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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