 1543, for examining the old service books, was continued throughout Henry's reign, but was restrained from public action by fear of the Six Articles ; but that as soon as freedom of action was restored by the repeal of the Six Articles, this dormant commission sprang into vigour, was increased by the addition of as many bishops as there were doctors, and became the Windsor Commission, of six of each other, which did so much work now, in 1548. Archdeacon Freeman was, so far as I know, the author of this theory, which has been accepted by several modern writers. He speaks of the commission being standing, dormant, terrified by the Six Articles, but continuing nevertheless from first to last, and thus " imparting the stamp of organic wholeness as well as of conventional authority on the entire process of revision." Principles, ii. 108. Unfortunately the founda- tion on which all this is built is very sandy. Of the commission of 1543 we only know that it was proposed and not appointed. See p. 315 of this volume.
1548.] First EnglisJi Order of Communion. 495
priest to vary from the old rites and ceremonies of the Mass, " until other order should be provided." The elements were to be prepared in the usual way ; and the only direction that it was deemed necessary to give in full on this point, seemed to show the resolu- tion of preserving antiquity. As, in accordance with the recent ordinance, the Sacrament was to be received in both kinds, it was considered expedient to order explicitly that, as the priest was not to finish the wine himself, the wine should be poured into the biggest cup "with some water put into it," as before. In another point the spirit of the age was more discernible. With the English language, there was introduced, for the first time in the celebration of the Mass, a general confession to be repeated by all the people ; and this general confession might be said either by the priest, by one of the other ministers, or by a layman. In antiquity, the confessions or Apologise in the Mass, were said secretly by the priest, and added to the clerical character of the service ; the people who com- municated, had generally made their confessions before they came.* This was the first open stroke that was made by authority against secret or auricular con- fession. The general confession in the church, though not substituted for the private act, was formally allowed instead of it ; and so conscious were the compilers of the Order of the innovation that they were making, that they deemed it necessary to exhort to mutual charity those who accepted and those who might decline the offered alternative. " Let not," said they, " such as shall be satisfied with a general confession be offended with those that doth use, to their further satisfying, the auricular and secret confession to the priests ; nor those who think needful to the quietness
* Scudamore's Not. Eucharist, 446.
49^ The Liturgic Reformation. [ch. xiv.
of their own consciences further to lay open their sins to the priest, be offended with those that are satisfied with their humble confession to God, and the general confession in the church." Upon the whole the new Order invaded rather than assaulted the old stronghold. The English language was marshalled around the Latin ; the clerical appearance of the service, for the Mass was the service of the clergy, was diminished by the various changes which have been described, in which the priest's part was modified in modifying the part of the people. If the people shared the cup with the priest, the priest shared the cup with the people ; in the large additions concerning the communicants the priest bore his part ; in the general confession he either led or followed the voices of the cono"reeation. These changes, though introduced with skill, were felt at the time to be very great. Whether, according to the phrase that was used, they " altered the Mass into a Communion," or added a Communion to the Mass, the reader must determine for himself.*
The English part of the work was mainly derived from a foreign model — from the "Consultation" of the well-known Hermann, the Elector Archbishop of Cologne, whose attempted reformation of his church,
* The phrase, like the project, of " altering or turning the Mass into a Communion " came, as we have seen, from the latter years of Henry. It is repeated by writers without any explanation, as if nobody could see it without knowing in a moment what it meant. But it is very difficult to determine exactly what it may mean. The English parts of the new Order were the same as in the present Prayer Book (except a few varia- tions,) viz., the Notice before Celebration, the Exhortation, the Invitation, the Confession and Absolution, and the Comfortable Words. At the end of the Exhortation, the priest was to warn all open blasphemers, advou- terers, envious or malicious persons who felt themselves unrepentant, to bewail their sins yet a while, and not to come to the holy table. He was then to pause, to see if any would withdraw himself, and then proceed with the words "Ye that truly and earnestly," 6cc.
1548.] First English Order of Commimion. 497
whose condemnation by the Council of Trent, whose deprivation by the Emperor Charles, were among the notable events of the age. For the composure of his work Hermann was chiefly indebted to the moderate Lutheran Bucer. Into the narrative of the affairs of Cologne Bucer inserted a body of divinity and ritual, drawn in great part from the Lutheran standard, the liturgy given to the Church of Nuremburg by Luther himself. The work, which had been translated into English about three months before, was used, but with discretion, by the English liturgists.* From the beginning it was the Communion service which felt most strongly the influence of contemporary foreigners.
Copies of this new Order of Communion were sent to all the bishops, to be distributed to the clergy ; and the Council exhorted them to use all diligence, not- withstandinor the devices of the devil and the reluctance of the curates, or of some of them, to have " one uniform manner quietly used " in every part of the realm. t But the immediate effect was to bring in greater variety and discord ; more especially, it is said, in some of the cathedral churches, where the inferior clergy evaded the new Order so far as they could. Some of the bishops also, Gardiner, Bonner, Voysey, and Sampson, who had no share in the composition, were negligent in the enforcement of the book.|
At the same time that the new book came into use, at Easter, the Act for giving chantries to the King came into operation ; a new Visitation was begun, and this Visitation may be conjectured to have
* The care and skill with which the English Commission adapted or improved Hermann's Consultation is exhibited in Mr. Proctor's History of the Prayer Book, and in Mr. Scudamore's elaborate Notitia Eucharistica.
t March 13, Fox, Collier.
;J; Heylin.
VOL. II. K k
498 The Suppression of Chantries, [ch. xiv.
been made in a new manner. The incessant Pro- clamations, Orders, and Letters of the last few months had created in the country a wide feeling of disquiet, and above all the dread of fresh exactions.* The nation, released from the terror of Henry, was begin- ning to frown and move under rulers as violent but less known for inflexibility and bloody ruthlessness. It mioht therefore have been a dangerous service for parties of commissioners to appear again, making their demands and pursuing their investigations every- where, so soon after the torture and death of the monasteries. Instead of commissioners or visitors, therefore, it would seem that Injunctions were sent by the Council into every parish, to four honest persons at the least, such as the priests and the churchwardens, who were to be neither founders, patrons, nor farmers of the chantries and fraternities under question. f These persons were enjoined to inquire how many chantries and stipends of priests : how many hospitals, free chapels, fraternities, brotherhoods, and guilds, liable to pay firstfrults and tenths, there might be within the walls of their church or the boundaries of their parish : how they were used or abused : for
* Fuller and Heylin both affirm that the renewal in Edward's Injunc- tions of the former order for the registering of baptisms, marriages and burials caused great alarm, and that the disaffected priests fostered the belief that it was intended to exact a fee of half-a-crown for every such event. The same is asserted in a letter of the year. " Their lies are to the effect that the King intends to oppress the people by a new and un- heard-of tax : that when any person is married, he must pay half-a-crown to the King, and so in like manner for baptising an infant, or burying the dead." Hilles to Biilk'nger, Orig. Lett. 263. The same fear arose when Crumwel first instituted this registration. See before, p. 83.
t I venture to think that ambulatory commissioners were not sent at first. Heylin says that they were ; but from the surviving documents it seerrs more likely not. The Injunctions which Burnet has printed were issued by the Council of the North, directly to the four parishioners, and say nothing of commissioners.
I548-] Method of Proceeding. 499
what purpose they were founded : how their posses- sions were managed : how many of them were parish churches, or how far distant they were from the parish church. They were required to produce the foundations and other writings of all : to make true and perfect rentals of their lands and possessions : and exact inventories of their plate, jewels, ornaments, goods, and chattels : and, as it appeared that, ever since the Act for crivino- chantries to the late Kino, many persons had been dissolving, purchasing, seizing chantries on their own authority, without license, returns were required to be made of all such depre- dations.* A beginning was made without delay by the Council, who ordered sales of lands to the sum of five thousand pounds, and nominated a close com- mission of two to manage the business. f In this artful and quiet manner there was wrought a ruination which was only inferior in extent to that of the monasteries themselves, and was even more calamitous
* Burnet, Coll. No. xxvii. The peculiar manner of making this Visita- tion, which I have suggested, will account for the number of inventories of church goods which remain belonging to this reign, and many to this year. At all events there are many such inventories, whether printed or not yet printed. For instance there are : i The Certificate of the Dean and Chapter of St. Paul's, specifying the chantries, rents, &c., belonging to them, 19 April, 1 548, v. Lemon's Cal. p. 7. 2 Certificates of the London Churchwardens, 12 Nov. 1548, lb. p. 12. 3 The Council to Commissioners in every shire to make a true inventory of all Church goods, 12 Feb. 1549, lb. p. 14. 4 Inventories of Church goods in Cornwall, April, 1549, Mrs. Green's Addenda to Cal. of Eliz. 1 601-3, P- 398- 5 The Inventories of Church goods for Hertfordshire and for Berkshire have been edited lately by Mr. Cussans and Mr. Money respec- tively. They are of the latter part of the I'eign, but show that the same process was continued. Comp. Vol. III. p. 448 of this work.
t The Council " unanimously agreed that there should be a bargain and sale made to the King's subjects of so much of the lands, tenements, rents," &;c., in the Act expressed, without any exception, as may be con- veniently sold to the sum of ^5,000. Commissioners appointed were Sir Wm. Mildmay and Rt. Calamy, Esq., who might act jointly with others. Council Bk. MS., pp. 305-7.
K k 2
500 The Suppression of Chant vies, [ch.xiv.
to the Church. Near three thousand foundations and endowments of every kind and value were destroyed by this measure : of the poor, of learning, of the commonwealth even less regard was had than before ; and the expelled priests, the stipendiaries, the old chanters who had sung in chantries, the fellows and members incorporate, and the indigents who had claims for yearly relief on the hospitals and colleges, were treated more hardly. Assignments were made to some of them, it is true, yearly pensions, or com- positions : but there seems to have been no order taken for paying them : there was not even the bodily presence of a commissioner or visitor to reassure them, or at least give some sufficient dignity to the process by which they were cast out of their posses- sions. An unpleasant thing happened hereupon. The disembowelled wretches came swarming up to London to get their pensions paid, or to know more about it ; so that the Court, the house of the Lord Pro- tector, the Court of Augmentations, and the other offices were pestered by them. To appease their clamours, and rid the town of an unnecessary con- fluence, the Council was actually compelled to issue a royal Proclamation, requesting them all to go away, promising to send commissioners into every shire to explain to them the manner in which their pensions were to be paid, and assuring them that they should be well contented.* But in a few months it began to appear that they had no reason to be well contented.
From out the general wreck, the historians have extricated, with some feeling, the ruins of two establish- ments, which their situation or their opulence rendered more conspicuous than the rest. The free chapel of
* May 14, Strype, iii. 154.
1548.] Particular Cases. 501
St. Stephen in Westminster, called the royal chapel, supported on the yearly rent of a thousand pounds a community of thirty-eight persons : consisting of a dean, twelve canons, thirteen vicars, five clerks, six choristers, and two vergers. This numerous corpora- tion was dissolved ; some of its functions were trans- ferred to others ; and the chapel in which its services had been performed became the convenient domicile of the Commons of the realm. The old college and sanc- tuary of St. Martin-le-Grand was given to the chapter of Westminster. They in turn sold the bells, the stone, lead, timber, glass, and iron, and leased the body, or skeleton, of the church to a citizen of London, who totally demolished it. Upon the site a tavern and two warehouses were built, which came to be inhabited by a colony of outlandish settlers, who desired the place because it was exempt from the jurisdiction of the Lord Mayor.* Besides these, we may remark among the records of the year, the fall of Lancaster College, near St. Paul's in London, the common hall of the chantry priests of Henry the Fourth, who sang in a chapel on the north side of the choir of the great church ; the fall of Whittington College, the foundation of the famous Lord Mayor, which was granted to one Wade, the almshouses, however, being continued ; the fall of Stoke College in Suffolk, the last dean of which was Matthew Parker, afterwards Archbishop of Can- terbury, who now became a licensed preacher. This large foundation of secular clergy, in revenue more than three hundred pounds a year, was partly granted to Sir John Cheke, the ornament of Cambridge, who drew a considerable share of the spoils of the age. On the whole it may be said that the loss of the colleges, monastic hospitals, and free chapels, would be
* Heylin.
502 The Suppression of Chantries, [ch. xiv.
felt less in London and the towns, than in the country; and that by the clergy of the Church of England these independent foundations, and those of the chantries which had separate buildings, would be less missed than their old friends and companions, the chanters and stipendiaries, who did their offices at the altars of the parish churches, and were always at hand to assist in preaching or keeping school. But many of the in- dependent foundations which were now sold or given away might have been made into parish churches, the parishes being divided ; or they might have served for chapels of ease. Than this, however, nothing was further from the mind of the age.*
* Strype gives about seventy sales of chantries and other such founda- tions, in this year, from the so-called King's Book of Sales [iv. Rep. ZZZ). About twenty more grants may be gathered out of Tanner, whose work does not of course include chantries, though it does hospitals. Half of those that he gives are not hospitals either, but little monasteries and friaries which had been suppressed long before, but had been retained by the Crown till now. They may as well be given with the others. As for chantries, there may have been many more sold this year than Strype gives. The sale of chantries and free chapels went on for several years. That, e.g., of St. Stephen's, Westminster, was in the fourth year of this reign, though I have been led by Heylin to put it here. The list, which I have worked out of Tanner, for this year is as follows : Grants and Sales in 1548. Little Monasteries and Friaries.
Wigmore, Heref., to Sir Thomas Palmer.
Uynmore, Heref., to the same.
Newark, to Jn. Beaumont and Wm. Guise.
Avebury, Wilts., to Sir Wm. Sharington.
Charleton, Wilts., to the same.
Aulcaster, Yorks., to Jn. Hulse and Wm. Pendred.
Beverley, Yorks., most of the prebendal houses given to Mich. Stanhope
and Jn. Bellow. Eggleston, Yorks., Rd. Shelley. Austin Friars, Norwich, to Sir Th. Heneage. (irey Friars, Nottingham, to the same.
Colleges. Wallingford, Berks., to Mich. Stanhope. St. Leonard's, Leicester., to Rt. Catlin.
1548.] Proposed Suppression of Prebends. 503
The attack upon prebends, which had been opened at Canterbury by Cranmer, with the design of ridding himself of his religious opponents, w^as resumed by Sir Philip Hoby, the ambassador at the court of the Emperor, with a wider scope under a more commend- able pretext. This gentleman, whom we have already seen engaged in the quarrels of ecclesiastics, was master of the ordnance, a man of martial spirit, and an ardent new monastic. Witnessing the gallant appearance and equipment of a large body of cavalry in the imperial service, he compared the military array of his native country, where there were now " marvellous few good horsemen," and suggested to the Lord Protector a general suppression of prebends, as an apt means for recruiting the army. If all the prebends in the king- dom should be given to honest poor gentlemen, he urged that the service for the wars would be greatly replenished. And he added some congenial advice for the diminishing of the revenues of bishoprics.* The suggestion was tempting, but the hardship which the new monastics may have believed themselves to have endured in the continuation of prebends, was more in appearance than in reality. It seemed hard, certainly, that when the monkish cathedral chapters were dis-
Barking Coll., Lond., dissolved.
Holme's Coll., Lond., to Jn. Hudson and Wm. Pendred. Lancaster Coll., Lond., to Wm. Gualter. Whittington Coll., Lond., to A. Wade. All Saints' Coll., Northampt., to Wm. W^ard. Montry Coll., Wells, to Jn. Aylesvvorth. Bury Coll, Suff., to Rd. Corbet. Denton Coll., Suff., to Sir Th. Smith. Stoke Coll., Suff., to Sir J, Cheke and Walt. Mildmay. Barlake Coll., Coventry, dissolved, but Barlake Hosp. preserved. Grey Friars, Hosp., Coventry, dissolved.
St. John's Hosp., Coventry, to Jn. Hales, who made it into a free school. St. Peter's Free Chap, in York, to Thos. Goldny and Walt. Caly. * Strype, iii. 138.
504 Progress of the General Visitation, [ch. xiv.
solved and refoimded, the New Foundations should have been formed so much after the likeness of the churches of the Old Foundation. It was hard enough indeed that there should be no less than nine great sees of the Old Foundation remaining undissolved for no better reason that that they belonged to the Church of England, not to monkish bodies. It was harder that these Old Foundations should have furnished the model for the fourteen or fifteen refounded establishments ; and so that these New Foundations should include so many prebendaries, or secular canonries, with their barns and store-houses, their cupboards, and their stalls. The complaint, how- ever, fell upon inattentive ears. It was more conveni- ent to fill the prebends from tim^e to time with favoured laymen than to suppress them ; and so long as such men as the Lord Protector or Sir Thomas Smith could accumulate as many of these endowments as they chose upon themselves, there was no necessity of exposing them to the sweep of a general revolution. Meanwhile the original Visitation was proceeding, with the added power given by the new mandate to destroy all images whatsoever. But the Visitors, the further that they went, fared the worse.* The temper of the country was rising ; there were signs of a gathering determination to try whether or not real strength and resolution lay under the irritating activity which was transformino- all thinors. In Cornwall larg-e masses of the people opposed in a tumultuous manner the progress of the Visitors : and at length one of them. Sir William Body, was stabbed by a priest, as he was pulling down images in a church. f Prompt measures were taken by the Council : the rising was easily
* Heylin.
t SLrype, iii. 143. Several priests were hanged for this. Holinshed.
1548.] Threateniug State of the Country. 505
quelled : and a general pardon was issued in the begin- ning of May, from which however more .than thirty excepted persons, paying the penalty of their rashness with their lives, exhibited on the gibbet the menace of the revolution to the world. The alarm indeed, the sensitive and just alarm, of the Council was so great on this occasion that a somewhat extraordinary pre- caution was taken. All the judges and justices of the peace were summoned from the shires to London, and severely harangued in the Star Chamber by the Lord Chancellor Rich. " Your negligence is great," said that remarkable person : " of what use is it that so many laws, Proclamations, and Orders of Council are issued, when the people remain ignorant of them all ? Our writings are directed to you, that you may see them put in execution. But you look at them through your fingers. If you did your duty, there would be no stir nor mischief in the realm ; but instead of that you rather hinder than set forward the King's godly pro- ceedings, contrary to your oath and charges. Think of the danger of the realm. Remember your duty to God and the King. Stop all assemblies of lewd and light fellows, all uproar and tumult. The lightness of the ignorant people must be suppressed."* At the same time the mercenary army was reinforced by two thousand men from Germany.f On the mercenary army everything depended in die last resort.
It became evident, as time went on, that the Lord Protector was not the man to lead the revolution. His
* Fox and Grafton give this oration in full. Strype (iii. 142) is wrong in thinking that only the justices of London and Westminster were cited. There would have been nothing in that ; Rich in his oration addressed ■ them as " the justices of the peace in every shire."
t Strype, iii. 166. It was given out that they were to replace those who had been spent in the Scottish war. At the beginning of the year there were five thousand Germans in London. Whether they were all soldiers does not appear. — Urtg. Lett. 336.
5o6 Weakness of Somerset. [ch, xiv.
tendency was to separate himself from the men who had raised him to their head ; and at the Council board he sometimes treated them with an arrogance that was little to their liking. He courted the favour of the people, and even listened to the cry of the poor. When the expelled priests and foundationers, the ex- cluded occupiers, the starving labourers, came throng- ing to London, he opened in his own house a Court of Requests, where they might parade the wrongs and sufferings which found no redress in Westminster. At the same time he was steeping himself in the spoils of religion as deeply as any of the men about him, so that he failed to gain the good opinion of the high- minded of all parties ; and in the eyes of posterity that which might have seemed generosity can only be regarded as infatuated vanity. In the summer of the year he began his celebrated movement against en- closure of land, an encroachment by which the rich were everywhere destroying the poor. He issued, on the first of June, a Proclamation, and ordered a Com- mission for the redress of this great evil. " By the enclosing of lands and arable grounds," he said, " many have been driven to extreme poverty, and compelled to leave the places where they were born. Ten; twenty, or a hundred Christian people have been in- habiting and keeping households, where now there is nothing but sheep or bullocks. All the land, which was occupied heretofore with so many men, and fur- nished so many markets, is now gotten by insatiable greediness into the hands of one or two men, and scarcely dwelt upon with one poor shepherd. The insatiable covetousness of men encroaches daily, the realm is brought to a marvellous desolation. Houses are decayed, parishes diminished, the poor forced to lead an idle and loitering life. The cattle belonging
I548-] His Commission about Enclosures. 507
to so few, the cattle which have driven so many from their homes, are gathered in great flocks and droves, whence rots and murrains come amono- them : nor are they so cheap as they would be dispersed in many hands : for these men hold them dear, and are able to tarry the advantage of the market."* The Commis- sion, which was issued at the same time, set forth the various laws and ordinances which had tended to check the evil from the days of the first Tudor, when it- began to wax great,t to the present time, when it was become insupportable. It showed how, in the time of Henry the Eighth, one law had been made after another to keep up husbandry, to prevent the destruction of towns for enclosures and the conversion of afable ground into pasture ; against plurality of farms ; to limit the number of sheep that one man might keep ; and for the maintenance of hospitality on the sites and precincts of the dissolved houses of religion. And yet it was declared that these laws had not wrought the effect that was hoped to follow : that they had not been put into execution, partly through fear of displeasure, but chiefly through the corruption of private lucre, now grown universal : whereby the realm was very much decayed, the people wonder- fully abated, and those that remained grievously oppressed.!
How or whence the eyes, the voice, the wisdom of a patriot could have been inspired into Somerset might admit of wonder : but everything has a cause. The Commission for seven counties only has been pub- lished : for Oxfordshire, Berkshire, Warwickshire,
* Strype, iii. 145.
t "Enclosures at that time began to be more frequent, whereby arable land, which could not be manured without frequent families, was turned into pasture, which was easily rid by a few herdmen." — Bacon's Henry the Seventh, p. 348. X Strype, Reposit. P. vol. iv. p. 348.
5o8 Commission about Enclosures, [ch. xiv.
Leicestershire, Bedfordshire, Buckinghamshire, and Northamptonshire. There were but six Commis- sioners named for this circuit, a small band for so great a work : but among them there was one honest and vigorous man, John Hales.* This name, which is scantily commemorated in history, is one to be held in honour. John Hales, clerk of the Hanaper, was the inspirer of the whole movement. Himself a zealous reformer, belonging to the New Learning, he beheld with grief and dismay the calamities and crimes which attended the course of the Reformation. With the causes of the misery of the people he made himself intimately acquainted ; and he has displayed them with the eloquence of truth. He set himself to oppose the encroachments of the rich ; and in his own action he gave them an example of public spirit, for when he received the grant of a monastic college, instead of retaining it, he gave it for a free school to the town in which it stood. f He thus became the founder of the first of the free grammar schools which had their origin in the reign of Edward the Sixth. Among the Commissioners for the redress of enclosures he took the lead, and did his utmost to render the inquiry effectual. The manner of proceeding was, that any two of them might call before them twelve men in any place, put them on their oath, and minister to them certain interrogatories. Hales, wherever he went, strove to make these witnesses speak freely, and without fear of their rich neic^hbours. His custom was to open the session with a charge to them, which has been preserved. " Experience teaches," said he, " that good laws may be made, but not obeyed. It
* The others were, Sir Francis Russell, Sir Fulk Greville, William Pinnock, Roger Amys, John Marsh, t See above, p. 503.
1548.] Noble Char act ev of John Hales. 509
has been ordered that no man keep more than two thousand sheep : that no man occupy more than two houses of husbandry in one town, parish or hamlet : that hospitahty be kept where the monasteries once stood. All in vain ! Towns, villages, parishes decay daily : poor men's houses are destroyed everywhere : husbandry and tillage, the very paunch of the common- wealth, is abated : and as it appears by the books of muster, the King's subjects are wonderfully diminished. Where there were within a few years ten or twelve thousand people, there be now scarce four thousand : where a thousand, now scarce three hundred : where there were many able to defend the country, now almost none. For soldiers we have Germans, Italians, and Spaniards. Lands are advanced to so great rents, or so excessive fines taken, that the poor husbandman cannot live. It is a sorrowful hearing that one Englishman should destroy his countrymen. But the dropsy of riches, the insatiate desire of gain, private profit, rages, so that in a short time we shall have no commonwealth. Man is become a wolf, a devourer and consumer, that will not let his neigh- bours live. There is dearth and scarceness of victual without just cause. The only cheap thing is corn, because corn is in poor men's hands, who cannot keep it back. To feed the poor the late King was compelled to build castles and bulwarks along the sea, as many as he did : and by this means he was driven to take great subsidies and taxes of his subjects. Many are so drowned in this filthy desire of getting together goods, that they starve themselves, and will scarce refresh their bodies with one good morsel of meat in a week. They hope to leave much to their children, and to make their family noble. And yet it is often seen that they are scarcely laid in their graves before
5IO Commission about Enclosures, [ch. xiv.
their sons squander all in lewd living. Evil gotten, worse spent! Oh, good people, have a care! Let it not be said that we have received the grace of God, and the knowledge of His w^ord, in vain."
He then proceeded to define the word enclosure. " It is not where a man doth enclose and hedge his own proper ground, where no man hath common ; this is beneficial to the commonwealth, and a cause of great increase of wool. It is where a man hath taken away, and enclosed other men's commons : or hath pulled clown houses of husbandry, and converted tillage to pasture." He described the various devices by which the laws were defeated. Some converted arable lands into pasture, but pulled not down the houses of industry, or farm buildings : them they kept in repair, though in truth they stood empty, or were occupied only by a shepherd or a milkmaid. Some would make one furrow in a hundred acres of land : and, after this pretence of tillage, pasture all the rest with sheep. Some tilled the land, but separated the houses from the land, and let them to beggars, or poor old people. Some covered the multitude of their sheep by fathering them on their kinsfolk or servants.* So testified the only example of public virtue which these years afford.
The zeal of Hales moved the resentment of the courtiers, and especially of Dudley, Earl of Warwick, the darkest spirit of the age, the worthy son of the extortionate minister of Henry the Seventh. Being at Warwick when the Commission visited Warwick- shire, this nobleman addressed to Hales an indignant
* Strype, iv. 351, Reposit. O. Hales' Charge contains the Instructions of the Commissioners. In a book of the year, Crowley's Information and Petitioti against the Oppressors of the poor Coinvions, there is a somewhat similar picture of the times. — Strype, iii. 217.
1548.] JVarwick against Hales. 5 1 1
remonstrance on his doino^s. " You have sued out this Commission in troublesome times," said he, " and by your Charge you are stirring up the commons against the nobihty and gentry." Hales answered, denying that he was the author of the Commission, or had sought to be on it, or that he had given occasion to any honest man to be offended. "For God's sake," he said, "have compassion on the poor ! The sore is brought to such extremity that, if it be not remedied, all the realm shall rue. God has as much respect to the poor as to the rich ; to the poor man as to the gentleman, and to all indifferently. It grieves me much that those who seem to favour God's word, should go about to speak evil of this thing. The end of God's word is love and charity to our poor neighbours. Let us take ex- ample of the Germans, who, because they are babblers, and no doers of God's word, are now worthily punished, and brought to extreme misery : which, I pray God may not happen to us." The state of the country was indeed becoming alarming. Even where the Com- mission was sitting, the people were talking boldly of righting themselves, of putting down enclosures, of reducing farms and copyholds to their former state. Warwick and his party made the most of these dis- quieting rumours : and in alarm the Protector sent word to Hales that the Commissioners in returning should pass through the places where they had sat, and assure the people of the goodwill of the King and the Council. Hales answered that the rumours were exaggerated to dash the Commission. " The hand of the Papists," he added, " is in it, who desire not Christ's religion to be established in the hearts of the people, as it would be if the Commission were well executed. But the Commission is difficult to execute, for threats and revilings are used against the honest
512 Cranmev and the Heretics [ch. xiv.
men who are sworn to make presentments. Never- theless the people are in good quiet, and daily resort to me to take my advice in making their presentments."* But the effort to do right was unsuccessful. Little or nothing came of it ; and the oppressions which were maddening the people went on till they produced the religious war of the following year.
Cranmer at this time was busy among the heretics. Two clergymen were convened before him, of whom the one maintained various antinomian opinions, the other held that the doctrine of the Trinity was first established, or made an article of faith, in the Athana- sian Creed. Latimer, Cox, Sir Thomas Smith, and others sat on the tribunal with Cranmer. The heretics abjured, recanted, were put to various tests, sworn in various oaths, bound in various bonds, and submitted to penance. t The hopes of the ardent in the Arch- bishop were not less dashed at the same time by the publication of the Catechism which bears his name. A Lutheran manual, originally composed in German, and translated into Latin by one of Cranmer's German friends, was by his hand or authority presented to the world in English. It was observed with grief that the editor or author maintained a third Sacrament in Penance ; that in the Eucharist he affirmed the Corporal Presence without any limitation; that, if he inveighed against images, he compressed them and false TOds into one Commandment ; that he ureed the necessity of confession and absolution, the reality of the priestly or ministerial commission, and the maintenance of canonical jurisdiction. The work is
* Strype, iii. 149-52. His originals are in the Record Office, Lemon's Cal. of State Pap. i. p. 9. For a similar letter of Hales to Somerset, see Tytler, i. 115.
t The cases of Champneys and Ashton are given in Strype's Cranme7; and in Collier, ii. p. 266.
1548.] Cranmer visits his Diocese. 513
said to have given rise to great disputations and unseemly quarrels in the churches.*
Amidst these bruits the anxious primate showed the course on which he was set by what might seem the superfluous labour of a Visitation of his diocese: a Visitation of a Visitation : a Visitation to find how had sped the Visitation of the year before, when the King's Visitors carried the Injunctions and the Homi- lies. Determined to be master at least of his own clergy, he asked them some very searching questions. " Have you preached, purely and sincerely, four times a year against the Bishop of Rome ? Have you destroyed all your images, shrines, coverings of shrines, tables, trendals or rolls of wax, candlesticks, pictures, paintings, and other memorials of feigned
* The title was, "A Short Instruction into the Christian Religion for the singular commodity and profit of children and young people, set forth by the Most Reverend Father in God, Thomas, Archbishop of Canterbury." The Latin of the manual was written by Justus Jonas. When it appeared, John ab Ulmis wrote, " He has lately published a catechism, in which he not only approves of that foul and sacrilegious transubstantiation of the Papists, in the holy supper of our Saviour, but all the dreams of Luther seem to him sufficiently well grounded, perspicuous and lucid. — " Orig. Lett. p. 382. " Moved no doubt by Peter Martyr and other Lutherans," wrote Burcher to BuUinger, in October, " the Archbishop of Canterbury has caused a catechism of some Lutheran opinions to be translated and published in our language. This little book has occasioned no little discord, so that fightings have frequently taken place among the common people, on account of their variety of opinions, even during the sermons." — lb. p. 642. For more see Collier, Burnet, Lingard, Jenkyns {Pref. p. Ixxix.), Soames, iii. 69. Gardiner afterwards attacked Cranmer about this so-called catechism : but Strype is wrong in saying that it was partly because the book had a picture of a lighted altar and a priest giving the wafer {Crantn. ii. 5). That picture was in the German Latin Edition : in the English one Cranmer substituted a representation of Christ instituting the Last Supper. See the Oxford Repritit. Gardiner's point was that Cranmer falsified his author. See Cranmer's Works, Park. Soc. 227. As to the doctrine of the Sacrament, set forth in the catechism, Gardiner agreed with it, and said that it maintained " the true presence of Christ's most precious Body and Blood." See his Articles in his trial in 1551, ap. Fox's ist ed. VOL. n. L 1
514 Gardiner before the Coimcil again, [ch. xiv.
miracles, pilgrimages, and idolatry in walls and win- dows ? Had you the sepulchres and their lights set up last Good Friday ? When you preach no sermon, say you, after the Gospel, the Creed, the Lord's ■ Prayer, and the Ten Commandments in English ? Examine you in Lent those who come to you to confession in those three things ? Have you got the Bible of the largest volume, and the Paraphrase in your churches ? Have you got the Paraphrase for yourselves, and the New Testament also in Latin and English ? Have you got that book for register- ing baptisms, marriages, and funerals ? Maintain you scholars at the Universities, if you have above one hundred pounds a year ? Read you one chapter of the New Testament in English after the lessons at matins on Sunday, and one of the Old Testament after the Magnificat at evensong? Have you the Procession Book, or Litany in English, and use no other ? Sing you it, or say it, on your knees in the middle of the church, and nowhere else ? Read you the Homilies ? Administer you the Communion according to the new book ? Your people, pray they on any primer but the King's Primer in Latin or in English ? " Cranmer's Articles to be inquired were the Injunctions of Edward, and the Articles of the former Visitation put into questions, with a few added of his own device.* There could be no doubt of his zeal for uniformity.
The rival of Cranmer, Gardiner, had by this time -filled up his measure again. On the day of his release from the Fleet prison he had been taken before the Council at Hampton Court, and told that he was liberated on the strength of the general pardon passed at the end of the parliamentary session. " I am learned," he answered, " never to refuse his Majesty's pardon ; and I humbly give him thanks therefor." They
* Strype's Cranv'r : Burnet: Cranmer's /?^;«az«j', p. 155.
1548.] And a third time. 515
then began with him on the old subject of Justification, showing him a form or paper to which other learned men had agreed, and requiring him to subscribe to it. He asked for time to consider it ; and promised to come on an appointed day to Somerset's house of Sion, with his mind declared in writing. When he did so, it was found that he had refused to subscribe to the paper ; he was called before the Council again, and committed a prisoner to his own house in London. Ridley was sent to him there : who entreated him to be zealous in putting down Anabaptists in his diocese, adding that he himself would be ready against them in the defence of the Sacraments.* Sir Thomas Smith came afterwards, and Somerset's secretary, Cecil, a rising man ; to the latter of w^hom the Bishop delivered a paper on Justification, drawn up by himself, with which Somerset was satisfied. Gardiner was dis- charofed, but not before Lent : and went home to his diocese. But he had not been there fourteen days when he interfered with the Lord Protector concerning the surrender of a college in Cambridge ; and some sharp letters passed between him and Cecil. He was again called before the Council, about Whitsuntide ; and, when he pleaded sickness, he received a second and a third citation.f Hereupon he travelled up in a horse-litter, perhaps to the amusement of the Council, among whom he was entertained in private as if he had been one of themselves, as in King Henry's days he had been ; nevertheless certain articles were laid against him, and read by Somerset, concerning certain things which he was alleged to have done or permitted during the brief time he had been in his diocese ; and
* Strype, iii. 107.
t According to Wingfield, his gentleman, Gardiner was ill at this time with a running sore in the head. Evidence, ap. Fox, in 1551.
L 1 2
5i6 Gardiner and the Council. [ch. xiv.
he was charged with disobedience in that he had not come when first he was sent for. To this he answered that the first letter bade him come at his convenience ; but that as soon as he got the other letters, he came incontinently. He was charged to have carried palms, and crept to the cross ; which ceremonies were now forbidden. He said that they were misinformed; and that, if he had done it, he durst not deny it. It was alleged that he had set up a solemn sepulchre in his church at Easter. He answered that he had used only such ceremonies as the King's proclamations commanded ; and that he who did as he was told was very obedient,* He had gone about, it was com- plained, to " deface " or discountenance two of the court chaplains who had been made canons of Win- chester. He answered by relating what he had done, which he said that he could justify.t He was accused of having preached in a sermon how the Apostles went out from the presence of the Council, of the Council, of the Council. He denied this, saying that it was not his manner to play in iteration of words. Then he was accused of having used the word " really " in preaching of the Sacramental Presence. He answered that he had not used the word, because it was not needed ; and that he agreed with his Lordship of Canterbury, who was present, for that he remembered his Lordship arguing against the heretic Lambert, in the late King's reign, that the words of Scripture, " This is my Body," sufficiently expressed
* In fact there was nothing in the King's Injunctions against having the sepulchre at Easter, though the lights before the sepulchre were for- bidden. It was only the zeal of Cranmer, in his Visitation of his own diocese, which would have done away with sepulchres altogether. See before. Sepulchres were holes in the wall or floor in churches : wherein the sacramental elements were solemnly deposited before Good Friday till Easter Day.
t Tonge and Eyre were their names. In his trial, in 1551, he gave a full account of his gentle usage of them.
1548.] He is required to preach a Sermon. 517
the very Presence. " Well," said Somerset, " you must tarry in the Tower." — " As long as it will give you pleasure," replied Gardiner, " so long as it be not as a prisoner." He then asked them to appoint him a house in the country for a time ; and Somerset, with whom, and indeed with all but Cranmer, he was a favourite, promised to lend him one of his own houses. In the end, however, he went to his own house in London.
The charges against Gardiner were concocted chiefly, as the Bishop himself declared, by Philpot, the Archdeacon of Winchester ; a man whom he affirmed to be " altered in his wits," or of unsound mind."'- They serve to show, however, that a strict watch was kept over him in his own diocese. As they failed to bring him within the reach of any law, another means was taken. Cecil waited on him with an order to preach before the King, and to write his sermon beforehand, delivering to him two papers of the matter on which he was to preach. These he seems to have been required to read in the pulpit, after the manner in which heretics were used to read their recantations. He refused either to write his sermon or read the papers, saying that to do the one would be to preach like an offender, when he was none ; to do the latter would be to take another man's device in thinsfs concerninQ^ his own conscience. The Lord Protector then sent for him privately to his house : so privately that he was brought by a back door into a chamber where he found Somerset and
* Strype says Philpot of Westminster, but that must be a slip. John Philpot, Archdeacon of Winchester, was a great preacher, whom the Bishop often forbad to preach. There is a curious account of their con- tinual quarrels in Nichol's Narratives, p. 47. He was a friend of Ford, of Wyckham College, who did that merry thing, which was so very ill ap- preciated by the town's people, pulling down all the images in the college chapel by a cord, of which the end was in his bedroom. lb. p. 28.
5i8 Gardiner and the Council. [ch. xiv.
another person, who was present as a witness of the interview. Some articles were shown him, the labour of two lawyers, setting forth the difference between the authority of a bishop and of a king, and the penalties of disobedience to royal commandments. Gardiner answered that the lawyers should not serve to make him utter as his own device what was not so indeed, and requested to see the lawyers."*' The Protector told him that he should see nobody ; and bade him advise with himself till after dinner. He was then taken into another room, and served with a good dinner ; after which Sir Thomas Smith was sent to him. To Smith he said that he was willing to preach upon the matter required ; that if he should preach not according to the truth, there would be many witnesses against him ; if according to the truth, they would have their desire ; that, if he thought that he should preach to offend them, he would rather not preach at all ; but that, if they would have him preach, he thought that he should so preach of himself that they would be content. It was thereupon agreed that he should preach without writing, and treat on the subjects laid down in the papers with- out reading. But he made one exception. He refused to preach about the ceremonies that were abolished ; because, as he said, men would say that he babbled to bring them back, seeing that he had upheld them so long as they remained. On this understanding he departed. St. Peter's day, June 29, was appointed for the sermon. In the interval another proposition was made to Gardiner. Cecil came to him, and informed him that it would be well taken if he touched upon the King's minority, though this was not one of the pre- scribed subjects ; reminding him how he had once said that a king was as much a king at one year of
* This legal consultation was procured by Smith. Gardiner's Matter. Justificatory in Fox.
1548.] His various Stipulations. 519
age as at one hundred. The Bishop agreed to this. Then added Cecil, " If ye speak of a king, ye must join Council withal." Gardiner made no answer, because, as he said, " he could not by express Scripture limit the King's power by Council." In fact, when he preached the sermon, he pointed to the King, and said, "He only is to be obeyed ; and I would have but one king." It was probably this that most of all irritated the Council against him.
Two days before the day appointed, Cecil re- appeared, with a message from the Protector forbidding him to speak of the Sacrament or of the Mass. There had been no such restraint hitherto, and the Bishop was not inclined to yield this point. Cecil said that he meant that he should not speak of doubtful matters in the Sacrament. " I asked him what. He said, Transubstantiation. I told him he knew not what Transubstantiation meant. * I will preach,' said I, ' the very presence of Christ's most precious Body and Blood in the Sacrament, which is no doubtful matter, nor yet in controversy, saving that some unlearned speak of it they know not what.' " He added that this was among the special matters on which he had promised to speak. " I must by special words speak of the Sacrament, and of the Mass also. And when I shall so speak of them, I will not forbear to utter my faith and true belief therein, when I think necessary for the King's Majesty to know : and therefore if I will to be hanged when I come down, I will speak it." Cecil departed, but on the day following there came a sharp letter from Somerset, commanding the Bishop to speak neither of the Sacrament nor of the Mass, since they were the principal points still in controversy among the learned men of the realm. The Lord Protector added that, whereas he was informed by Cecil that Gardiner said, that he would have all
520 Gardiner sent to the Tower, [ch.xiv.
matters of religion to be left to the bishops, and none other to intermeddle with them, he would have him know that it was part of the charge of the Governor of the King's person to bring the King's people from ignorance to knowledge : and that he would not suffer a few persons of wilful headiness to dissuade all the rest.
Gardiner considered this letter to be a positive prohibition ; but he resolved to disobey it. It was only signed by Somerset, whereas the authority which he held from Cecil to treat of the Sacrament, was signed by the whole Council. He held therefore that he should be warranted in setting Somerset's letter aside.* But, arriving the day before the sermon, it troubled him much. He neither ate, drank, nor slept, as he declared, from the time that he received it, until he had delivered his sermon. He delivered his sermon before an enormous and excited concourse : and the next day he was committed to the Tower, where li^ lay during the rest of the reign of Edward. His opposition to the Council consisted only in what he termed allegations. He had disobeyed none of their innumerable orders, proclamations, or injunctions. But his wit was so keen, and his character so striking, that they were never in quiet so long as he was at large, though in putting him in prison they had not even the pretence of legality.!
The Interim, an imperial device for the settlement of religion, was forced upon his subjects of Germany by Charles, in July. This temporary scheme, the com-
* He afterwards denied that he had disobeyed Somerset. Fox, as above.
t I have extracted this narrative out of Gardiner's answers to the Articles afterwards exhibited against him, and his Justification, in Fox's 1st ed. Comp. Burnet. The order for his committal sets out that since " after three several promises to conform himself, he still persisted in preaching sedition even before the King," he was to be sent to the Tower, and his house sealed. 30th June. Council Bk. MS. pp. 356-363.
1548.] The Interim — Learned Strangers. 52 1
position of three divines, was designed to serve until a German council should be convened in the place of that conclave which had migrated from Trent to Bologna. To the Protestant princes, who were un- able or perhaps unwilling to exercise themselves in theological subtleties, it appeared a tolerable measure ; but the experienced Bucer detected in it popery made smooth, with marriage allowed to priests, and the Communion in both kinds. The people received it unwillingly; by some towns it was openly refused. A great flight of the preachers and divines followed upon it, most of whom, for the Reformation seemed almost suppressed in Germany, chose for their refuge the shores of England and the open arms of Cranmer. As they arrived, the Archbishop made room for them in his household, or by his patronage : and his cry was still for more to come. Some of them were raised to posts of considerable importance, and bore some share in the further progress of the Reformation. But even from the beginning of Edward's reign, the pro- spect of England had drawn an invasion of learned strangers. Peter Martyr, a name not unrenowned, an Italian, a former Austin canon who had married a former nun, passed from the Roman extreme to the extreme of Zurich, then entered by the gate of Strasburg into the camp of Luther, and so arrived in Enp-land. He came about the end of the first year of Edward : * and to the counsels of a Lutheran was imputed, so swift were the changes of the times, much of the slowness and caution which was im- patiently lamented in the movements of the Primate. With Martyr, under the hospitable roof of Lambeth, were gathered Peter Alexander, Bernardine Ochinus, Matthew Nigelinus, and others, mostly Lutherans.f They shared, it cannot be doubted, in the counsels
* Strype, iii. 63, 1S9. t Strype's Cranmer, bk. ii. ch. xiii.
522 The learned Strangers andCranmer. [ch. xiv.
of the Primate in the great design which now occupied him, the composition of a book of Common Prayer for all the churches of England ; nor was it unhappy that they were men who had passed through the illusory hopes of the Reformation on the Continent. Martin Bucer, the friendly rival of Martyr, a former friar, the husband of a former nun, an antagonist of Gardiner in the controversy of the clerical celibate, the pastor of Strasburg, a moderate Lutheran, and in the opinion of the Protestants almost the equal of the great Melanchthon, arrived after the promulgation of the Interim. The troubles of his pastorate, and the defection of his people through the imperial ordin- ance, seemed to him the end of the world ; his reputation, and the friendship of John Hales recom- mended him to Cranmer ; the purse of Richard Hilles, the well-known merchant and letter-writer, furnished the means, and the repeated invitations of the Arch- bishop gave the warrant of his passage to a calmer scene ; but the second year of Edward was ended before he effected it.* With him came Fao-ius, the learned but short-lived Hebraist, who was destined to share with him the thrones of Cambridge. But a wider design even than the Common Prayer Book, or eeneral Use of Enorland, directed the invitations of the Primate — a design attempted before, and never to be brought to pass. To Alasco the Pole, to whom he sent a special request to assist in the Prayer Book, he unfolded it thus : " We wish to set forth the doctrine of God truly and explicitly, according to the sacred writings, and neither to adapt it to all tastes, nor to deal in ambiguities. We desire to set forth among all nations an illustrious testimony con- cerning our doctrines, delivered by the authority of learned and godly men, so that all posterity may have
* Strype, iii. 50: Orig. Lett. pp. 531 and 19.
1548.] The Foreign Hortators — Bucer. 523
a pattern to imitate. For this end we have thought it necessary to have the assistance of learned men, who may compare their opinions with us, do away with all doctrinal controversies, and build up an en- tire system of true doctrine. We have invited many, and nearly all are come. I am inviting Melanchthon now for the third time. Come, and bring him with you."* The concord of England and Germany, so often frustrated by the insincerity of princes, was to be achieved by the simple consultation of divines ; the community of worship was to imply the agreement of doctrine, and perhaps the union of the churches might have been followed by an alliance with the Protestants for peace and war. If Cranmer could have drawn Melanchthon to England along with Alasco, it is not utterly impossible that something might have been done. Alasco came : and in due course obtained a license to eat whatever he liked best in Lent.f
England was not at this time destitute of the encouraoements or the warnings of the several orreat divisions of the Continent, Bucer, who might almost claim to represent the Lutherans, addressed, before he came himself, a formal epistle of congratulation to the English Church, upon the recent proceedings. As- suming, as was the wont, the Apostolic style, he gave to the holy Church of England a solemn salutation, | " I have received your Homilies," he proceeded, "the discourses in which you piously and effectually exhort your people to read the Scriptures : in which you explain with holy skill both faith, by which we are Christians, and justification, in which salvation w^holly
* Orig. Lett. p. 17, t Strype, iii. 130,
X " Sanctas Dei Ecclesice Anglicance ejusque administris augeat Dominus noster Jesus Christus gratiam suam et Spiritum. Amen." Gratulatio Martini Buceri ad Ecclesiam Anglicanam de Religionis Christi restitutione, anno 1548. — Scripta A77glka?ia, p. 171.
524 TJie Foreign Hovtators — Calvin, [ch. xiv.
consists ; and the other capital parts of rehglon. How scrupulously you separate true faith from dead faith, and define the works of the justified ! No relics of the old leaven will long remain in you, either in doctrine or discipline. The work will go on : the Sacra- ments will be administered according to Christ's insti- tution, communicated to all who should receive, declared and acknowledged to be the signs of His grace."*
A more formidable voice was heard anon. Calvin, a name dreaded by the muses, a man whose dauntless and powerful mind moved resolutely upon extremes, a name among the most renowned of theologians, and held by many among the very greatest, the successor of Augustine, had already some time founded and even perfected the most tremendous of those curious products of the Reformation, the theologies of tendency. Now that Lutheranism was falling to the rear, the unappeased Reformation gathered around this mighty master of dogmatics, and found in him a second, and in some respects a greater leader. The spirits who desired to be severe saw in him their head, and flocked to him with admiration. He uttered his decrees to the ends of the earth. " I constitute, I require, I give my judgment, I approve," these phrases continually occur In his wide correspondence. From the time that he flew to his funereal throne of Geneva the eyes of Calvin had been often turned towards England. Deeming the hour to be now propitious for an active intervention in the English Reformation, he addressed, October 22, to the Lord Protector, an immense epistle In which he clearly marked the road in which he would have England go. Much that he said was dispersed in air ; but he succeeded In dropping one or
* Bucer ended with an attack on Gardiner, about celibacy, which is not printed in the Scripta. Some account of it is given by Strype, iii. 103.
1548.] Calvin s Epistle to Somerset. 525
two seeds, which took root, and grew amid the rest of the harvest. " Thou art endued with excellent gifts," said he, " nevertheless it may not be amiss for me to write to thee in the name of the Son of God, whose servant I am. Pursue the work which thou hast begun, till thou have rendered thy kingdom the most desired in the world. Go on : refrain not thy hand ; reform thy church with full integrity. The roots of Antichrist are set deep in the minds of many ; and, though strong, thou seemest to need strengthen- ing by holy exhortation. Hear me patiently, I be- seech thee. Great difficulties hast thou, no doubt ; nor is it wonderful that the bulk of men refuse the Gospel. There were wars, and rumours of wars, and perturba- tion of the face of things when the Gospel was proclaimed first ; and in this age, when the Gospel is proclaimed again, there is such trouble that men exclaim that they are born into the worst of all the aees. I hear that there be two kinds of men who seditiously stir themselves against you and the realm — those who walk disorderly in the name of the Gospel, and those who are sunk in the old superstitions. Both these and those deserve to feel the sword of the prince. They who have given themselves to the Gospel ought to be vigilant and orderly, and to prove what they profess. Let the nobles and magistrates be foremost in this. Submitting themselves to the yoke of Christ, let them be prompt in suppressing sedition and dis- order. Wherefore I demand of thee that the Word of God may be preached among you with full authority ; and that thou mayest know my mind the better, I will arrange the whole matter under three heads : teach the truth ; extirpate abuses ; castigate vices. I incul- cate the first, because I fear that you have but few lively sermons among you : all runs into recitation.
526 The Foreign Hortators — Calvin s [ch, xiv.
There is a lack of good pastors among you. Supply that defect ; but have a care of rash and erratic men. See that you have lively sermons : preaching ought not to be dead, but lively ; not ornamental, not theatrical, but luculent and edifying. Beware of dis- cursive wits : when a man puts forth queer doctrine, bang the door in his face. There is only one way of securine this. Let there be a form of doctrine published, received by all and taught by all. Let all your bishops and parish priests be bound by oath to maintain that ; and admit none to any office in the Church who will not swear."* This was perhaps the germ of clerical subscription, the misery of the suc- ceedine aQ;e. " Let there be also a catechism for the young and ignorant," proceeded he, " to teach them betimes the difference between truth and superstition or corruption. As to the order of prayers and rites in the churches, I strongly approve that there be a certain form from which the minister may not depart, both that the simplicity and ignorance of the people may be regarded, and that the agreement of all your churches may be apparent. But this is polity, and must not hinder the free and vigorous preaching of the Gospel.f As to abuses, it is certain that the Papacy is Anti- christ : the Christianity of the Papacy is debased. Now how are corruptions removed but by referring to the originals of thino^s ? How removed St. Paul
* Ratio autem expedita ad earn rem una est, extet nempe summa quasdam doctrinae, ab omnibus recepta, quam inter prisdicandum se- quantur omnes, ad quam etiam observandam omnes episcopi et parochi jurejurando obstringantur, ut nemo ad munus ecclesiasticum admittatur, nisi spondeat sibi ilium dcctrin£e consensum inviolatum futurum.
t Quod ad .formulam precum et rituum ecclesiasticorum, valde probo ut certa iila extet, a qua pastoribus in functione sua discedere non liceat, turn ut quorundam simplicitati et imperitite consulatur, quum ut certius ita constet omnium inter se ecclesiarum consensus . . . sed non ut hujus politici ordinis occasione vigor ilie nativus pra^dicationis evangelii ullo modo consenescat.
1548.] Epistle to Somerset. — Pole. 527
the corruptions which the Corinthians had brought into the Lord's Supper, but by referring to the insti- tution which he had received of the Lord ? It is of no use to do things by halves. Remember how often the kings of Judah destroyed the idols, but took not away the high places. A little leaven of the Roman corruption will leaven the whole mass of the Supper of the Lord ; and I hear with pain that there is a prayer for the dead in your celebration. I know that this is not meant for Purgatory ; I know that it is an ancient thing, designed to show that in our Communion, all, the quick and dead alike, are of one body. But still it is a human addition to the most sacred of rites. Moreover you have the chrism in Confirmation, and you have Extreme Unction. How frivolous ! Chrism, a thing invented by those who thought water not enough to represent baptism : unction, retained by those follow- ers of the Apostles who could not work their miracles, but used their oil. Let your principles be the Word of God and the edification of the Church. As for scandals, you have good laws ; but the wickedness of men is so amazing, that your bishops and parochansmusttakeheed lest unfit persons should profane the most holy rites,"* Pole, who was a perfect miracle of explanation, deemed on the other hand, the new liberty to be less unfavourable than the old tyranny for vindicating the claims of Rome and the position of himself After the death of Henry he addressed to the English Council, and despatched by a trusty messenger, an epistle, in
* Calvini Epist. p. 86. A contemporary translation of this epistle exists in manuscript in the Record Office. It was made, no doubt, for the use of Somerset. — Cal. of State Pap. Lemon, vol. i. p. ii. Collier (ii. 284) thinks the epistle subsequent to this year, because it censures things in the First Prayer Book, which was not yet published, viz., Prayer for the dead, Chrism, and Extreme Unction. It may be so : but prayer for the dead was in the First Communion Book, which may be referred to by Calvin. And Chrism was not in the First Prayer Book, at least in confirmation.
528 The Foreign Hortatoi^s — Pole. [ch. xiv.
which, laying aside his private wrongs, he offered to the erring realm the friendship of the Pope. " The holy Pontiff," said he, " alone can help you : he only can disperse the dangers which threaten you on every side. His power is great of itself; he and his allies among the princes of Christendom can aid you more than all the world without him. He is willing to send me to you with authority. By his commission I can be of the greatest service to you ; I can give you salutary counsel, nay, I can give you the medicine as well as the advice. Oh, let my messenger be the forerunner of myself!"* He followed this unavailing missive by a long letter of exculpation addressed to the young King himself, in which he afforded large material for his own biography, reviewing from the beginning the events which led to his expatriation, the dubious part which he took in the divorce of Queen Katharine, the death of More and Fisher, and the rest of the horrors of those times. " How clear was my conduct," he exclaimed, "how straight my course! How ex- cellent the motives with which I wrote my book against thy father ! I wrote it to prevent others, who would have assailed him more violently : and I promised not only to suppress it, but to write a panegyric on him, if only he would have returned to the right way. What was I but a spiritual good Samaritan, pouring
* Qui onus vobis ad removenda omnia quae impendent incommoda et pericula prodesse plus poterit cum per se, cum propter foedera principum, quos sibi adjunctos habet, quam reliqui omnes principes sine eo. Idem autem me ad vos auctoritate praeditum mittere cogitat, qua plurimum rebus vestris prodesse possum, non solum ut consilia vobis salutaria sug- geram, sed ipsa quoque remedia efferam, &c., Pole, Epist. iv. p. 43. The letter is undated, but must have been about April, 1547, since in a follow- ing letter of that date, which he wrote to the confessor of Charles V., he says that he had been encouraged to write to the English Council and to send two of his domestics with the letter, because he had heard that the Emperor had sharply rebuked the English ambassador at his court (Hoby) for the innovations in England. — Epist. iv. p. 45.
1548.] Further Restraint of Preaching. 529
the oil of love into the spiritual wounds of the King ? Thou mayest, O prince, be prejudiced against me : but I know thy goodness of nature : nor will I be deterred from warning thee of thy perils. Become one of God's children, and I will live for thee ; thy councillors would keep thee in darkness, but I can open thine eyes. I propose to write another book, to expose the issues of thy father's policy : outwardly glorious, because they increased his power and revenue, they are in reality hollow and futile. If I make the savour of an earthly father to stink in thy nostrils, I restore thee the sweetness of the heavenly Father : and thou must suffer and excuse me. All precious oint- ments are laid up for thee in the casket of the Church. Thou art bound to receive me as the messenger of heaven."*
He tried Somerset the next, to whom he proposed to write, if Somerset would receive his letters. The Duke answered that if he thought fit to write private letters for the good of the realm, they would be received : f and Pole eagerly complied. He then attempted the Earl of Warwick \\ nor was he weary yet.
From the restraint of preaching in the beginning of the year, the parish priests, preaching in their own churches, had been excepted not less than the bishops and the licensed preachers. But this Order had. been speedily followed by a Proclamation, in which great complaint was made of the indiscretion of preachers : complaint which referred not so much to the bishops, not so much to the licensed preachers,
* Pole, Epist. iv. 310.
+ John Yonge wrote to Pole's gentleman Throgmorton to that effect in October, 1548. Calend. of State Pap. Domestic, vol. i. p. 11.
X Pole wrote to Warwick, April 6, 1549, saying that he had written to Somerset, and offering to give further information for the benefit of the realm. — lb. p. 14. Tytler, i. 166. Look on to vol. iii. 126, hiij. op.
VOL. II. 'Mm
530 Parish Priests silenced. [ch. xiv.
as to the priests, who were said to have used the pulpit to disparage the recent proceedings, and to spread false rumours. Among other things it was alleged that they kept alive the false notion of the half-crown to be exacted for every baptism, marriage, or burial : an alarming notion, against which the enthusiasm of the Reformation might have struggled in vain. It was also lamented that there were men who testified their joy in the new liberty in two different ways : some by sending their wives packing, others by adding to the number of their wives. The power of preaching therefore was taken away from the parish priests even in their own churches : none might preach henceforth save bishops and licensed preachers, and licensed preachers were not to be refused or denied to preach. A licensed preacher might go to a church, show his license to the parson and to two honest men of the parish, and mount the pulpit. But if no licensed preacher came, there was to be no sermon, only one of the Homilies read. At the same time pains were taken to render the licensed preachers both more select and more discreet than they had been hitherto. The power of granting licenses, which had been shared by the bishop of every see, was now restricted to the King, to the Protector, and to Cranmer :* and the licenses which were issued were accompanied by a salutary admoni- tion. " It has been thous^ht fit that elect and chosen, discreet and sober men," said the Council, "should occupy that place which was made for edification, not for destruction ; not for private glory, but to appease the people, to teach them their duty towards their superiors, the obedience which they owe to the orders of those who bear rule of God ; and to inform them they are not to take their own way in religion, nor to
* Cardwell, Doc. Annals, i. 50, 24 April.
1548.] All preachi7ig whatever forbidden. 531
run, before their heads have appointed them what to do. We have great confidence in you : but we add to your hcenses this admonition, that you stir the people to no alteration, to no innovation other than is already set forth in the Injunctions, Homilies, and Proclamations. It is far more necessary at this time to exhort men to mend their lives, to keep the Com- mandments, to be humble to their rulers. You may indeed teach them to flee from the old superstitions, the pardons, beads, pilgrimages, and the rest of the Bishop of Rome's traditions ; but not to run before they be sent, or change things without authority. It is neither the duty of a private man to alter ceremonies and innovate orders in the Church, nor the part of a preacher to bring into contempt what the prince allows. Look at the Acts of Parliament, the Injunctions, the Proclamations, the Homilies; and keep to them."* But the experiment was found to fail : it was difficult to make the licensed preachers select : many of them could not be kept within the prescribed limits : and after the experience of four months a new royal Proclamation came forth for- bidding all preaching whatsoever, until the labours of the Windsor Commission should be ended in the publication of the uniform order of public prayer. " Certain of our licensed preachers," the boy was made to say, " neglect the admonitions of the Pro- tector and the Council. They behave themselves irreverently in their preachings, causing great disorder and contention, and not regarding the authority by which only they are allowed to preach. Others of them have behaved well : but nevertheless, since we are about to see very shortly one uniform order throughout the realm, and to end all religious con-
* May 13. See it in full in Burnet, or in Cardwell, i. 63. M m 2
532 The Licensed Preachers. [ch. xiv,
troversies, we inhibit all preachings, in the pulpit or elsewhere, until such a time as the said order shall be put forth generally. Certain bishops and learned men are now conareofate about it." He added that the clergy might apply themselves meanwhile to prayer for the achieving of his godly purpose ; that the people were to pray duly, hear the Homilies patiently, cultivate obedience, and be the more ready to receive the godly, quiet, and uniform order to be had ; and that unless the sheriffs and justices imprisoned infringers of that Proclamation, it would be to their peril.* This total silence, saving the Homilies, may be presumed to have lasted to the publication of the first Prayer Book in the following year. But, even after that, the pulpit was not opened freely. The restraints, which had been laid on preaching before the total silence, came into force acjain, and remained throughout this period of vaunted liberty. The bishops themselves, much less the parish priests, could neither preach without license, nor license others. None might preach without a license : the privilege of licensing lay only with the King, the Archbishop, and a layman or two. So truly desirous was the Council that the light of the Gospel might diffuse a well-trimmed, uniform, and soothing ray.t
The inconvenient behaviour of some of the licensed preachers may be illustrated from his own narrative of his own exploits which has been left by
* September 23. Fuller, bk. vii. p. 388. Burnet says that he could not trace this Proclamation, or find any allusion to it in letters or records. Cardweli says that it is in a small collection of papers printed in 1550. Doc. Atinals, i. 70.
t " Now no bishop might license any to preach in his own diocese ; nay, none might preach himself without license ; so I have seen licenses to preach granted to the Bishop of Exeter in 1 55 1, and to the Bishops of Lincoln and Chichester in 1552." — Strype, iii. 142. The two latter licenses which Strype saw are still in the Record Office ; see Calend. of State Pap. Domest. vol. i. p. 40.
1548.] Thomas Hancock. 533
one of them. Thomas Hancock was a zealous man. I greatly garble his narrative in the service of the reader ; — " I got a license from Cranmer in the first year of King Edward," says Hancock, " and I preached at Christchurch, Twynham. And after the sermon, when the vicar, who was present, was at the Mass, I told the people that what he held over his head they could see, but that Christ had said that we should see Him no more : that therefore to bow to it, to kneel to it, to honour it as God, was to make it an idol, and to commit horrible idolatry. And the vicar was angry, and rebuked me, and went out of the church. And I preached in a church of Salisbury, when some of the clergy were present. And when I spoke against superstitious ceremonies, and said again that what the priest held over his head was an idol, some of the clergy left the church. And I called after them that they would not hear the Word of God, because they were not of God. And then at the end came the Mayor of Salisbury, and said that I had broken one of the King's Proclamations by calling the Sacrament by a nickname ; and he put me in prison, and I was tried at the Assizes, and bailed out in heavy sureties. And I went to the Duke .of Somerset at Sion House, and he let me off, and my sureties also ; and he sent me to Secretary Cecil at Southampton. And Master Cecil would not let me preach there, lest I should cause the town to be divided. But I heard a licensed brother named Griffith preach there, when Cecil was present. He gave him good doctrine; for he asked him how he, being chief justice in that part, suffered the images to stand in the church, the idol hanging by a string over the altar,* the people honouring it,
* The method of reserving the sacrament in a box hung by a string over the altar was peculiar to England. Hence the merry nicknames of
534 Sketch of the History of Licenses, [ch. xiv.
contrary to the law, candlesticks with tapers in them upon the altar, I praised God for it. Then I went to the godly town of Poole in Dorset, where they were first called Protestants in that part of England : and I became minister of Poole. And in preaching there I said again that what the priest held over his head was not God. And a great merchant in the place said that I came from the Devil, and bade the people from me. And another man called out that it should be God, when I was a knave. And after that, they came about me in the church, and asked me to say a Dirige for all souls : and when I said, Not with my life, they becalled me and my wife (I had a wife) and set upon me in the quire, so that I had much ado to get out. But I went to Somerset and Cecil again, and got a letter to allow me to preach in Poole without molestation ; and there I continued all the days of King Edward."*
The system of licenses, which was abused after this fashion, was in itself ancient in the Church of England. But it had been used hitherto for the relief or assistance of the parochial clergy. By the old rules, a bishop could preach anywhere without license even in the diocese of another ; a curate, that is a paroch, or man having a cure, could preach without license in any part of his cure, whether he were a priest or but a deacon. To an unpreferred clergyman the bishop could give a license, which was to be exhibited in the place where he was to preach : the curate of a parish could give a license for the occasion to a master in theology. But the friars were the great preachers of those days ; and they were subject
" Jack in the box," — " Round Robin," — " the Sacrament of the halter." It was the merriest thing that could be done to steal into the church and cut the string.
* Nichol's Narratives, p. 71.
1548.] The First Prayer Book undertaken. 535
to the rules of license, though with some difference. Of the four chief orders of them, the Dominicans and Franciscans received in the course of time a general license to preach : the Austin Friars and the Car- melites were always obliged to sue for the privilege individually.* A great part of these itinerant preachers would be neither priests nor deacons, but religious laymen : to the parochial clergy they must have been of vast assistance in the discharge of the most burdensome of all duties, a burden which has been increased fifty-fold of late, and bound upon their shoulders so as never man bound burden upon man before.
The Windsor Commission in the meantime was busy with the composition of the first Prayer Book. Of their labours, the survey may await the appearance ; the scope, the manner and the models may be indicated in anticipation ; and the silent progress may be ac- companied by some reflections on the nature or the necessity. It was not a new thing that was designed. From high antiquity the reformation of the rites of the Church was continual ; it had been often under- taken by national bishops in their dioceses ; sometimes it had been undertaken by the more central authority of one or other of the Popes. The common order of worship, instituted or augmented from antiquity by the great Pontiffs Leo, Gelasius, and Gregory the First, had been again reformed by Gregory the Seventh in the great liturgic reformation of the eleventh century. It was generally received throughout the West, but not without great and constantly increasing variations in different countries. Every diocese had a Use : the calendar was laden with local saints ; innumerable observances were introduced by successive bishops, or
* ScLidamore's Not. Euchar. ch. ix. 67.
53^ Sketch of the History of Liturgies, [ch. xiv.
allowed under various privileges.* Hence it came to pass that the Breviary, for so the reformed service book of the eleventh century was called, no longer deserved its name in the sixteenth century. Nay rather, there were many Breviaries ;t perhaps there always had been ; and it may be questioned whether Rome, even in her greatest day, had been able to overcome the variations of the churches, or to do more than cause them to reform themselves after their own fashion, under their own bishops ; even if it be granted that the reforming impulse, which produced the Breviaries of the eleventh century, came first from her.
In the age in which she lost so many provinces, Rome, agfain leading or followins^ the nations, declared the necessity of a new liturgic reformation. She acknowledged, although the fault lay not with her, that there was among the clergy great and indecorous ignorance of the divine rites, to the scandal of the people.t Indeed the ceremonies of the churches were so intricate and various, that it must have required almost a Druidical training to have performed
* Quae divini officii formula pie olim at sapienter a summis Pontifici- bus, piaesertim Gelasio ac Gregorio Primo constituta, a Gregorio autem Septimo reformata, cum diurnitate temporis ab antiqua institutione deflex- isset, necessaria visa res est quae ad pristinam orandi regulam revocaretur. —Preface to the Romati Breviary of Trent, by Pius V. (1568.)
t Alii enim praeclaram veteris Breviarii constitutionem multis locis mutilarunt, alii incertis et alienis quibusdam commutatam deformarunt. . . . Ouinetiam in provincias paulatim irrepserat prava ilia consuetudo, ut Episcopi in ecclesiis, quae ab initio communiter cum ceteris veteri Romano more Horas Canonicas dicere ac psallere consuevissent, privatum sibi quisque Breviarium conficerent, et iliam communionem; uni Deo, una et eadem formula preces et laudes adhibendi, dissimillimo inter se, ac pene cujusque Episcopatus proprio officio discerperent. — lb.
X Hinc ilia tarn multis in locis divini cultus perturbatio, hinc summa in clero ignoratio ceremoniarum ac rituum Ecclesiasticorum, ut innume- rabiles Ecclesiarum ministri, in suo munere indecore, nee sine magna piorum offensione versarentur. — lb.
1548.] Cardinal Quignons Reforms. 537
them. But it is more probable that negHgence and omission prevailed rather than bootless assiduity. Under a privilege, therefore, of Pope Clement the Seventh, in the year 1535, Francis Quignon, Cardinal of Santa Croce, a zealous and able reformer, undertook the heavy task of reducing the eccentricities of four centuries. After an immense labour of comparing, revising, castigating, and expunging, he produced a reformed Breviary which was accepted in many dioceses in many countries, and which might have seemed worthy to be received by the whole of the Latin communion. But, though executed by a Cardinal under the warrant of a Pope, the work of Quignon was not acceptable to Rome. His principles, his spirit were too liberal : and the final recension of the Breviary of the reduced Roman obedience was reserved for the following generation and the less flexible hand of the Tridentine Council*
The important work of Quignon became known in England : though, appearing after the abolition of the Roman jurisdiction, it arrived too late for the oppor- tunity of supplanting the old diocesan Uses. It lay however before the Windsor Commissioners ; and, as the principles of the honest Cardinal were justly approved by them, he may be allowed to exhibit them in his own words. " I collected the opinions of many," said he, " I sought the aid of the learned. I altered some things, others I added, but I retained the form and substance of the ancient Breviary. I have studied to restore the holy institutions of the Fathers ; to cause
* In the preface to tHe Breviary of Trent the work of Quignon is formally declared to be abolished, and is spoken of in slighting terms, " Plurimi, specie officii commodioris allecti ad brevitatem novi Breviarii, a Francisco Ouignonio tituli S. Crucis in Jerusalem Presbytero Cardinale compositi, confugerunt."
538 Sketch of the History of Liturgies, [ch.xiv.
the clergy to keep the Canonical Hours, from which they have departed by negligence ; to explain the perplexed and difficult order of the prayers ; to remove the rude legends, which savour not of gravity; and to have the books of Holy Scripture read in their stated times, not barely begun, and then omitted. Indeed my chief concern has been to have the Scriptures read through in every year ; and the greater part of the Old Testament, and the whole of the New, except a portion of the Apocalypse, is now arranged to be read in the year. The Psalter is so arranged as to be recited every week. In all this we return to ancient institutions ; we avoid the scandalous omission of Scripture, the unmeaning repetition of a few Psalms, instead of all in turn, and the continual occurrence of Saints' days in unappropriate seasons, even all through Lent."* In truth the bold reformer swept away two-thirds of the Saints' days, omitted all the offices of the Blessed Virgin, and cut out a vast number of interjectory parts, which he deemed superfluous, such as versicles, responds, invitatories, and the like.f The boldness, the Scriptural integrity of Quignon, and his principles of dealing with superstitious accretions were followed by the English ritualists ; but in two important respects they departed from him. Quignon retained the Latin language, as it was to be expected, since his work was designed to
* Ouignon's preface.
t See an article in the Reunion Magmme of October, 1877. The reforms in Quignon's Breviary are thus summed up by a late writer. " The collects are fewer, invitatories are curtailed, and, with the antiphons, greatly reduced in number. The little chapters and respohsories are all but eliminated. The matin offices, with which the book commences, are in fact compressed into one. The lessons are fewer, but longer : and mainly Scripture. Vespers and compline are virtually united, and rarely vary. Saints' days are greatly diminished." Chambers's Divine Worship, pref. vii.
1548.] The Canonical Hours. 539
be received in every country ; and he retained, though he reduced, the Canonical Hours.
They had before them, besides the Roman in Ouignon, the Lutheran model in the Consultation of Hermann. This work, of which the influence has been already seen in the first English Order of Communion, was composed by Melanchthon and Bucer, on the base of the form of service, compiled by Luther himself, which was commonly known as the Nuremburg Lit- urgy. It contained forms of prayer and a litany, with directions for the public worship and the administra- tion of the Sacraments ; and, since it was drawn from ancient sources, and professed itself to be an abridg- ment or amendment of the Catholic services, it might be called, like Ouignon's work, a reformed breviary. But the Lutheran recension of antiquity might be expected to be very bold : and in one point at least it was boldly and happily followed, if by the Lutheran recension it was that the English com- mission were encouraged to rid the public services of the Canonical Hours, an old but intolerable encumbrance.*
From an early period the public services in the churches of every country had been confused by the monastic institution of the Hours. A vast mass of psalmody, prayer, and reading was disposed into seven or eight services, to be performed at certain hours during every day. Of these services two only, the morning and evening, were ecclesiastical and most ancient. The rest were of later though remote origin, and of gradual though early invention. They were
* But see above, p. 432 : below, p. 541 note. Hermann's Consultation is in fact a kind of Directorium, arranged under various heads, without division into morning or evening services, much more without the Hours. There is a litany, a marriage, a burial, and other occasional offices, with many explanations of meaning, origin, and use.
540 Sketch of the History of Littirgies. [ch.xiv.
observed in the eastern monasteries : into the west they were brought by the great Abbot Benedict in the sixth century. They became, however, mingled with the services of the churches ; and were considered obligatory on the clergy. They confused the public worship for centuries, and were the cause both of the continual reformations which attempted in vain to adjust them with the system which they vitiated, and of the accumulations, the omissions, the pretended readings, by which it was sought to evade or diminish the intolerable weight of them.* It is impossible indeed to suppose that they were ever observed in their utmost rigour by any but the most severe ascetics, whether of the East or of the West. To rise in the middle of the night, to repair to the cold and dimly- lighted chapel, and there to consume the hours of sleep in the endless chants of the Nocturn : to rise again at daybreak, and go through the office of Lauds : to attend the revolution of the day in six offices more : to do this on every day of the year, with heavy additions upon the particular days, was an unendurable burden, a mountain of superstition, which it is hard to imagine ever to have been sustained by man, which it was vain to impose on the clergy, much more upon the people. It had been evaded to some extent, and lightened by various expedients both inside the monas- teries and outside of them for ages ; and now that in England the monasteries were gone, it was good to banish them altogether.! With them went the
* [Stated hours of prayer are mentioned, or recommended to Chris- tians, by Clemens Alexandrinus, TertulHan, and Cyprian, in the first three ages. But the Apostolic Constitutions, of the beginning of the fourth century, are the first authority that enumerates as many as six of such hours. — Joluison's Ccuiofts, i. 189. The subject is carefully examined by Bingham (Bk. xiii. ch. 8, sec. 9), who maintains that they were of gradual introduction, first in the monasteries, then in the churches.]
t It may be worth notice that the severity of the Hours was to some
1548.] The Canonical Hours. 541
hebdominal division of the Psalter : for of these incessant offices the substantial part was psalmody : and when we look round upon the empty stalls of our cathedral and remaining collegiate churches, and examine their double seats, mercifully contrived to give some relief during the protracted exercises of devotion, we may revive in thought the forms that once leaned there, and hear ag-ain the voices which still renewed the everlasting chant.* Returning to true antiquity, the English reformers dismissed the Canonical Hours from the public services of the Church, the morning and evening prayers : and they were relegated to their proper place, to those private and voluntary devotions which were assisted by the Primer.
The celebrated Use of Salisbury, the prevailing rite of England, was the matter upon which the Commissioners were to impress an amended form. This, and with it the other ancient Uses of the realm, was the monument of the independence of England. Originally compiled out of a former chaos by St.
extent relaxed by the authority of Henry VIII., even while the Hours still nominally remained. In the statutes for his cathedrals of the New Founda- tion, while ordering that Matins, Prime, Terce, Sext, None, Vespers, and Compline should be kept by the chapters and their ministers, the King added, " We are unwilling to make them chant the offices at night." Carlisle Statutes, ed. Dr. Prescott, pp. 51, 65. The matutinal office anciently consisted of two parts, Nocturns and Lauds ; the King thus abolished the former of them. This was the first formal abolition of any part of the Hours.
* In the East, in some of the monasteries, the whole Psalter was read or sung every day. In others they read sixty psalms a day, in others fifty, in others thirty or twenty. In the West much diversity was found. In some of the national churches the Psalter was read in a week, and this was probably the prevalent arrangement ; in others it took a fortnight. In the English Church, before the Reformation, twelve psalms were pre- scribed for Matins, the longest of the Hours, a proportion which makes it likely that the Psalter was taken in a week. Palmer's Orig. Liturg. This was, as we have seen, the arrangement made in Quignon's Breviary, and it still remains in the Tridentine, or authorised Roman Breviary.
542 Sketch of the History of Liturgies, [ch. xiv.
Osmund, the great Bishop of SaHsbury, in the eleventh century, it maintained itself against the contemporary creation of Pope Gregory the Seventh, the Breviary which (as the reader will by this time have perceived) bore the name of Roman, not because it was either received by all churches of the Roman obedience, or imposed upon them, but because it was issued by the bishop of the Roman see. Committed to the press more than once in the first part of the sixteenth century,* it remained untouched by the publication of the reformed Roman Breviary, the labour of Quignon. Again reprinted, as it has been seen, in the year 1 544, and enjoined upon the clergy, it was prepared for a wider destiny : while in these succes- sive editions, in each of which it received alteration, it might not immodestly claim to be already a reformed breviary. It was destined, having been transmuted into the first Prayer Book, to hold the standard of English uniformity against the uniformity of Trent.
The Catholic independence of England, which was thus attested b}^ the old Uses, whether of Salisbury or of many other dioceses, was older than they were, and had subsisted from the first. It is not improbable that when the Roman rite of Gregory the Great was brought into the island by Augustine, it acquired some of the Gallican peculiarities which struck the sensitive observation of the missionary during his
* The Sarum Breviary was imprinted first in the time of Warham, and the year 1516. This edition was so different from the previous ones, at least in arrangement, that Seager does not hesitate to call it reformed. " Reformatam appellandam fuisse manifestum est." — Portifor. Sarisb.p. vii. Prcsf. This edition was republished in 1531; another edition fol- lowed in 1541 (see above p. 290), and again in 1544. The chief reforms lay in the greater length of the lessons, and the fuller instructions and references. The same work was done for the Sarum Missal in 1533. — Freeman's Principles, Pt. ii. 106.
1548.] Catholic IndepeJidence of England. 543
journey hither, the remembrance of which, revived by the worship of the Kentish queen, prompted the well- known inquiry which he addressed to the Pope. If so, they were allowed. " If you find anything either in the Roman, or the Galilean, or any other church" — such was the noble answer of Gregory to Augustine — " which may be more acceptable to Almighty God, take it ; and teach the church of the English, which is new in the faith, whatsoever you can gather from the several churches."* But these original variations, so far as they can be traced, were minute and unimportant, such as would arrest the attention of the experienced ritualist alone ; and the differences which arose subse- quently between the Uses of one place and another were but outgrowths, which left the real structure unaffected. The various rituals, uses, divine services of the Western Churches, it might be said of the Western dioceses, all agreed in containing the essential things of Catholic worship ; they consisted of the same offices, and contained the same substantial parts in each. The Churches which used them remained in one communion. It was only when uniformity, the
* Bede, i. ch. xxvi., xxvii. The reader may be reminded that, as Bede tells us, Augustine found in Kent a church called St. Martin's, built when the Romans were here, in which Queen Bertha used to pray. It is not clear whether Bertha worshipped according to the Galilean rite, or whether Augustine referred to what he had observed in his journey through France, in his letter of inquiry to the Pope. The advice which he got was plain. By the researches of Palmer and other ritualists the Roman rite or liturgy has been traced to the fifth century. The Galilean, which may possibly have entered Gaul through Lyons from the East, may be of equal anti- quity. These were the prevailing liturgies of the West in ancient times, and one or other, or the two mixed, were the original common element in all the latter uses of Western Christendom. It may be added that there were two others, which complete the quaternion of most ancient liturgies, viz. the Great Oriental liturgy with its varieties, which was the original of that which is used in the Greek Church, and the Alexandrian liturgy. They all seem about the same age, and no doubt point backward to a more ancient source.
544 Parliament. [ch. xiv.
invention of the sixteenth century, came into play, that schisms began and sects arose. For the rest, the Windsor Commission did their work well. Out of the Sarum Use they made the first English Book of Common Prayer : but if they had happened to take any other of the old Uses of England for their material, the result would not have been very unlike to that which they produced from the Sarum Use. They had good models, and good sources of principles : and the researches of the present great school of liturgical writers have proved that they neither feared nor were unable to ascend to the highest Christian antiquity in quest of purity.
A draft of the new book was ready to be laid before Parliament, when it met, on the twenty-fourth of November, for a session which was destined to be long and memorable. The draft was brought into the Lords December 14th, when a great debate arose upon the awful subject of the Sacrament.* It raged
* " There was a notable disputation of the Sacrament in the Parliament house." — King Edward's Journal.
[Since this volume was written the important discovery has been made by Messrs. Gasquet and Bishop of a MS. contemporary account of this great debate. It is entitled, "Certain Notes touching the Disputations of the Bishops in this last Parliament assembled of the Lord's Supper:" and seems to have been made by some notary appointed. It is in the B. M. Royal, 17. B. xxxix. It is published in their work, Edw. VI. and the Bk. of Common Prayer, App. V. They have also given a chapter (ch. xi) to examining it : a chapter which, though learned and able, is lessened in value by the unhistorical assumption that only the English bishops on one side were Catholic, those on the other side being left to be supposed not Catholic. It is the assumption which blights so much of modern Roman Catholic writing. In this debate both sides were Catholic, both adducing the Catholic fathers and doctors, both striving to gather the mind of Catholic antiquity on the Scriptures. Neither were advancing their own unsanctioned notions, like heretics. The debate lasted three days. The Lord Protector opened it, and, to bring things to a point, required the bishops to dispute " Whether bread be in the Sacrament after the Consecration, or not." Tunstall spoke first, and began by objecting to the disuse of the word Mass in the Book or
^548.]
Debate on the Sacra7nent. 545
for several days, the Commons thronging the gallery to listen. The question was managed chiefly among the
draught of the Book. Being recalled to the point by Somerset, he objected that the Adoration was left out of the Book. Tunstall, Cranmer and Heath argued on the meaning of Spiritual and Corporal : Sir Thomas Smith interfered in a way that may seem profane : and Heath made answer to him that "reason will not serve in matters of faith." Cranmer then spoke at length to the effect that " Our faith is not to believe Him to be in bread and wine, but that He is in heaven, as was proved by Scriptures and Doctors, till the Bishop of Rome's usurped power came in" : and that " No man drinketh or eateth Christ except he dwell in Christ, and Christ in him." A discussion followed, in which Tunstall, Heath, and Day opposed Cranmer, while Barlow and Holbeach spoke against reservation. The travelled Thirlby then interposed in a curious manner, "advising the audience to understand that the Book was not agreed on among the bishops, but only in disputation ; lest the people should think it dishonesty in them to stand in argument against their own deed that they had set their hands to ;" adding that he himself never allowed the doctrine of the Book. Warwick sternly answered that it was "a perilous word spoken in that audience," and that "he was worthy of displeasure who, when concord was sought would cast occasions of discord among men." This ended the first day's debate. At the second meeting the Lord Protector took up Thirlby: that the Bishops' consultation for unity, that in councils the conclusion lay with the most part, that it was Day of Chichester only who had refused to agree : that Day's reasons were lack of chrism in Confirmation, " may be" instead of "may be made" (Jint) in the Consecration of the Elements, and that he would have certain words, "these Sacrifices and Oblations," added after the Consecration. Thirlby made a vehement reply in defence. He said that he had subscribed to the Book because, though too much in some things, it stood with Scripture; and though want- ing in many things, they were to be treated on afterwards ; that here he desired agreement with other churches : that he desired unity in the realm. He proceeded that the two great sticks, or scruples, were the Elevation and the Adoration; also that Oblation, which was in the Book at first had been since left out. Other things might be altered for the sake of unity, but he had never consented to leave out the Adoration, and he desired the Verity of the Body and Blood to be set forth plainly. "Things in disputation," said he, " are not agreed upon till we allow that which is spoken of." Smith remarked, "They are all agreed on the doctrine : " and the Lord Protector used a sarcasm or two on Thirlby's obstinacy. Bonner spoke next : that " decent, lawful, and expedient " were the points : that the doctrine of the Book was not decent, because it had been condemned as heresy both abroad and in the realm, as in Lambert's case (a home thrust for Cranmer) : that there was heresy in it, for the Sacrament was called bread : that they had agreed before in VOL. II. N n
546 Parliamejit . [ch. xiv.
bishops ; and it was perceived, or rather imagined, with astonishment and deHght by the more advanced party, that the sensitive Primate had exchanged the Lutheran for the Helvetian or Sacramentarian opinion. " It is all over with the Lutherans," exclaimed the zealous but not the acute Traheron, soon to be Dean of Wells, " never has the truth obtained a more brilliant victory among us. Contrary to all expectation, the Archbishop maintained our opinion openly, firmly, and with the greatest learning. The Bishop of Rochester followed, and spoke with so much perspicuity, elo- quence, and erudition, that he stopped the mouth of that zealous papist, the Bishop of Worcester. Thus the chief and almost the only supporters of the Lutherans have come over to our side."* The critic who could
the verity of the Sacrament, and now to go against it was " hke Agabus :" (perhaps alluding to the narrower or wider sense of "all the world" in his prediction). Somerset interrupted him as to bread, and Bonner said no more. Sampson thought the doctrine of the Book very good. A long disputation followed between Rugg of Norwich and Holbeach. Then Ridley addressed the audience in a learned speech, keeping close to Somerset's point : his conclusion was, " As Christ took upon Him manhood and remaineth God, so is bread made by the Holy Ghost holy and remaineth bread still : not simple bread, but bread united to the Divinity of Christ. As a burning coal is more than a coal, for there is fire with it, He joins the bread to His Divinity. He changeth bread in virtutem carnis, non in veritatem, as Theophylactus says." A vigorous disputation followed between Ridley and Heath, in which Ridley said that the bread "is converted into the Body of Christ," and Heath "the working of it is made by the receiver," though good and bad "all eat one thing" (Gasquet and Bishop think Ridley made an inadvertent mistake in saying this. There is no reason to think so). The Third Day was begun by Day arguing strongly for the literal meaning. " In time past the pure words of Christ were taken : but now we expound them by trope and figure." This question filled most of the time, and was keenly and learnedly handled by most of the former disputants. On the last day of the debate (whether third or fourth uncertain) the whole question was argued more generally. The last speaker was Ridley. This great debate was a remarkable exhibition of skill and learning.]
* Traheron to Bullinger, Orig. Lett. yil. Bullinger himself was a moderate Lutheran. [But see Gasquet and Bishop, p. 231.]
1548.] Debate on the Sacrament. 547
mistake Heath for a papist may easily have mistaken the opinion which Ridley joined with Cranmer in expressing : nor is it likely that the former at least meant to maintain anything contrary to Catholic doctrine. The main argument of Cranmer was, ac- cording to the same authority, that " the body of Christ was taken up from us into heaven, when He left the world, even as He said, Me ye have not with you always," an argument which might be variously concluded.* The more intelligent, perhaps the more interested, Peter Martyr, the head of the foreign conclave of Lambeth, reported the matter somewhat differently. The parties, he said, engaged so ve- hemently that the victory fluctuated between them. Cranmer showed himself a mighty theologian, he whom they were wont to traduce as a mere official. Tran- substantiation might be exploded, but the difficulty of the Presence still remained.f However it must be added that Peter Martyr also speaks of " the popish party," so that after all it remains uncertain whether the disputation were such as might have arisen between the Old and the New Learning in former days, or such as might have arisen now between led asns more moderate Lutherans : whether Cranmer really gave encouragement to the party of innovation, or they might more justly have renewed their lamenta- tions over the lukewarm and lethargic Thomas.|
* I mention this because the same argument appeared afterwards in the celebrated postscript to the Communion in the Second Book of Edward, and still remains in the Prayer Book. " And as concerning the natural body and blood of our Saviour Christ, they are in heaven and not here," &c. Comp. vol. iii. 478, ///// op.
t Martyr to Bucer, Orig. Lett. 469.
+ '■ Canterbury conducts himself in such a way that the people do not think much of him, and the nobility regard him as lukewarm." — Traheron to Bullinger, August, Orig. Lett. 320. " This Thomas has fallen into so heavy a slumber, that we entertain but a very cold hope that he will be
N n 2
548 Parliament. [ch. xiv.
The new Book, after lying in the Lords some days, was taken down to the Commons, and read there, December 19.*
The brave John Hales, fidl of pity for the miseries and oppressions of the times, took occasion to bring into these theological assemblies three bills for the relief of the poor people. The first was for the re- building of decayed houses, and the maintenance of tillage and industry. This was put to the Lords, and rejected at once. The second was against regrating, and forcing the markets. Hales declared that he knew of certainty that graziers and sheepmasters would go to market, carrying with them both cattle and money. If they could not sell the cattle as dear as they would, they bought with the money all the other cattle that were in the market, and took all home again. This raised the market : and in a few days they would return, and sell what they had brought before, and sell again what they had bought, all at their own price. The principal part of the bill therefore was to forbid buying and selling again within a certain time. This was passed by the Lords : but when it came to the Commons, it was, said Hales, "a lamb committed to the wolf's custody." It was tossed about, debated,
aroused even by your most learned letter." John ab Ulmis to Bullinger, August, lb. 380. [As to this debate, we may add what one of the Irish letters says : " All things go well forward in the Parliament house : they extinguish all popish traditions : godly orders be taken to stablish the King's realms in divine service to be used in churches : but there is great sticking touching the blessed Body and Blood of Jesus Christ. Part of our bishops, that have been most stiff in opinions of the reality of his Body there, now leaveth his Body sitting on the right hand of his Father, as our common creed testifieth ; but yet there is hard hold with some to the contrary." Issam to Billingham, "2.1 Dec. Hamilton's Cal. p. 95.]
* "The Book for the Service of the Church read, and re-delivered to Secretary Smith." — Commons' Jotirfials.
1548.] John Hales s Bills. 549
committed and deferred in such a manner, that " men's affections might therein be notably discovered " : and it came to nothing. The third bill he launched upon the Commons first. It was for the encouragement of beeves, of which there was "wonderful great decay": and proposed that the sheepmasters should keep two kine for every hundred sheep that each of them had above six score ; and that for every two kine that he had above ten he should rear a calf. " I dare lay my life on it," said Hales, "that if this bill had proceeded, there would have been within five years such plenty of victuals, and so good cheap, as never was in England. The decay of beasts would have been stopped, and the markets replenished with butter, cheese, and milk, the principal sustenance of the poor. But Demetrius and his fellows soon spied whereunto this thingr tended." Indeed this was a kind of act for uniformity which was the least to the liking of the rich. They held together in the face of the danger. It was "hold with me, and I will hold with thee," says Hales. " Our fathers, those old sheepmasters," cried they in the House of Commons, " never allowed such a bill, when it was propounded in their day. If there was any scarcity of cattle, proclamation was made that no calves should be killed for a time : and that was enough. Men eat more flesh in these days than they ate formerly. In time past neither butter, cheese, nor eggs were eaten in Lent nor on fasting days. Let Lent be kept for policy's sake."* The bill was defeated : but an Act for the observance of Lent was passed: in which it was said that the clear light of the Gospel, promulgated by the King, prevailed to show that one kind of meat was no better nor cleaner than another : but still, if fish were eaten in Lent, on Fridays and
* Strype, iii. 210.
550 The Pensions of the late Religions, [ch. xiv.
Saturdays, on Vigils and Ember Days, much flesh would be saved.*
The case of the pensioner monks, and the late chantry priests, who claimed allowance by the King's letters patent, demanded a legislative remedy. It appeared that certain speculators, taking advantage of their necessity, bought their pensions of them " for little or no money, or other thing given to the said pensioners, supplanting them to their utter undoing." It was therefore ordered that these fraudulent persons should restore the letters patent within six months, receiving back what they had given for them : or else the bargain to be void, and the pensions to be occupied again by the former holders. The pensions, it is probable enough, were issued with delay and difficulty : and the Receivers of the Court of Aucfmentations seem to have been excessive in their extortions. It was the duty of these officials, who were posted in various parts of the country, to pay the pensions quarterly, their fee being fourpence in the pound. But they appear to have exacted more ; and often to have delayed, or altogether refused the payment. They were therefore ordered, under penalty of one hundred shillings, to pay the pensions upon reasonable request ; and if they took more than their due fee, they were to forfeit ten times the amount taken.f
Several other ecclesiastical measures were begun :
* 2 and 3 Edward VI. 19.
t 2 and 3 Edward VI. 7. In closing this volume I have pleasure in acknowledging assistance given in various points by the Rev. Canon Raine, of York ; the Rev. Canon Durham, of Carlisle, Rev. Thos. Lees, Vicar of Wreay, Carlisle ; Geo. Sturgeon, Esq., of Whitehall Place, and others. The Bishop of Carlisle has kindly allowed me to consult the library of Rose Castle. I have also to acknowledge the courtesy of the Dean and Chapter of Durham in granting me the full use of their library. The names of others, whose assistance I have already acknowledged in various places, I need not repeat : but I repeat my thanks to them.
1548.] End of the Year. 551
but before they and the more considerable business of the first Prayer Book were carried to maturity, the foot of time had stepped into another year.
CHRONOLOGY OF THE IMAGE WAR.
1538. Great destruction of images, p. 47. Public burning of dis- tinguished images, 52. Distinction. made between abused and non-abused ; the former ordered to be taken down in churches, 80.
1542. Images attacked by Cranmer in Convocation: not allowed to
have lights or vestments, 289.
1543. Spoken against in the King's Book, 320.
1547. Attacked in London and elsewhere, 417. Defended by
Gardiner, 420. The distinction between abused and non- abused images maintained in Edward's Injunctions, 433. Destroyed throughout London, 445. Non-abused images futilely ordered to be set up again, 478.
1548. All images, whether abused by superstition or not, ordered to
be removed from churches, 492. Cranmer asks about them in his Visitations, 513. (1549. The fugitive images followed and destroyed by Act of Parlia- ment, vol. iii. 160).
Order of Council for Renewal of the Instruments or Commissions of Bishops. To be added on p. 413, note *.
Item : whereas all the Bishops of the realm had authority of spiritual jurisdiction by force of Instruments under the Seal appointed ad res ecclesiasticas, which was determined by the decease of our late Sovereign Lord King Henry the Vlllth of famous memory, and forasmuch as for the better order of the affairs in the realm it was thought convenient that the same authority should be renewed unto them : it was therefore ordained by the example aforesaid that they should cause new Instruments to be drawn in form of the others they had before : and that Sir William Paget, knight, his Majesty's Chief Secretary, who hath the custody of that Seal, should set the same Seal unto every of the said Instruments by virtue of this Order : and thereupon every of the said Bishops to exercise their jurisdiction in such manner as they did by virtue of their former grants under the said Seal in the time of our said late Sovereign Lord King Henry the Vlllth. Dasetifs Acts of the Privy Councit, p. 13.
INDEX TO VOLUME II.
Abbots, last appearance in Parliament, 132
Abel, 250, 251
Abingdon Abbey, 26
Abuse of Scripture, 134, 166, 233, 254, 267, 268, 385
Abuses, 3, 4, 5i> 204, 457, 476, 480, 489, 526
Adoration, 421, 533, 545
Alasco the Pole, 522, 523
Aldrich, Bishop, 120, 304, 310, 477
Alexander, Peter, 521
Anabaptists, 85 ; detested, 161 ; threatened, 166, 325
Ancram Moor, battle of, 389
Andrews, Richard, a monastic beneficiary, 212
Annates, 162
Anne of Cleves, no, 195, 240, 249, 254
Antichrist, 102, 526
Antiquarian age, the great, begun on the suppression of monasteries,
354, seq. Apologist, a nameless Henrician, 161 Ap Rice, the monastic visitor, 144, 213 Articles to be inquired —
Of the general Visitation of the first year of Edward the Sixth,
429. 479
Of the Visitation of chantries, 498 Articles ministered to heretics and others :—
To Lambert, 86
To Barnes, Garret, and Jerome, 256
To Crome, 392
To Latimer, 393
To Bonner, 444 Articles, the Six, 119, seq. ; 133 ; first persecution under them, 135, seq. ;
second, 264, seq. ; third, 327, seq. ; moderated by statute, 343 ; true
nature of these persecutions, 137, 405 \ repealed, 454, 475 Ashton, a monastic visitor, 33 Askew, Anne, 395, seq.., 441 Attainder, Acts of, 125, 246, 406
554 Index.
Audley, Lord, 33, 119, 120, 153, 232, 249, 276, 290
Augmentations, see Court
Augsburg Confession, debated between the German and English divines,
2, 3 ; its influence on English formularies, 6 ; renewed adhesion of
the Protestants to it, 376 Auricular confession, implied in Crumwel's Injunctions, 81 ; allowed
by the Germans, 108; acknowledged in the Six Articles, 123; to
Melanchthon's horror, 159; doubtfully disputed, 309; touched in
the first Communion Book, 495 Axholme Priory, 13
Baker, Sir Richard, confused with Sir Richard Rich, 248, 400 ; mentioned,
454
Bale, John : his fragment of Comperta, 26 ; his lament over the monastic libraries, 206 ; mentioned, 284 ; his works forbidden, 403 ; his Eluci- dation of Anne Askew, 441
Baptism, Articles on, 323 ; Gardiner on, 450
Barlow, Bishop, 120, 213 ; on the Commission of 75^0, 234, 286, 288, 304, 3°5> 3<^9 ? preaches against images, 417, 419 ; translated to Bath, 466 ; argues against Reservation, 545
Barnes, Dr., on the German Conference, 2 ; commissioned against Anabaptists, 85 ; reports Lambert to Cranmer, 87 ; his troubles, history, and burning, 250 seq. ; mentioned, 266, 403
Baunbach, 107, 367
Beach, Abbot of Colchester, 155
Becket, Thomas : his sister, 30 ; his blood to be examined, 63 ; splendour of his shrine, 64 ; Erasmus and Colet there, 65 ; the last visit paid there, 68 ; his festival abrogated, 69 ; his shrine destroyed, 70 ; pro- claimed a traitor, ib. ; his windows smashed, 71 ; his commemo- ration stopped, 84 ; his head detected, 163; his name erased, 291
Becon, Thomas, 269
Bedyl, the visitor, mentioned, 284
Belassis, a monastic visitor, 35, 335, 447
Bell, Bishop, 284, 286
Bellay, Cardinal : on Crumwel, 243
Benefit of clergy, Act to restore, 454
Beton, Cardinal, 387, 389, 436
Bible, a new edition of Coverdale's Bible prepared in Paris, destroyed there, but reproduced, 75 ; this was the Great Bible, or Bible of the largest volume, yj ; which had many editions : description of the frontispiece, 79; this, the Great Bible ordered by Crumwel to be read in churches, 80 ; the Bible partly restrained by proclamation, 134; the Bible said to be much read, 161 ; all unexamined versions forbidden, 165 ; the Great Bible made the standard version, but it sells badly, 166 ; Grafton designs to restore the attractive annotations, but is not allowed, 261, 263 ; Marler appointed to sell the Great Bible, and a proclamation issued to force the sale, 263, 264 ; the Great
Index. 555
Bible set up in St. Paul's, 265 ; discussed and condemned in Con- vocation, and the project of an authoritative version revived, 285 ; activity of Convocation in the project, 286 ; which is quashed by the King, 288 ; free use of the Bible forbidden by Parliament, 325 ; abuse of the Bible, 385 ; Tyndale's New Testament and Coverdale's New Testament ordered to be delivered up by all, 403 ; the Great Bible ordered in Edward VI Injunctions, 430 Bidding Prayer, form of, 190, 361, 363 Bird, Bishop, 284
Bishoprics, new, designed or erected, 221
Bishops: Royal letter to them, 271 ; authority debated, 307, seq.\ their commissions as Crown servants, 167, 413; Act to elect them by letters patent, instead of the conge d'elire, 458 ; restrained from preaching unless in their own dioceses, 491 ; restrained altogether from preaching, or licensing others to preach, 530; see also Episcopacy, Ordinaries
Bishops, their systematic depression by Popes, 374 ; their influence on liturgies, 536
Bishops' Book, see Institutio7t of a Christian Man
Blage, Sir George : nearly burnt, 405
Boleyn, Anne, 253
Bondmen : mention of, 457
Bonner, quarrel with Gardiner, 7, 8 ; his Commission, 167 ; on the Com- mission of 1340, 234 ; mentioned, 243 ; as a persecutor, 265, 267 ; in Spain, 300 ; his opinion on the Sacrament, 305 ; on Episcopacy, 308 ; his behaviour to Anne Askew, 397, seq. ; protests against the visitation of St. Paul's, and is sent to the Fleet, 444 ; opposes the suppression of chantries, 461 ; speaks at a disputation of the Sacrament, 545
Bordesley Abbey, 210
Boxley Abbey, 52
Boyneburg, the German orator, 2
Brancetor, Robert, 196, 301
Breviaries or Portifories, 312, 315, 537, 542
Brown, Anthony, 59
Browne, George, made Archbishop of Dublin, 176; his struggles and difficulties, 185, seq. ; his activity, 189
Bruno, 368
Bucer, 522, 523, 539
Buckler, an English envoy, 366, 367
Bulkeley, Katharine, 43
Bull, see Papal
Burghart, the German orator, 2, 105, 107
Burnet, his character as an historian, 359
Butts, Dr., 347
Calvin, 524
Canonical Hours, 312, 360, 432, 538, 539, 541
556
hidex.
Canons, Black and White, see Monastic Orders
Canons and Constitutions made by the Enghsh clergy against simony, 284, 290 ; attempt to get license to make them, 472 ; comp. Ecclesi- astical Laws
Canterbury, see Christ Church, Crattmer, St. Augustine's
Canterbury School altered, 228
Carew, Sir Nicholas, 97
Carlisle, chapter of, 213, 223, note *
Carthusians, see itnder Mo7tastic Orders
Catechism, Cranmer's, 512; advised by Calvin, 526
Cathedral churches of the New Foundation, 222
Catholic, the character claimed, 161, 543 ; modern misuse of the word, 544, note
Caversham Chantry, 42, 52
Cecil, 515, S'^T^seq., 533
Celibacy, 123, 160, 319, 475
Ceremonies of the Church, spoken of in Crumwel's Injunctions, 81 ; ordered to be explained, 164 ; Rationale of, 311 ; mentioned in the King's Book, 323; several proposed to be abolished, 364; admonished, but allowed by the Injunctions of Edward, 432 ; and yet some of them contemned by the Homilies, 452 ; three of them forbidden : three more forbidden, 491 : Calvin on, 526
Cervinus, legate at Trent, 368
Chantries : the fall of them prepared, 280 ; Act to dissolve them, 379 ; some dissolved under Henry VIII, 381 ; the Act renewed in Edward, 460 ; suppression of chantries, 500, seq.
Chapters, cathedral, 213, 484
Charles V, former visit to England, 68 ; alleged design against England, 100; quarrel with Henry, 195; alliance with Henry, 299; his campaign in Germany, 301 ; deceives the Protestants at Speyer, 352 ; dissatisfied with Henry, makes a separate peace with France, 353 ; aspect towards the Council of Trent, 375 ; his position as to England, 435
Chertsey Abbey, 195
Chicksand Priory, 24
Chrism, 527
Christchurch, Canterbury, 63, 203, 226, 336, 446 ; Twynham, 145, 533
Church of England : her property distinguished from monastic property, 208 ; how she was affected by the Suppression, 220, seq. ; education flung upon the Church, 229
Church of Ireland, 171, seq., 344
Clergy, their generosity to the King, 162; diminution of clerical orders, 220 ; poverty of the clergy, 221, 469 ; insulted, 477
Clergy of the Continent, their disordered state, yj^i
of Ireland, low state of, 174
of Scotland, misordered, 295
Colet, 65
Index. 557
Colleges, and collegiate churches, 201, 3S0 ; comp. Chantries Commissions : —
Bonner's Commission to be Bishop of London, 167
It was the same as those of others, which were renewed in statute
I Edward VI, 413 For Visitation of Ireland, 190 To alter Canterbury School, 228
Of 1540 to devise a new Confession, 233, 234 ; this Commission sat for three years, and produced in 1543 the Necessary Doctrine,
302-314
To examine the Canterbury prebends, 335
Windsor Commission, so called, which drew up the first Order of Communion and the first Prayer Book, 492, 493, 535, seq.
For Redress of Enclosures, 506, seq. Commons, House of, sensitive to opinion, 251, 324 Communion, English Order of, projected, 362, 483 ; published, 493 ;
examination of, 494 Communion in both kinds disputed between England and Germany, 4 ;
proposed by the Germans to be left indifferent, 108 ; refused by the
Six Articles, 123 ; Act for, 458 ; agreed to by Convocation, 475 Confession, 495 Confessions : —
Of Augsburg, q. v.
Second English, see Institution of a Christian Man
Third English, see Necessary Doctrine
Of St. Andrew's, Northampton, 18
Of Bittlesden, 36 Confirmation, questions on, 309-320, 321 ; Calvin on the Chrism in, 527 Constitution, the English, 413 ; mentioned, 442, 466, 469 Contarini, 104, 106, 159 Convocation of /jjp, i33 ;-of /J^o, 240 ; - of 1542, 283, 314; -of i544,
339;-of 75^7, 464 Convocation, relation to Parliament, 468, seq. ; powers of makmg laws
and canons after the Submission, 472 ; comp. Clergy Convocation, the Irish, 179 Cooke, Prior, 47, 55) 60 ; Friar, 246 Coren, Dr., 286, 304, 306 Cornwall, disturbance in, 482 Corporations : the monastic corporations, 207, 209 ; collegiate corporations,
280, 380 ; suppression of corporate guilds and fraternities, 461 Council, General, cited again by the Pope to be held at Vicenza, 7 ; cited
again to be held at Trent, 300 ; cited again to be held at Trent, 353 Council of Trent opened, 365, 371 ; first sessions and decrees, 372 ;
violent debates on discipline, 373 ; transferred to Bologna by the
Pope, but the Imperialists refuse to leave Trent ; suspended, 376 . Privy ; activity of, after Crumwel's fall, 258, seq. ; subdivisions of,
259 ; behaviour to Cranmer, 345 ; examines heretics, 391, seq., 397 ;
558
Index.
composition of, after Henry's death, 414 ; examines Gardiner, 441, 514, seq. ; examines Bonner, 445 Council, Orders of, 490, 491, 492 Court of Augmentations, 23, 127 ; ledgers of, 207, note ; 249, 381, 500
Firstfruits and tenths, 239, 283
Wards and Liveries, 280
Coverdale, 74, 403, 423, 451 ; see Bible Cox, Dr. John, 335
Cox, Dr. Richard, 234, 283, 286, 304, 309, 391, 447, 477, 493 Cranmer, his desire for a concord with Germany, and his share in the first German mission, 3 ; examines Friar Forest, 57 ; quarrels with a Kentish justice, 61 ; his official difficulties, 63 ; opens the attack on Becket, ib. ; sits on Anabaptists, 85 ; deprecates the Sacramental agitation, 88 ; sits on Lambert, 91 ; the Six Articles, 119 ; persecutes, 138, 7iote\ dismisses his wife, 138; his exchanges of land, 151, 484 ; his good speech at the alteration of Canterbury School, 229 ; sits over the Commission for Necessary Doctrine, 234, 302 ; intercedes for Crumwel, 244 ; his opinions on the Sacraments, 305, 306 ; on the authority of Bishops, 307 ; he probably suppresses the Rationale of Ceremonies, 313 ; plot of his prebendaries against him, 334 ; he attempted to get all prebends aboHshed, 336 ; his anxiety to reform ecclesiastical laws, 340 ; attempt on him by Gostwick, 344 ; and by the Privy Council, 345 ; author of the English Litany, 350 ; he designs further liturgical reforms, 365 ; draws up curious ordinances about tithes, 379 ; his position after Henry's death, 412 ; his conduct at Edward's coronation, 413; his controversy with Gardiner, 426 ; curious interview with Gardiner, 447 ; his Homily of Salvation, 448, 449 ; he opposes the dissolution of Chantries, 461 ; his Questions, if his, on the Mass, 477 ; sits over the Windsor Commission, 492 ; his Catechism, 512; he visits his diocese, 513 ; he invites learned strangers to help in the Prayer Book, and to effect the German concord, 521, 522 ; he is, but wrongly, believed to have left the Lutherans for the Sacramentarians, 545 ; speaks at a disputation, ib. Crawford, Dr., 234 Crispi, Peace of, 353
Crome, Dr., 85 ; his troubles, 390, seq., 405 Cromer, Archbishop, 193
Crumwel, mentioned, 4, li, 13, 30, 32, 38, 39, 44, 45, 53, 54; orders the Great Bible to be read, 80 ; his Injunctions of /jj^, 81 ; at Lambert's trial, 91 ; Pole's account of him, 103; mentioned, 118, 119, 120; persecutes Latimer and Sampson, 139, 141 ; takes a monastic site, 153 ; examines Whiting, 156; murmurs against him, 186-8; last speech in Parliament, 233 ; loses favour, 240 ; arrested on strange charges, 241 ; attainted, 247 ; last letters to the King, 248 ; execution, 250
Darcy, 151
Darvel Gadern, 56
Day, Bishop, 234, 286, 304, 365, 492 ; on the Sacrament, 545, 546
Index. 559
Debts of the King, 343, 382, 415
Decay of Towns, Acts for, 237, 280, 344, 459
Del Monte, Cardinal Legate, 368, 372, 375
Denny, Sir Anthony, 483
Diet of Speyer, 352
Disputations, religious, in Parliament, growing practice of, 474 ; on the
Sacrament, 544 Dudleys, the, 211 ; see Northiiniberland
Ecclesiastical Law, principle of, 86, 137, 158; comp. Courts of the
Church, Jurisdiction Ecclesiastical Laws, to be revised by a Commission of Thirty-two, 162, 314,
339. 379. 467, 468 Edgeworth, Dr., 234, 304 Education, effect of the Suppression on, 226 ; the burden flung on the
Church, 229 Edward the First, 179 ; he was Henry's Scottish model,-298, 386,469
the Sixth, 246, 386, 407 ; his coronation, 413
Erasmus, 34; his visit to Canterbury, 65 ; see also Paraphrase
Evesham Abbey, 27, 54
Excommunication, 94, 479
Exemptions, 128
Exeter, execution of, 97, 103
Marchioness of, 125
Extreme unction, 317, 320, 321, 528
Fagius, 523
Faith, explanation of, in the Necessary Doctrine, 319 ; how treated in
the Homily of Salvation, 427, 449, 451 Faringdon, Abbot, 155 Fetherstone, or Fetherstonhaugh, 246, 250 Filmer, a martyr, 328, seq.
Firstfruits defended, 162 ; comp. Annates Court Fisher, Bishop, 57, 94 ; becalled by a nameless writer, 163, 528 Forced loans, 326 Forest, Friar, 56, 251, 256 Fox, Bishop of Hereford, 234, 284 Francis the First, 100, 195, 198, 299, 352, 354, 412, 435 Free Chapels, 379, 380 Free Will, 324
Friars ; see Monastic Orders Frith, John, mentioned, 41, 401, 403
Gardiner, Bishop, defeats the Protestants again, 5 ; on Lambert's trial, 91 ; for the Six Articles, 120, 122; Melanchthon on him, 159; on the Crumwellian Commission, 234 ; his dealings with Barnes, 254, seq., 257 ttote ; his list of venerable words, 286 ; negotiates with the Imperial ambassador, 300 ; silent on the Crumwellian Commission for Necessary Doctrine, 309 ; sits on a Loan Commission, 327 ; his
56o
Index.
dealings with the Windsor heretics, 331, seq.; and with the Canter- bury prebendaries, ■})yj ; dispute with Latimer, 393 ; and with Anne Askew, 397 ; his expected fall, 406 ; takes the chief part in Henry's funeral, 412; his position after Henry's death, 414 ; his character, 418 ; his first letter to Somerset against innovation, 419 ; investigates the Portsmouth outrage, 421 ; controversy with Cranmer on the Homilies, 426 ; second letter to Somerset, 427; he opposes the Scottish war and the General Visitation, 440 ; is brought before the Council, 442 ; committed to the Fleet, 443 ; sent for by Cranmer, 447 ; third letter to Somerset, and criticism of the Homilies and Paraphrase, 448, seq. ; left out of the Windsor Commission, 493 ; his further troubles ending with his commitment to the Tower, 514-520
Garret, the martyr, 41, 250, 252
Glastonbury Abbey, 156, 228
Godsalve, Sir John, 442, 443
Godstow Nunnery, 43, 154
Goldwell, Prior, 67, 226
Goodrich, Bishop, 120, 234, 315, 492
Gospellers, the early, 251, 252
Gostwick, Sir John, 344
Grafton, the publisher, prepares the Great Bible in Paris, 74 ; asks Crum- wel to sanction it, 75 ; his troubles, 261 ; abandons Biblical enter- prise, 263 ; takes out a patent to print the Sarum Use, 292 ; publishes the King's Primer, 362
Gresham, 212
Grey, Lord Leonard, 176, 184, 186, 272
Griffith, a preacher, 533
Grimani, Marco, legate in Scotland, 387
Guilds, religious, 461, 498
Guildhall, Heresy Court in, 265, 405
Hales Abbey, 53, 146
Hales, John, the Commissioner, 508, seq. ; his Bills for relief of the people, 546
Halydon Rigg, Battle of, 297
Hancock, a licensed preacher, 533
Haynes, Dr., 7, 286, 333, 391, 428, 493
Heath, Bishop : on the Anabaptist Commission, 85 ; opposes the Six Articles, 120 ; on the Crumwellian Commission for Doctrine, 234 ; his learning, 283 ; opinion on Sacraments, 306 ; Cranmer refers to him about the ecclesiastical laws, 341, 7iote\ and in abolishing super- stitions, 365 ; examines Latimer, 394 ; and Shaxton, 399 ; not on the Windsor Commission, 493 ; his part in the debate on the Sacra- ment, 545
Heneage, Commissioner, 212
Henry the Third, 50
the Seventh, 137
Index. 56 1
Henry the Eighth, as reformator of monasteries, 19; his orthodoxy, 85, seq. ; he tries Lambert, 89 ; his device of dividing responsibihty, 91, 249, 255 ; he arms the coast, loi ; the reason of that, 509 ; author of Modern Uniformity, 134; appeal of to a General Council, q. v.\ his rapacity, 153, 326, 382; his severity in admonishing bishops, 186; his quarrel with the Emperor, 195, seq., 310 ; as beneficiary of the monastic property, 209, seq. ; his scheme of new bishoprics, 221 ; his Northern progress, 271 ; in Parliament, 278, 384 ; his alliance with the Emperor, 299, seq., 353 ; his Continental policy, see Charles, France, Francis ; his Scottish policy, see Scotland, James, Beaton ; his Irish policy, see Irelattd; his annotations on the opinions of the Commission for the Necessary Doctrine, 310 ; frightens Parr, 327, cf. Uniforviity ; his friendship for Cranmer, 334, 345, seq. ; his death, 407 ; character, 408 ; funeral, 410 ; his supposed Pacification or Settlement of religion, 419; will, 474
Herbert, Sir William, 483
Heresy, process in, 86
Heresy, treated as treason, 247, 250, 257 ; charged most against the poor, 333, 346 ; Bill about heresy, 378 ; the old heresy laws repealed,
454, 455 Heretical books, 165, 403 Heretics, excepted in the Act of Proclamations, 130; general pardon of,
135 ; the character repudiated, 161 ; Crumwel and the heretics, 247;
character of them, 268 ; clerical heretics worse treated than lay, 325 ;
a term of reproach, 384 Hermann's Consultation, 106, 496, 539 Hertford, see Somerset Hesse, Landgrave of, 85, 367, 377 Hilsey, Bishop, 361 Hoby, Sir Philip, 333, 503 Holbeach, Bishop, 447 ; his character, 465 ; mentioned, 477, 481 ; argues
on the Sacrament, 545 Holcroft, Thomas, a vigorous new monastic, 212 Holgate, Archbishop, 29, 153, 213, 283, 286, 342 Holidays, superfluous, 84, 361, 433 Holy Bread, 164, 432, 452, 480, 491
Water, 420, 432, 480, 491
Homilies, First Book of, 314, 422, 427, 432, 444, 448, 451, 452, 479
Homily, Cranmer's Homily of Salvation, 427, 448, 449, 452
Hospitals, monastic, 113, 146, 147, 379, 49^, seq.
Hospitallers, 235, 383
Hours, see Canonical
Howard, Katharine, 272, 278
Huick, a heretic, 394
Hull, 271
Hungerford, Lord, 246
Images depraved, 47 ; many brought to London and burned, 53 ; Darvel VOL. II. O O
562
Index.
Gadern, 56 ; abused images ordered to be taken down, 82 ; images allowed by the Lutherans, 108, 421 ; not to have candles or vest- ments, 291 ; spoken of in the King's Book, 321 ; destroyed in London and Portsmouth, 417; depraved, 420; the distinction between abused images and others dropped, 433 ; destroyed in St. Paul's and throughout London, 445 ; many images destroyed with license, 478 ; all of them ordered to be destroyed, 492 ; Cranmer on images, 512,
513 Impropriations not restored to the Church, 216, 220, 221
Incontinency, 237
Indulgences, 295, 374
Ingworth, Richard, the visitor of the Friars, yj, seq.
Injunctions : —
Of IS38 called Crumwel's, 81, seq.. 481 Of Edward the Sixth, 429, seq., 444 Of the Chantry Visitation, 381, 498 Institution of a Christian Man, variously received, 61, 63, 140 ; only designed to be temporary, 235 ; compared at large with its successor, the Necessary Doctrine, 319, seq. Interim, the, 520 Ireland : —
The Rising of Kildare in 1334 not a religious war, 169 ; the Pope no object of veneration in Ireland, 171 ; decline of the English there, 173; the Reformation drew no attention there, 175; Kildare's rising easily put down, 176 ; the Reformation brought in by Henry most arbitrarily, ib. ; Dublin Parliament of 1536, 177 ; it passed all the English Statutes of the Reformation, 178 ; opposition of the clergy, 179; the Church of Ireland joined in documents with that of England, 182; the Irish Suppression, ib. ; Henry's extraordinary rapacity, 183; his instruments, 185 ; Ireland visited by commissioners, 190; the Pope intervenes, 192 ; confederation under O'Neal, 193 ; battle of Bellahoe, 194; pacification of Ireland, 272; Ireland made a kingdom, 273; Parliament of 1341, ib.
James the Fifth of Scotland, 103, 271 ; his relations with his clergy, 295 ;
takes the title of Defender of the Christian Faith, 296 ; scheme to
kidnap him, 297 ; his death, 299 Jerome, the martyr, 250, 252, 256 Jesuits, institution of the Order, 230 John, King, 245 Joye, Geo., the heretic, 403 ; Gardiner's book against him mentioned, 253,
256, 7iotes, 403 Jurisdiction, spiritual : partly transferred to laymen, 291, 383 Justices, lectured by Rich, 505 Justification, how entreated by the German orators, 108 ; in the Bishops'
Index. 563
and in the King's Book, 324 ; in the Council of Trent, 372 ; in the Homilies, 448, 449
Katharine of Aragon, mentioned, 251, 284, 528 Kilmainham Abbey, 188 Knight, Bishop, 284
Lambert, the martyr, his case showed the difference between ecclesias- tical and English law, his history, his appeal to the Supreme Head, his trial and execution, 85, seq. ; mentioned, 255, 516, 545
Lascelles, the martyr, 395, 400
Latimer, Bishop, busy in destroying images and detecting pious frauds, 53, 54; intercedes for monasteries, 55; preaches at Forest's execu- tion, 57 ; mentioned, 120 ; roughly treated by Crumwel and made to resign his See, 139; his next troubles, 390, 392 ; he returns to public life, after Henry's death, as a licensed preacher, 4S5 ; his famous Sermon of the Plough, 486
Layton, Doctor, his career in 1338, 18-24; he attacks the London friars in the same year, 25 ; and also dissolves St. Albans, in conjunction with Legh, 32 ; his career in the last part of /Jjp, 151 ; his career in 75^0, 200, 204; he is made Dean of York, and dies, 201
Learning, the Old and New, 61, 63, Z-], 119, 138, 140, 141, 265, 283, 324, 346, 360, 3S4, 423, 465, 493, 545
Lee, Archbishop, 120, 234, 304, 308, 309
■Legh, the monastic visitor: his career in 1338, 12, 17; attacks the London friars, and St. Albans in the same year, 25, 30 ; his career in the last part of /jjp, 148, 150; his career in 1340, 202; he solves the Canterbury plot, 337
Leighton, Doctor, 286
Leland, the antiquarian, his New Year's gift, 354; his vast designs, 356
Lent, preached against, 417; proclamations for keeping, 490; Act to keep, 549
Lessons, one to be in English, 315 ; see IJturgic Reformation
Licenses for preaching, 485, 491, 530, 534; camp. Preaching
Lights, three only allowed, 82; Candlemas candles allowed, 164, 433; the three lights reduced to two, 432 ; Candlemas candles forbidden, 491
Lincoln, diocese of, 481
Litany, the numerous invocations in the first part of it, 84, 351 ; the old Litany usually found in Primers, 360 ; omitted in Marshall's Primer, 361 ; why called a procession, 351 ; origin of the English Litany, 349, 360; the English Litany printed in the King's Primer, 361 ; ordered to be used, but not as a procession, 431, 479, 480
Liturgic Reformation : first notes of, in Crumwel's Injunctions, 85 ; the Sarum Use enjoined on all the clergy of Canterbury Province, 292 ; the Liturgic Reformation advanced a step by the old church books being called in, and one Lesson ordered to be read in English, 315 ;
002
5^4
Index.
advanced another step by the Litany being made Enghsh, 349 ; advanced another step by the authorised Primer, 360, 362 ; how far it proceeded under Henry, and what was next in contemplation at his death, 363, 364 ; Comphne sung in Enghsh, 430 ; advanced another step by two Lessons, the Epistles and Gospels, being ordered to be read in English, 431 ; advanced another step by the partial rejection of the Canonical Hours, 432 ; the English Litany sung, and the Epistle and Gospel read in English, in St. Paul's, 445 ; the Liturgic Reformation advanced another step by the first English Order of Communion, 492, seq. ; advanced another step by the first Book of Common Prayer, 535, seq.
London, Doctor, his character, 41; his career in 153S, 42, 45; he inspires terror, 46; mentioned, 52 ; his career in the first part of I53g, III, 112 ; in the last part of the same year, 142 ; his career in J340, 200, 203 ; made prebend of Windsor, 330 ; his ambition, disgrace, and death, 333, 334, 337
Longland, Bishop, 270
Luther, more conciliatory than some, 109; mentioned, 374, 421
Lutherans, see Protestants, their churches retained images, 42 1
Lynn, the Guilds of, 462
MaLET, Francis, 451
Marbeck, the Windsor musician, 327, 331, 332
Manning, Suffragan of Ipswich, 26
Marshal, 361 ; see Primer
Martyr, Peter, 521, 545
Mary, the Lady, Crumvyel designed to marry her, 243
Mason, an agent in Germany, 377
Mass, the ; private masses, 4, 108 ; design to turn it into a Communion,
362 ; questions on abuses in it, 475, seq. ; how far it was turned into
a Communion by the first English Order of Communion, 495, see
Communio?i ; the word disused, 544 Matrimony, causes of, 290 May, Doctor, 447, 493 Mekins, the martyr, 265, 266 Melanchthon, anxiety to get him into England, i ; he sends others to
represent him, 2 ; his letters to Henry, in which he describes the
Sophistics, 105; his expostulation against the Six Articles, 159;
this was secretly translated into English, 261, 262; mentioned,
283 ; again invited, 523 ; mentioned, 539 Mercenary army collected by Henry, 377 ; used in the Scottish wars, 388,
436 ; wins Pinkie, 438 ; augmented, 505 Mercers' Chapel, Heresy Court there, 135, 252, 390, 392 Missal, the, 312, 315 Monasteries : Pole's description of the destruction of the lesser monasteries,
102 ; Act to give them all to the King, 127 ; Act to turn them to
better use, 131 : the Suppression vindicated, 162 ; effects of it, 204 ;
Index. 565
wastefulness of the process, 205 ; manner of it, 206 ; destination of the property, 209; the more eminent beneficiaries, 210, 211 ; effect of the measure upon education, 226 ; loss of the monastic schools, 227; decay of' towns, 237 ; pretence that taxation was to be re- lieved, 239 Monasteries suppressed in Ireland, 180, 182, 191 ; Scottish destroyed by
the English army, 388, 440 Monastic Institute, it was always foreign to England, 217 ; reflection on,
218 Monastic Orders —
Canons and Canonesses : — Austin or Black, a lax Order, 12, 15, 16, 22, 23, 26, 27, 28, 34, 35, 44,
113, 114, 115, 116, 142, 144, 145, 146, 148, 149, 153, 154, 200,203 Prsmonstratensian, or White, 13, 15, 16,27, 112, 117, 146, 152,200,201 Gilbertine : case of Chicksand, 24 ; their other houses, 14, 28, 29,
153, 203, 213 Friars and Sisters : -
Austin, 25, 37, 43, 47, III, 253, 535
Brigitites, or reformed Austin, 154
Carmelite, or White, 25, 40, 42, 46, 47, 56, 60, in, 113, 535
Crossed, 25, 34, 42
Dominican, Preachers, or Black, 25, 38, 40, 46, 47, 58, 535
Franciscan, Minors, or Grey, 25, 40, 42, 46, 47, 56, 60, in, 113, 535
Observant, or reformed Franciscan, they were the first Order
suppressed, 56, 59 Maturine, 40 Trinitarian, 42, 44 Monks and Nuns: —
Benedictines, or Black, 12, 14, 16, 22, 24, 26, 30, 31, ii-, 34; 43? 44, 1 1 1,
112, 113, 114, 115, 116, 117, 144, 145, 146, 147, 148, 149, 151, 152,
153, 154, I55> 200, 202, 203,215 Cistercians, or White, 12, 14, 15, 16, 22, 27, 28, 33, 34, 35, 112, 114,
116, 117, 142, 143, 149, 151, 152, 153 Carthusians; the Axeholme Charterhouse, 13; Beauval, 144, 147;
their other places, 44, 112, 115, 116, 118, 148, 149, 154 Cluniacs, 18, 35, 44, 116, 148, 202, 203 Fontevrauld, Nuns of the Order of, 144 St. Clare, Nuns of; often called Minoresses, 117, 118 Monastic Suppression : the Suppression goes on vigorously in iSjS,ii — 47 ; nevertheless some of the visitors feel that they are acting without law, and devise means of shelter, as by getting circular confessions and voluntary surrenders, by asking convents to reform or resign- themselves, and one by getting feoffments made to himself, 20, 38, 45 ; the Suppression in the first part of ijjp, before Parliament, no — 118; at length the Suppression is legalised, though very retro- spectively, 126; pretence of pubhc good, 131, the Suppression in ijjg, after Parliament, 142-159 ; the Suppression in JS40, 200-203 VOL. 11. 003
566
Index.
Monks and seculars, Acts for relief of late religious persons, 126, 280;
many of them preferred to bishoprics, dignities, and livings, 223 ; the
pensions of the ejected, 207 ; fraudulent dealings in the payment
of them, 550 Mont, or Mount, an agent in Germany, 105, 366, 376 Montague, killed, 97, 125 Montreuil, Madame de, at Canterbury, 68 More, Sir Thomas, he is called a jester, 163 ; his controversy with
Barnes, 87, 253 ; mentioned, 94, 528 More, Suffragan of Colchester, 33 Morice, Cranmer's secretary, 347 Mortuaries, 161 Moyle, 278
Mumpsimus, a catchword, 337, 384 Myconius, the German orator, 2, 5
Necessary Doctrine and Erudition of a Christian Man, The : Com- mission which composed it appointed, 1340, 234, 301 ; Questions and Answers used in composing it, 303 ; brought into Convocation, 314, 316; published, 317; why called the King's Book, 318; compared with its predecessor, the Institution, 319, j^^. ; compared with the Homilies by Gardiner, 451
Neville, Sir Edward, 97, 103, 125
Sir John, 270
Nice, Pacification of, 7
Nigelinus, 521
Norfolk, Duke of, 60, 119, 198, 211, 241, 249, 298, 346, 348, 379, 400, 403, 406,483 .
Norwich, see of, 484
Northumberland, Dudley, Earl of Warwick, afterwards Duke of, 416,510,
545 Nun of Kent, 163
Oath of Supremacy, 444, 479 ; Coronation, 418
Oblation, 494, 545
Ochinus, 521
Okham, Dr., 331, 333
Oking, Dr., 331
OEcolampadius, 109
Oglethorpe, Dr., 234, 304, 306
Old, the Commissioner, his observations, 451, 480
Orders, Holy, popular conception of them limited after the Suppression, 220 ; Henry on, 31 1 ; articles on, in the Bishops' and the King's Book, 320
Ordinaries, laymen as ordinaries, 135, 264; power of ordinaries sus- pended, 429
Index. 567
Original sin,- 322, 372
Orthodoxy, 161 ; comp. Henry, Unifortnity, Unity
Osmund of Salisbury in the eleventh century, 542
Oxford, the early heretics there, 252 ; co}np. Universities
Pacification, Henry's settlement of religion so called, 419, 493
Paget, Sir William, 148, 213, 368; and the King's will, 407, 414; his
able State Paper, 434 ; some of his acquisitions, 483 Painted windows destroyed, 433 Papal Breve on the Divorce, sentence against the King, 94 ; Bull of
Excommunication and Deposition, 95 ; never published, 96 Papist, used as a term of reproach, 384
Paraphrase of Erasmus on the New Testament, 423, 450, 451, 452 Parliament of /Jjp, 118, seq. ; of 1540, lyi, seq. ; of 1342, 276, seq. ; of
1543^ 324, seq. ; of 1544, 339, 342 ; of 1345, 378, seq. ; of 1347,
A'^l.seq. Parliament, servility of, 261, 276, 404, &c. ; religious disputations in, 474,
544
of Dublin, 177, 273
Parliamentary position of the clergy, 467, seq. Parr, Katharine, 327, 424
Lord, 416
Patriarch of Aquileia, 387
Pearson, the martyr, 328, 330, 331, 332
Pensions, see Monks
Pentecost, Abbot of Abingdon, 26
Perkins, Dr., 234
Peter pence, 162
Petitions of the clergy, 314, 467, seq.
Petre, the visitor, his career in /JJc?, 24, 27, 30 ; in the first part of /JJp,
113, 115 ; in the last part, 147, 148 Philpot, Archdeacon, 517 Pilgrimages depraved, 51 ; the pilgrimage of Canterbury, 64 ; pilgrimages
ordered to be preached against, 81 Pinkie, Battle of, 439
Plurality ; pluralists among the new monastics, 211 Pole, Reginald : goes to Nice, 7 ; mentioned, 60 ; his second Legation,
loi ; his apology to Caesar, 103 ; his Proem to the King of Scots,
102 ; Melanchthon calls him a sophistic, 106, 159; mentioned, 196;
his behaviour as Legate at Trent, 368 ; his Liber de Concilio, 369 ;
he leaves the Council, 373 ; he declines to be provided to an English
see, 402, note ; his Epistles to the Council, to Edward VI, to Somerset
and Warwick, 527, seq. Poles, the ; Henry kills them, 98 Polesworth Nunnery, 113 Pollard, the visitor, 144, 156, 158, 212 Pontificale, the, 312
568
Index.
Poor, collection for the, 205 ; education made harder for them by the Suppression, 227, 229 ; employment provided for them, 509 ; increase in their number, 489, 490; comp. Decay, Revolution
Pope Paul the Third, 7, 300, 371, 375
Poverty of clergy, 315, 469
Powell, Dr., 246, 250, 251
Preachers ; licensed preachers not to be resisted, 83 ; list of, 485 ; charac- ter of the licensed preachers, 531, 533
Preaching, hinderers of preaching to be reported, 82 ; preaching said to be more frequent and sincere, 161 ; the office of preaching declared to be chief of all, 320 ; bishops and curates only allowed to preach in their own cures ; licenses to be had not only from bishops, but from the King and his visitors, 491 ; Calvin on preaching, 525 ; further restraints, curates silenced, 529; all silenced for a time, 531; after that time none allowed to preach without license, for which even bishops had to apply, 532
Praemunientes clause, 469
Praemunire, dangers of the Statute, 340, 441
Prayer for the Dead, 324, 527
Prebendaries, attack on them begun by Cranmer, 336 ; continued by Hoby, 503
Priests, marriages of, 109 ; insulted, 267 ; heretical priests hardly treated, 269
Primacy, the Roman, admitted by the German orators, 107
Primer, the Primers contained the Litany in English, 351 ; what Primers were, 360 ; Marshall's Primer; Hilsey's Primer, 361 ; the authorised Primer of Henry VI II, 362
Probate of testament, 161
Processions or Litanies, 84, 349, 431, 479
Proclamations, Act of, 128, seq. ; its operation assisted by Parliament, 326 ; repealed, 454
Proclamations, Royal, for uniformity, 134; concerning ceremonies, 164; against heretical books, 403 ; to abolish ceremonies, 482 ; for observing Lent, 490 ; against innovation, 491
Protestants : renewed negotiations, i ; they send a mission into England, 2 ; differences and difficulties, 4, 141 ; failure of the mission, 5 ; renewed negotiations, 104 ; second mission into England, liberality of their propositions, 107 ; failure of the mission, 109 ; the Protestants deceived by Charles at Speyer, 352 ; their alarm at the Council of Trent, 369 ; they re-open negotiations with England, ib. ; Henry proposes a new league to be called the League Christian, 378 ; the Protestants, after his death, again seek the English alliance, 434; their position in Europe, 435
Protestation of Bonner against the General Visitation, 442, 444
Purgatory, 109, 324
QUIGNON'S reformed Breviary, 537
Index, 569
Rationale of Rites and Ceremonies, commission appointed, 234 ; their work not published at the time, but probably it survives, 311 ; examination of it ; especially as to the classification of the old service books, 312; the clergy request to have the work of the commission laid before them, 467, 468 Redman, Doctor, 234, 286, 304, 306, 493 Reformatio Legum Ecclesiasticarum : mention of the, 341 Reformation : character of, according to Henry himself, 384 ; accordmg to
Latimer, 487 ; comp. Litiirgic Refonnatwn Registers of baptisms, marriages, and burials ordered to be kept, 83, 430,
480, 514 ; the order received with suspicion, 83, note, 530 Relics, great destruction of, 47 ; reHcs distinguishable in kind, 49 ; to be
preached against, 81 Reservation, 533 Residence, Injunction on, 83
Rich, Sir Richard : very sharp on the monks, 34 ; as Chancellor of Augmen- tations, 45; mentioned, 21 1 ; bears witness against Crumwel, 248, 249 ; his conduct as to Anne Askew, 398, 399, 4°° ; made Lord Rich, 416 ; made Lord Chancellor, 454 ; gives the justices a lecture, 505 Ridley, Bishop, preaches against images, 417 ; Gardiner writes to him, 420 ; goes on the Visitation, 428, note ; made Bishop of Rochester, 447 ; his character, 464 ; mentioned among those who answered Questions on the Mass, 477 ; sides with Cranmer in the debate on the Sacrament, 545, 546 Rites, see Cerenio?iies, Rationale' Robertson, Doctor, 234, 286, 304, 493 Rogers, a martyr, 403 Rugg, or Reppe, Bishop, suspected of backwardness, 60, 403 ; speaks at the
Disputation on the Sacrament, 546 Russell, Lord : concerned against Whiting, 156 ; on the Loan Commission, 327 ; cautions the Council not to move against Cranmer, 346, 348 ; on the Tithe Commission, 379 ; at Askew's burning, 400, 401 ; his alarm at Blage's case, 405 Rutland, Earl of, 211
Sacrament of the Altar depraved, 254, 268 ; Injunction, Act, Proclamation against depraving it, 166, 457, 482 ; Disputation on the, 544; cojnp. Coi)imicnio7t, Tratisubstantiation
Sacraments, made seven in the Institution, 3 ; great variety of opinion in the Questions before the Necessary Doctrine, 306, 310 ; acknowledged to be seven in the Necessary Doctrine, 317, note, 321
. Nature of the, 303 ; according to the Institution and the
Necessary Doctrine, 319, 321
Sacrilege, the sin of, 214
Sadler, Sir Ralph: as a monastic beneficiary, 151, 212; again in Scot- land, 386 ; he packs Edward's Parliament, 453
Sadolet, described by Melanchthon as a Sophistic, 106, 159
570 Index,
St. Albans, surrender of, 30, seq.
St. Andrew's, Northampton, the Confession of, 18, seq.
St. Augustine's in Canterbury suppressed, 22, 23
St. Cuthbert's in Durham, suppression of, 149
St. Paul's in London, visitations of, 444 ; destruction of images and tombs there, 445
Saints and Saints' days allowed by the German orators, 108 ; comp. Holidays
Salcot, or Capon, Bishop, 234, 315, 331, 403, note, 477, note
Salisbury, Countess of, 98, 125, 146, 270
Sampson, Bishop, on the conference with the German orators, 2 ; on the Commission against Anabaptists, 85; on Lambert's trial, 89; his troubles, 140, seq. ; on the Commission for religion, 234, note ; on the Commission for the Bible, 286 ; translated from Chichester to Coventry, 477, note ; speaks at the Disputation on the Sacrament, 546
Sanctuary, Acts about, 238
Schools, the Monastic Free Schools, 156, 227
Scotland : sketch of the history and position of, 293, seq. ; war with, 297 ; the English claims renewed, 29S ; negotiations, 386 ; the Pope's Legate there, 387 ; war, 388 ; peace, ib. ; Beton's assassination, 389 ; war, 437 ; Battle of Pinkie, 439
Sepulchres in churches, 82, 432, note, 513 ; Gardiner charged with having set up one, 516, and note
Seton, Alex., the Scot, 395
Seymour of Sudeley, 416
Seymours, the 211, 425 ; comp. Somerset
Shaxton, Bishop, opposes the Six Articles, 120; resigns under the Six Articles, 138; his troubles, 390, 398 ; he is made to preach at Anne Askew's burning, 400; and to relate his own errors at Paul's Cross, 401 ; his miserable fall, 402, and note
Shrines destroyed, 70, 72, 149, 271, 433
Simons of^Windsor, 330
Simony, 2*84, 290
Skipp, Bishop of Hereford, 85, 492
Sleidan, the historian, 367, 368
Smalcaldic League, i, 376, 378
Smith, Sir Thomas, 545
Solway Moss, 299, 386
Somerset, Duke of, his acquisitions, 146. 154. 211 ; he ravages Scotland, 388; made Protector, 413, 414 ; writes to Gardiner, 421 ; lauded by Udal, 425 ; his character, 437 ; he wins Pinkie, 438 ; pillages Bath and Wells, 466 ; he was not fit to head the revolution, 505 ; his Court of Requests, 506 ; his Commission for Enclosures, ib., seq. ; he sends Gardiner to the Tower, 515, seq.; Calvin flatters him, 525; Pole writes to him, 529 ; mentioned, 533 ; presides at a disputation, 544
Southwell, Richard and Robert, visitors, 21, 28, 34, 144, 212
Stokcsley, Bishop of London, on the first conference with the Germans,
Index. 571
2 ; on Anabaptists, 85 ; his conduct in the commission for making
the Institution, 141 Sturmius, the German, 368 Subsidies, 181, 239, 314, 326, 382 Suffolk, Duke of, 211
Duchess of, 481
Suppression, see Monastic
Supreme Head, Henry's actions as Supreme Head, 3, 4, 56, 89, 288, 310,
318, 327, 334, 340; the title argued to imply another, 19 ; denied, 58,
60; justified, 162 ; the King defines its power, 167 ; mentioned, 284 Supreme Head in Ireland, 182, 190 Surrey, Earl of, 406 Surveys, Court of, 280 Symonds, Dr., 234, 304
Taylor, Dr., 87, 269, 286, 477, 481, 493
Testwood, the martyr, 328, seq,
Thirlby, Bishop of Westminster, 9, 85, 234, 284, 286, 300, 305, 443, 545
Throgmorton, 248, 249
Tithes, ordered to be paid in Crumwel's Injunctions, 83 ; Act to enforce, 237 ; petition of clergy for better payment of, 314 ; curious Act for the London Tithes, 379
Tracy, his writings forbidden, 403
Tradition declared equal to Scripture by the Council of Trent, 372
Transubstantiation treated in the Six Articles, 120, 123
Treason, verbal, applied, 98 ; extended to lunatics, 279 ; abused, 384 ; repealed, 454; comp. Attai7iders
Tregonwell, Dr., his career in 1538, 33 ; his career in the first part of 1339, 113, 115 ; his reward, 212
Tresham, Dr., 234, 304
Tunstall, Bishop of Durham : on the conference with the Germans, 2, 4, 141 ; on Lambert's trial, 91 ; mentioned, 119, 120, 283 ; on the Com- mission for Religion, 234 ; negotiates with the Imperial ambassador, 30c ; goes to Calais, 367 ; examines Latimer, 393 ; complained of by Gardiner, 441 ; dismissed from the Council, 445 ; opposes the disso- lution of chantries, 461 ; excluded from the Windsor Commission, 493 ; speaks at a disputation on the Sacrament, 544
Tyndale's versions mentioned, 252, 451 ; forbidden, 325, 403, 423
Udal, Nicholas, his translation of Erasmus's Paraphrase, 424, 451
Uniformity, 119, 134, 403, 543; comp. Henry VIII
Unions of churches, Acts fdr, 237, 383, 459
Uses : the Use of Sarum ordered on all the Southern clergy, 292 ; the
divisions of the Old Uses, 312 ; sketchof their history, S3S^^^9- \comp-
Littirgic Reformatiott Uvedale, the visitor, his career in the last part of /Jjp ; 152, 153 ; his
career in 1540, 203 ; his reward, 212
572 Index.
Vagrants, Act of, 456
Vicar, title claimed by Henry VIII, 385 ; claimed for Edward VI, 413 Visitations : of the Kingdom in Edward VI, 428, 433-442, 443, 478, seq. Visitors of Edward VI, list of, 428, note
Wallop, Sir John, 243
Walsingham Abbey, 28, 53
Waltham Abbey, 202
Wardon Abbey, 11, fto/e
Wards, Court of, 239, 280, 489
Warham, Archbishop, his hospitality, 65, 68, 87
Warwick, see Northumberland
Watts or West, 138
Webster, Prior, 13
Wesley, John, mentioned, 152
Westminster, dissolution of, 202 ; frugal gifts to the new chapter, 213;
short-lived See erected, 222 ; visitation of, 443 ; comp. Thirlby Whitehead, Prior of Durham, 149, 225 Whiting, Abbot, 156, .seq.\ his school, 228 Wickliffe, his works called in, 403 Williams, the visitor, his career in the last part of /Jjp, 153, I54; his
reward, 212 Wilson, Dr., the King's chaplain, on the German conference, 2 ; on
the Commission for Rehgion, 234 ; preaches at Paul's Cross about
Barnes, Garret, and Jerome, 256 ; on the committee for the New
Version, 286 Winchester, monasteries dissolved in, 144 Windsor Commission, 476, note, 493, 535 Wishart, George, 389 Witchcraft, Act against, 281, 322, note Wolsey, his lenient character illustrated incidentally, 253 Wotton, Dr., 226, 286 Wriothesley, greedy of monastic property, 211 ; sits on loans, 327 ; on
tithes, 379 ; examines and perhaps racks Anne Askew, 399 ; dismissed
the Council, 415 ; made Earl of Southampton, 416 W^rits of Convocation, 469 Wyatt, Sir Thomas, 8, 196, seq., 212
York, city of, 201, 270, 271 ; decay of, 459
Zwinglians, 109
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