THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 D Hoadly pmx. 
 
 vr
 
 BY SCO! '.i _Ai- r.HHOUSE SO
 
 THE 
 
 HISTORY 
 
 THE REFORMATION 
 
 CHURCH OF ENGLAND. 
 
 BY GILBERT BURNET, D.D. 
 
 LATE LORD BISHOP OF SALISBURY. 
 
 WITH THE COLLECTION OF RECORDS, AND A COPIOUS INDEX. 
 
 REVISED AND CORRECTED, WITH ADDITIONAL NOTES, AND 
 
 A PREFACE 
 
 CALCULATED TO REMOVE CERTAIN DIFFICULTIES ATTENDING THE PERUSAL OF THIS 
 IMPORTANT HISTORY, BY 
 
 THE REV. E. NARES, D.D. 
 
 Regius Professor of Modern History in the University of Oxford ; and Rector of 
 Biddenden and Newchurch, Kent. 
 
 WITH A FRONTISPIECE, AND TWENTY-TWO PORTRAITS. 
 
 IN FOUR VOLUMES. 
 VOL. I. 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 PRINTED FOR SCOTT, WEBSTER, & GEARY, 
 
 CHARTERHOUSE SQUARE. 
 1837.

 
 College 
 Libnury 
 
 THE 
 
 HISTORY 
 
 OF THE 
 
 REFORMATION. 
 
 PART I. 
 
 OF THE PROGRESS MADE IN IT DURING THE 
 REIGN OF HENRY VIII. 
 
 1164616
 
 PREFACE 
 BY THE REV. DR. NARES. 
 
 dTkFTEN as this celebrated History of the Refor- 
 mation of the Church of England has been 
 printed and published, often as it has been read, and 
 continually as it has been referred to by successive 
 writers, interested in the important subject of which 
 it treats, yet one thing seems to have been constantly 
 overlooked, namely, the necessity of a distinct Pre- 
 face, to point out and explain to readers in general, 
 the peculiar method, as well as the particular cha- 
 racter of the publication. It is a work of too great 
 magnitude to be often or repeatedly read through, 
 and though its eminence as an historical work, must 
 jrtways be such, as to render it imperatively neces- 
 sary with certain writers to consult its pages ; yet, 
 jneyery rep^ipt of it, it should be contemplated by 
 f ^i r me publisher, not merely as a book of reference, 
 though for such purposes, I shall have to shew that 
 a preface like the present is much wanted, but as 
 one to be read like other books of history regu- 
 larly from the beginning to the end ; not by pro- 
 fessed scholars only, or by persons already versed 
 in history, civil or ecclesiastical, but by such as may 
 be only beginning their historical inquiries and re- 
 searches ; young readers, and mere students. Any 
 helps therefore to such readers, cannot be misap- 
 plied, and ought not to be looked upon as superfluous. 
 Scarcely any other book of equal importance, per- 
 haps, stands so much in need of preliminary expla- 
 nation, as this great work of the celebrated writer 
 whose name it bears. There are, it is true, regular 
 and distinct Prefaces to every volume, written by 
 the learned Author himself: but, it may be asked,
 
 vi PREFACE. 
 
 how is the reader of the first and second volumes, 
 to know, till he comes to it, according to the ordi- 
 nary mode of reading, that the third volume, is, as 
 it were, quite a separate work altogether supple- 
 mentary, and in point of composition, of a date, not 
 less than thirty-three years later than the two pre- 
 ceding volumes ? of which preceding volumes also, 
 it is, in a great degree, corrective, so as to render its 
 contents little less than vexatious and mortifying to 
 those, who may, unaware of the circumstance, have 
 already given implicit confidence to the contents of 
 the first two volumes. It must often, we should 
 think, have been a matter of just surprise to the 
 readers of this history, to discover, that on arriving 
 at the third volume, they have had only to travel 
 again over the same ground, and even to wwread, as 
 it were, much of what they had read before. 
 
 Nor is this all, -for in most of the editions hitherto 
 published, no fewer than six papers have been added, 
 at the very end of the third volume, of corrections, 
 criticisms, 8$c. addressed to the Author himself, and 
 still placed, therefore, where he originally left them. 
 Whereas, one would think, the simpler method would 
 have been, in all subsequent editions, to have cor- 
 rected the text itself by help of these papers ; the 
 value and importance of them to a certain extent, 
 having to all appearance been admitted by the Au- 
 thor.* In the edition, published in the year 1820, 
 something of this kind was however attempted, by 
 incorporating, or supplying in short notes, the cor- 
 rections of mistakes in the two first volumes, sent to 
 the Author by Mr. Granger, being the first of the six 
 papers to be found in other editions, but which is 
 now omitted in the appendix to this edition, as no 
 
 * It is indeed quite remarkable, that this method had even been suggested to 
 Burnet himself, and that his only reason for not adopting it was, that it might 
 lensen the value of such impressions of his work as had been previously bought 
 up by the public. [See the Introduction to vol. iii.]
 
 PREFACE. VH 
 
 longer necessary. I shall give a few instances of 
 these corrections, to shew, how preposterous it must 
 have been, to compel the reader, according to the 
 common mode of printing the work, to read quite to 
 the end of it, in order to discover the errors that had 
 been committed. 
 
 Who would suppose, for instance, that while 
 Burnet was yet alive, he had been admonished of an 
 error into which he had fallen, in speaking of the 
 Council of Trullo, (or in Trullo as it should rather 
 be*) as a council holden in the fifth century, whereas 
 it took place, in reality, not till the very end of the 
 seventh, or beginning of the eighth century? Still 
 however the original mistake has been repeated again 
 and again in the text, in various editions, and the 
 correction reserved for the addenda or appendix at the 
 very end of the work. In the present edition the 
 text will be found to be corrected as it should be, 
 and the correction sent to the author, omitted. 
 
 Among the bishops who refused to take the oath 
 of supremacy in the year 1559, Burnet had reckoned 
 Christopherson of Chichester ; but that curious and 
 diligent antiquary and historian Strype, had disco- 
 vered by comparing dates, that Christopherson was 
 dead at the time. In the present edition, this very 
 simple correction has accordingly been adopted in 
 the text, and the name of that prelate omitted, though 
 in other editions, the name will still be found in the 
 text of the second volume, and the corrections, which 
 had been sent to the Author himself, in almost the 
 last page of the third volume! Other corrections 
 
 * This was in fact a Constantinopolitan Council, called together by Justinian, 
 and holden in a Council-chamber called Trulla or Trullo; or, according to Cave, 
 " in Secretario Imperiali quod Trullus Appellatnr," an ambiguous name. See 
 Ainsworth's Diet. art. Trulla, and OJVO^OB in the Lexicons. It was, according to 
 Cave, a proper (Ecumenical Council, at which 2SJ7 bishops at least were present ; 
 some say 240. " Its tenets," says Walch, in his history of the Popes, " related 
 to church discipline, some of them were very prudent, reasonable, aud just, but 
 therefore unfavourable to the selfish tenets of the Koma:i church."
 
 viii PREFACE. 
 
 have been adopted or set aside as unnecessary, so 
 that, of the six papers to be found in other edi- 
 tions, three only are retained in the present. What 
 Burnet himself says, of the fourth of those papers, 
 in his Preface to the third volume, may account for 
 the omission of that in particular, but the candid 
 manner in which he acknowledges his obligations, to 
 those who had civilly and dispassionately supplied 
 him with corrections does him credit. " These cor- 
 rections," says he, in the Preface to his second volume, 
 " I publish at the end, being neither ashamed to con- 
 fess my faults, nor unwilling to acknowledge from 
 what hand I received better information. My design 
 in writing is to discover truth, and to deliver it down 
 impartially to the next age ; so I should think it both 
 a mean and criminal piece of vanity to suppress this 
 discovery of rny errors, and though the number and 
 consequence of them had been greater than it is, I 
 should rather have submitted to a much severer 
 penance, than have left the world in the mistakes I 
 had led them into." In the character given of him 
 by his contemporary, Lord Halifax, we have the fol- 
 lowing encomium upon this head : " He is not quicker 
 in discerning other men's faults, than he is in for- 
 giving them ; so ready, or rather glad to acknow- 
 ledge his own, that from blemishes they become 
 ornaments." The praise would have been more just, 
 had the corrections been better managed, but how- 
 ever candid the Author may have been in acknow- 
 ledging his faults, when told of them in a civil and 
 friendly manner, the mistakes and corrections have 
 to this day, been commonly kept at so great a dis- 
 tance from each other, as rather to double the ble- 
 mishes, than convert them into ornaments. I have 
 already adduced some striking instances, and shall 
 have more to bring forward. 
 
 All the three volumes were in truth published
 
 PREFACE. ix 
 
 separately; the first in the year 1679; the second 
 in the year 1681 ; and the third or supplementary 
 volume, not till the year 1714. In 1682, Burnet 
 himself published an abridgment of the first two 
 volumes. As the third volume, however, which was 
 abridged by his son about the year 1719, is now 
 known to be supplementary, the way to read the 
 work properly, as it is commonly printed, should 
 perhaps be as follows : to read the Preface to the 
 first volume, and the Preface and Introduction to 
 the third, and to look to the years in the third volume, 
 in order to compare them with the correspondent 
 years in the first; and in the perusal of the first 
 volume, to attend regularly as they occur, to the 
 marginal references pointing to the addenda at the end 
 of that volume, now carefully supplied, but which 
 had been accidentally omitted in a former impression. 
 The Preface to the second volume, and reference to 
 the corresponding years in the third, would of course 
 follow in the same order. In this manner, Burners 
 whole history might be read as one work, which it 
 can scarcely be called, when the three volumes are 
 read only in succession. 
 
 For \\\Q first volume the Author received the thanks 
 of both houses of Parliament, being urged at the 
 same time to complete the work. Thesecotid volume 
 was also received by the public, not with the same 
 distinguished, yet with very general approbation. 
 The third, according to Nicholson, very well sup 
 plied the defects in Heylin's History of the Reforma- 
 tion. In the History of his Own Times, Burnet relates 
 that being at Paris in 1683, the Prince of Conde, who 
 had read his History of the Reformation in French, 
 seemed pleased with it, as was the case with many 
 of the great lawyers, particularly Harlay, then Attor- 
 ney General, who having some reason to expect a 
 rupture with the Court of Rome at that time, openly
 
 x PREFACE. 
 
 asserted, that in the History of the English Refor- 
 mation they had a good plan to copy from, vol. ii. 
 p. 182,3. 
 
 It is pretty generally known, that the Right Reve- 
 rend Author of the History of the Reformation of the 
 Church of England, has always lain under two impu- 
 tations, which it may not be amiss to notice here ; 
 the one, that of being a loose and careless writer, 
 the other, that of writing under the influence of strong 
 prejudices. In the notes to Archbishop Laurence's 
 Bampton Lecture Sermons, 1805, some very extra- 
 ordinary oversights having been noticed, the learned 
 Author observes, " I have been the more particular 
 on this occasion in pointing out the inaccuracies of 
 Burnet, because he seems in general to have been too 
 implicitly trusted, misleading perhaps subsequent 
 writers by his loose style and looser statements, 
 more than any other historian." It is scarcely neces- 
 sary I hope to say, after this, that the particular 
 inaccuracies alluded to by the Archbishop in the 
 above stricture, have been duly attended to in the 
 present edition ; but I must repeat what I have be- 
 fore said, as some palliation of the Bishop's failings, 
 that no writer could ever more candidly or ingenu- 
 ously acknowledge his own faults, than Burnet has 
 done ; he confesses, that in some instances, he was 
 doubtless too hasty, answering for the contents of pa- 
 pers without due examination, and thereby mistaking 
 one public document for another. This cannot be 
 called indeed any thing like a satisfactory apology for 
 such transgressions in an historian; but for his haste, 
 the chief cause of such slips and oversights, there 
 seems to have been some excuse, it appearing that he 
 had been strongly, and rather on a sudden urged by 
 others to engage in the undertaking, in order, if pos- 
 sible, to remove the false and injurious impressions 
 made on the minds of many of his contemporaries.
 
 PREFACE. xi 
 
 against the Reformation itself, as well as in depre- 
 ciation of the characters of our early reformers, by a 
 revival of the calumnious and foul aspersions of the 
 papistical Sanders, in his well-known work, de Schis- 
 mate Anglicano, of which a French translation had 
 just appeared and was much cried up. See our Au- 
 thor's Preface to vol. i. and Introduction to vol. iii. 
 It appears to have been Bishop Lloyd who first en- 
 gaged him in the design, (Preface to vol. ii.) and from 
 that learned Prelate, as well as from Archbishop Til- 
 lotson and Bishop Stillingfleet, he professes to have 
 received every friendly assistance in the revisal of 
 his papers. In the Preface to the second volume, a full 
 account is given of the Author's obligations to private 
 friends, and an admirable view taken of the course 
 and progress of the Reformation, the difficulties that 
 stood in its way, the abuses it had to remove or cor- 
 rect, and the insurmountable impediments that oc- 
 curred, in the endeavour on the part of the govern- 
 ment, to produce a perfect uniformity of doctrine, 
 discipline, and worship. On which account, this 
 Preface perhaps cannot be read too soon, though 
 placed only before the second volume, three .years 
 posterior to the publication of the first. 
 
 As to the Author's carelessness in examining ori- 
 ginal documents, and certain errors into which he fell 
 from want of regular access to them, he very plainly 
 tells us how all this happened, and the restrictions he 
 lay under, particularly at the commencement of his 
 labours ; and historians in general, it should be re- 
 membered, had not the opportunities of rendering 
 their works so accurate then as is now the case. He 
 was certainly not always very happy in correcting 
 himself, so that some authors have fancied they had 
 detected oversights, when in truth, in some other 
 parts of his book, such apparent mistakes are ac- 
 counted for by the Bishop himself. An instance of
 
 xii PREFACE. 
 
 this is to be found in the following reference of a 
 very modern writer, Mr. Hallara, in his late work 
 entitled "The Constitutional History of England," 
 from Henry VII. to George II. 1827. 
 
 " The principal authority on the story of Henry's 
 divorce from Katjierine is Burnet, in the first and 
 third volumes of his History of the Reformation ; the 
 latter correcting- the Tormer from additional docu- 
 ments. Strype, irfhgrEcclesiastical Memorials, adds 
 some particulars not contained in Burnet, especially 
 as to the negotiations with the Pope in 1528; and a 
 very little may ke^gleaned from Collier7 Car^e, and 
 other writers. . I^4 re ^ re ^ ew parts of history per- 
 haps that have flHHteter elucidated. One excep- 
 tion perhaps mSftti be made : the beautiful and 
 affecting story oDi^atherine's behaviour before the 
 Legates at Dunstfcble^s told by Cavendish and Hall, 
 
 ' * 4 tl 
 
 from whom later hj.stohansjh^e copied it. Burnet, 
 however, in his v *s$pple"mental volume, p. 46, dis- 
 puted its truth, and on what should seem conclusive 
 authority, that of the original register, whence it ap- 
 pears that the Queen mevfer came into Court but 
 once,. June 18, 1529, to read a paper protesting 
 against the jurisdiction, and that the King never en- 
 tered it. Carte accordingly treated the story as a 
 fabrication. Hume of course did not choose to omit 
 so interesting a circumstance; but Dr. Lingard has 
 pointedout a letterfrom the King, which Burnet himself 
 had printed, vol. i. Appendix No. 28, mentioning the 
 Queen's presence as well as his own on June 21st, 
 and greatly corroborating the popular account. To 
 say the truth, there is no small difficulty in choosing 
 between two authorities so considerable, if they can- 
 not be reconciled, which seems impossible: but, upon 
 the whole the preference is due^ to Henry's letter, 
 dated June 21, as he could not be mistaken, and had 
 no motives to mistake."
 
 PREFACE. . xiii 
 
 Now we may fairly conclude from this note, which 
 is selected solely for the sake of illustration, that two 
 such eminent writers as Mr. Hallam and Dr. Lingard 
 could only have been led into the mistakes they ap- 
 pear to have made, by the confused, loose, and dis- 
 persed manner, (if I may so say) in which Burnet's 
 corrections of himself, are introduced in the several 
 parts and volumes of his history. For, though indeed 
 in the 70th page of the third volume of the present 
 edition, Burnet will still be found to assert, not only 
 that the Queen never came into the Court after the 
 18th, but that the King was never in it; and that 
 thence " it is clear, that the speeches that the his- 
 torians have made for them, are all plain falsities :" 
 and though Dr. Lingard's remark upon King Henry's 
 letter of the 23d of June, 1529, be very correct, as to 
 its contents, and as to the fact of its being "pub- 
 lished by Burnet himself" yet he would not be jus- 
 tified for taking to himself the credit of the discovery 
 of this royal contradiction of Burnet's original asser- 
 tion, since it may be seen, that in the Preface to his 
 third volume, Burnet had corrected his own error by 
 this very letter of the King, and endeavoured very 
 fairly, and perhaps very reasonably to do, what Mr. 
 Hallam pronounces to be " impossible," namely, to 
 reconcile the letter with the record of the court, on 
 which he had at first implicitly relied. 
 
 But the most extraordinary circumstance in the 
 case, and one for which it seems to this day ex- 
 tremely difficult to account, is this ; that even in the 
 first volume, p. 117, under the year 1529, Burnet will 
 be found to correct Lord Herbert upon this very 
 point, by express reference to the same letter of the 
 King, inserted in his Appendix, or Collection of 
 Records, No. XXVIII, from the Cottonian MSS. 
 Vitellius, B. 1 1 . he even enters into all the particu- 
 lars of the appearance of both the King and Queen on
 
 xiv PREFACE. 
 
 the 2 1 st, and relates, or at least abridges, the speeches 
 he fairly indeed acknowledges, though with some 
 distrust of Hall, that he believes the speeches were 
 really spoken ; and in his own abridgment of his 
 history, a sixth edition of which, published in the 
 year 1728, is now lying before me, the story is told 
 conformably to the King's letter. Dr. Lingard, it 
 should be observed, alluding to the passage in the 
 third volume, only says, " that Burnet had forgotten 
 a letter published by himself in his first volume from 
 the King to his agents, in which Henry says : On 
 that day, we and the Queen appeared in person." 
 It was certainly a strange instance of forgetfulness, 
 when upon this very point, he had in his first volume, 
 corrected Lord Herbert, and, in the preface to his 
 third volume, himself ; and which both Mr. Hallam 
 and Dr. Lingard, seem to have overlooked. This 
 then, may serve to shew, not only that the work re- 
 quires to be read with pretty close attention to the 
 several parts of it, blit to be cited and referred to, with 
 peculiar care and circumspection ; as the several vo- 
 lumes are commonly printed, any historian may be 
 led into similar mistakes. 
 
 I have, indeed, something almost as striking to 
 adduce from one of the same writers. I mean Dr. 
 Lingard ; speaking of the proceedings in the Upper 
 House of Convocation, on King Henry's divorce in 
 the year 1533, he observes, " among the theologians 
 there were nineteen ayes, (Burnet has strangely 
 transformed them into nineteen universities)." In this 
 parenthesis one letter only need to be changed, and 
 then all would be right, for most certain it is, that 
 Burnet had, in his first volume, strangely enough 
 transferred the nineteen assenting votes into nineteen 
 universities ; but this is one of the very errors cor- 
 rected by Burnet himself, in his third volume, p. 123, 
 though he does not, with his usual candour, exactly
 
 PREFACE. xv 
 
 explain how he came to fall into so great a mistake ; 
 in fact, Collier not only detected the error into 
 which the Bishop had fallen, but very ingeniously 
 accounted for it, plainly shewing that it must 
 have proceeded from a mistranslation of Jocelyrfs 
 Antiq. Brit, whose Latin he gives, and which alone 
 seems quite sufficient to prove his point. Burnet 
 should have acknowledged this, instead of seeking 
 to amend things, at such a distance, in his third vo- 
 lume, with a degree of flippancy, not very creditable. 
 " I likewise committed another error, through inad- 
 vertence : for I said," (i. e. as far off as vol. i. p. 211, 
 present edition) " the opinions of nineteen universi- 
 ties were read ; whereas only six were read ; and the 
 nineteen, which I added to the number of the uni- 
 versities, was the number of those who did not agree 
 to the vote." Even this very correction is loosely 
 expressed, for though indeed they did not agree to 
 the vote, they answered the question put to them in 
 the affirmative, the case being decided against them 
 by a considerable majority, and in support of the 
 opinions delivered by the universities in favour of 
 the King. 
 
 The other error to which Burnet alludes above, 
 related to the Constitution of the two Houses of 
 Convocation. " In the account I formerly gave of 
 this matter I offered a conjecture, that deans and 
 archdeacons, who sit in their own right, were then 
 of the Upper House ; which I see, was without any 
 good ground," vol. iii. 123. In fact, he might have 
 seen it long before, and I cannot avoid adding should 
 have seen it, when he published his first volume, 
 having himself supplied two contradictions. In his 
 own conjecture, the famous Cardinal Pole, as Dean 
 of Exeter, being spoken of, as a member of the Lower 
 House of Convocation, and a paper being printed in 
 his appendix of original documents, with the sub-
 
 xvi PREFACE. 
 
 scriptions of the members of the two Houses sepa-. 
 rately ; the deans and archdeacons, appearing regu- 
 larly amongst those of the Lower House. This also 
 had not escaped the vigilant eye of his rival Collier. 
 Having thus noticed one imputation, to which the 
 Right Reverend Author of this History continues 
 still liable, and endeavoured to obviate, in the pre- 
 sent Edition, some of the bad consequences arising 
 from his loose style, and dispersed corrections, I 
 shall now turn to the other imputation brought 
 against him, that of very inveterate prejudices. In 
 fact, he was, what the Jacobites and Non-jurors 
 amongst the clergy, at the time of the Revolution, 
 would have called a Whig, if not, to use a more mo- 
 dern term, or augmentative, an ultra Whig, and a 
 low Churchman. He thought well of the Reforma- 
 tion of the Church of England, and generally of the 
 Reformers by whom that great change was brought 
 about, but he lived in times, when one extreme may 
 be said regularly to have produced the other ; in 
 times, when, if ever, an ultra-Toryism may be said 
 to have prevailed, co-operating with High-Church 
 principles, carried by many persons to such excess, 
 as to incur the hazard of re-introducing popery in its 
 worst forms ; and, on the footing of a strictly passive 
 obedience, and unqualified non-resistance to the ruling 
 power, arbitrary government when a power of dis- 
 pensing, with, and suspending all laws, was so openly 
 assumed to be a proper branch of the regal preroga- 
 tive, that whoever ventured to dispute or resist it, 
 was in danger of commitment to all the horrors of a 
 prison, or to the loss of rights and privileges sup- 
 posed to have been amply secured to him by the 
 law of the land. His prejudices were undoubtedly 
 strong, but when weighed against those of the oppo- 
 site party, it is impossible to withhold from him the 
 credit, of having taken, latterly at least, the most
 
 PREFACE. xvii 
 
 patriotic side of the question : if, on the principle of 
 an extensive toleration, or scheme of comprehension 
 as it was called by some, he appeared occasionally to 
 lean too much towards the Dissenters, and too far to 
 expose the Church, by countenancing concessions,* 
 (for of this party he professes himself to have been in 
 the History of his Own Times,) it may be, in a great 
 measure, imputed to his just discernment of the arti- 
 fices of the Papists, who, at the very same time, were 
 seeking to embroil the Dissenters more and more 
 with the Church, that upon the footing of their dis- 
 contents, they (the Papists) might find means to 
 establish themselves afresh, and pave the way for 
 the recal of the abdicated family to the throne ; the 
 heir of which, as he tells us in the History of his 
 Own Times, he knew to be bred up with a hatred 
 both of our religion and our constitution, and in an 
 admiration of the French government ; and "yet," 
 he adds, " many who called themselves Protestants, 
 seemed fond of such a successor; a degree of in- 
 fatuation that might justly amaze all who observed 
 it, and saw the fury with which it was promoted." 
 These were the grounds upon which he seems to 
 have opposed the violences of the High Church party, 
 and to have sought to conciliate the Dissenters, in- 
 stead of driving them into the hands of the Papists. 
 His opposition to the much cried-up doctrines of 
 passive obedience and non-resistance, exposed him, as 
 might be expected, to the opposite charge of enter- 
 taining and inculcating antimonarchical and repub- 
 lican principles, but in this he was traduced and 
 unjustly calumniated; he is reproached for having 
 basely deserted the Stuarts, after being admitted to 
 
 * By his spirit of moderation it is admitted that he brought over several Dis- 
 senting families in his diocese to the communion of the Church. See Biographia 
 Britannica, Art. Burnet (Gilbert), and particularly notes G. and HH. for an ac- 
 count of his pious discharge of the ministerial and episcopal functions. Lord 
 Halifax observed of him, " He makes many enemies by setting an ill-natured 
 example of living, which they are not inclined to follow." 
 
 VOL. I. b
 
 xviii PREFACE. 
 
 the favour and countenance of the two brothers, 
 Charles and James ; but he did not abandon them, 
 till they had adopted those feelings and principles 
 which were decidedly adverse to the good of the 
 country, and of the fatal consequences of which, he 
 had previously boldly admonished them. What 
 Echard has said of him, may surely be repeated to 
 his credit, as a patriot and a Protestant ; " He be- 
 came so great an instrument in the Revolution," says 
 this able historian, " that all who have hated the 
 one, have abhorred the name of the other;" not that 
 I would attempt to justify all that he did on this 
 memorable occasion ; or commend his prudence 
 in venturing to assert King William's claim to the 
 crown in right of conquest, as he is known to have 
 done in his Pastoral Letter, condemned to the flames 
 by a vote of Parliament. He has himself told us that 
 his prejudices lay against France and Popery, and as 
 connected with both, arbitrary government ; and the 
 author of his epitaph in the church of St. James's, 
 Clerkenwell, has not hesitated to eulogize him as, 
 " tyrannidi et superstitioni semper infensum necnon 
 libertatis patrite ver&que religionis strenuum semper- 
 que indefessum propugnatorem." 
 
 It is the more necessary that the reader should be 
 duly apprised of the exact bearings of his peculiar 
 prejudices, since they were, while he lived, exposed 
 to the counteraction of opposite prejudices, in the 
 persons of writers of equal fame. As a rival in 
 ecclesiastical history, Collier stands foremost ; a 
 high-churchman of the first stamp, and, so far, it 
 may be added to his credit, considering the times, 
 a steady and consistent non-juror. Whatever praise, 
 however, we may be disposed to bestow on his 
 consistency, his prejudices require to be at the least 
 as much guarded against as those of Burnet, but 
 as these two celebrated writers lived to read each
 
 PREFACE. xix 
 
 other's histories, and reciprocally to defend then- 
 own tenets, we need not do more than refer generally 
 to their respective works. In the enlarged edition 
 of the Biographica Britannica, the opposite princi- 
 ples of these two eminent writers are well considered. 
 Burnet found rather an able advocate and defender 
 against the strictures of Collier, in Mr. J. Lewis, mi- 
 nister of Margate, who published a set of " Obser- 
 vations upon the Remarks of Mr. Collier in his Eccle- 
 siastical History, on several passages of Bishop Bur- 
 net's History of the Reformation." The paper may 
 be seen in the second volume of the Collectanea 
 Curiosa, published at Oxford by Mr. Gutch, 1781. 
 
 But it was the fate of Burnet to be lampooned by 
 those who had better, considering their own aposta- 
 cies and tergiversations, have held their peace, par- 
 ticularly for instance, by Swift, who having been at 
 one time as violent a Whig as himself, became after- 
 wards a time-serving Tory, if not a decided Jaco- 
 bite. At which period Burnet appears to have be- 
 come a most marked object of his spleen and ran- 
 cour, particularly with regard to one portion of the 
 work before us. 
 
 For some cause or other, not fully explained, but 
 easily to be conjectured by those well versed in the 
 history of the times, Burnet published the Intro- 
 duction to his third volume, before the work itself,* 
 and as the latter part of it contained great soundings 
 of alarm in regard to the aspect of public affairs, both 
 in Church and State; Swift, who was the mouth-piece 
 of the Tories, if not of the Jacobites, took up the 
 cudgels, and aimed a blow at the Bishop, the more 
 severe, as having something in it, to render its effects 
 
 * The third volume of the History of the Reformation, &c., was oddly enough 
 put last. The Introduction appeared first ; one or two years before the historical 
 part. The Preface is stated to have been written one year after the Introduction, 
 and the whole volume published, as we have before shewn, thirty-three years sub- 
 sequently to the second volume, and thirty-five years after the first. 
 
 b2
 
 xx PREFACE. 
 
 permanent and indelible.* We allude to the very 
 humorous paper printed amongst his Miscellaneous 
 Works, under the following title, ' ' A Preface to the 
 Right Reverend Dr. Burnet B p of S 's Intro- 
 duction to the Third Volume of the History of the 
 Reformation of the Church of England, written in 
 the year 1712." It may be worth while to copy the 
 Dean's address to his bookseller. 
 
 " Mr. Morphew, Your care in putting an adver- 
 tisement in the Examiner, has been of very great use 
 
 to me. I now send you my Preface to the B p of 
 
 Sarum's Introduction to his Third Volume, which I 
 desire you to print in such a form, as in the book- 
 sellers' phrase, will make a Sixpenny Touch ; hoping 
 it will give such a public notice of my design, that 
 it may come into the hands of those, who, perhaps, 
 
 look not into the B p's Introduction. I desire 
 
 you will prefix to this a passage out of Virgil, which 
 doth so perfectly agree with my present thoughts of 
 his Lordship, that I cannot express them better, nor 
 more truly, than those words do. I am, &c." 
 
 The passage from Virgil is from the speech of 
 Sinon in the 2d JSneid, 
 
 " spargere voces 
 
 In vulgum ambiguas, et quserere conscius anna.' 
 
 Then follows as sharp and neat a piece of satire, per- 
 haps, and as keen a display of wit, as ever came from 
 the pen of that extraordinary but arrogant writer; for 
 the credit of Burnet, however, we must say, that in 
 our estimation, he had much greater grounds afforded 
 him for the alarms he endeavoured to raise in his 
 Introduction, than Swift would allow; and who- 
 ever looks into history, will find that as her reign 
 drew towards an end, Queen Anne was in the hands 
 of a party, to say nothing of her own feelings, much 
 
 * See Biographica Britannica, Art. Burnet (Gilbert), p. 34. where 
 something to the same effect occurs.
 
 PREFACE. xxi 
 
 to be suspected of leaning towards the Pretender, 
 and of being adverse to the succession of the house 
 of Hanover. If Swift knew this, he was greatly to 
 blame for censuring Burnet; if he knew it not, he 
 was the greater dupe of the two, not to be alarmed 
 for the liberties of his country. He is very angry 
 with the Bishop for writing so, as if " the Pope, the 
 Devil, the Pretender, and France were just at the 
 door;" but if we look into the history of the times, it 
 would not seem that any of them were so far off, as 
 Swift wished the world, in discredit of Burnet, to 
 believe ; if the Bishop, in some parts of his Introduc- 
 tion, allowed his passions and feelings to carry him 
 somewhat too far in expressing his apprehensions 
 of returning popery, (which, I confess, I am far from 
 admitting,) yet, that there was no danger of such a 
 relapse, when the Introduction was published, no 
 banter of the witty Dean, would induce me to be- 
 lieve ; and therefore, for the credit of the Author, I 
 would recommend it to the reader, before he allow 
 himself to be beguiled, by one of the bitterest poli- 
 tical sarcasms that perhaps ever was written, to look 
 carefully into the history of the last years of the 
 reign of Queen Anne. The 24th volume of Rapin's 
 History, continued by Tindal, may be quite suffi- 
 cient to shew that Burnet was right, without refer- 
 ring the reader to Burnet himself, in the History of 
 his Own Times, where, if anywhere, his prejudices 
 may be expected to be more strongly marked, as 
 some have taken pains to shew. Bishop Fleetwood's 
 celebrated Preface to his four Sermons, reprinted 
 and republished in the very year in which Swift 
 wrote his banter upon Burnet, and which had the 
 honour of being condemned by the House of Com- 
 mons to be burnt by the common hangman, is quite 
 sufficient to justify all Burnet's apprehensions. " I 
 have lived," says the Bishop, " to see our deliverance
 
 xxii PREFACE. 
 
 from arbitrary power and popery, traduced and vilified 
 by some, (alluding possibly among others to Swift 
 himself,) who formerly thought it was their greatest 
 merit, and made it part of their boast and glory, to 
 have had a little hand and share in bringing it about ;" 
 and on the 17th of June, 1712, the very year in which 
 Swift chose to attack Burnet's Introduction, the same 
 patriotic prelate, a man universally esteemed, and 
 particularly by the Queen herself, who was used to 
 call him her bishop, addressed a letter to his Right 
 Rev. brother of Salisbury, which alone, is entirely 
 sufficient to vindicate Burnet from the foul but witty 
 aspersions of Swift. " Your Lordship," he tells Bur- 
 net, " may now imagine you are growing young 
 again, for we are fallen, methinks, into the very 
 dregs of Charles the Second's politics ;" an observa- 
 tion corresponding exactly with one of Burnet's 
 remarks, of which the Dean makes great sport, as a 
 mockery of all truth. If then we must be compelled 
 to grant that Burnet was a prejudiced writer,* it 
 seems impossible for any true Englishman to look to 
 the history of the latter years of Queen Anne, with- 
 out feeling a disposition to applaud rather than blame 
 the prejudices of which he is accused. I should 
 not have said so much upon this, but for the cele- 
 brity of Swift's attack upon the Bishop, which, for 
 the mere humour of it, will probably descend with 
 his other works, down to the latest posterity, and 
 which was immediately directed against a portion of 
 the present publication. The Bishop's History of his 
 
 * It is difficult to know how far the most respectable prejudices may be at all 
 indulged with impunity. An Author, whom I should be loth to cite, for what 
 I think a mere oversight, in a reference made to the Memoirs of Sir James 
 Melvil, relating to the celebrated Monluc, bishop of Valence, observes, that " in 
 a certain passage he (Melvil) has given us a remarkable instance of the Bishop's 
 furious temper and turn for gross debauchery ;" adding, with some degree of in- 
 dignation, " which Burnet, in his hatred to the Romish Clergy, hath very imper- 
 tinently transcribed into his History of the Reformation." Why impertinently ? 
 Was a Protestant Bishop, writing upon such a subject, bound in charity to over- 
 look facts so well attested, and referring to times, when debauchery was known 
 to be a crying sin amongst the Popish clergy ?
 
 PREFACE. xxiii 
 
 Own Times, will of course afford a greater insight 
 into the state of politics, which drew upon him the 
 bitter sarcasm of the Irish dignitary. 
 
 Ridicule, however, is certainly no test of truth, 
 and, in fact, Swift's attack is not one of ridicule only; 
 he is very severe upon Burnet, for what he says of 
 Wharton, who, under the feigned name of Anthony 
 Harmer, had published a specimen of some errors 
 and defects in the History of the Reformation ; but 
 Wharton's book, was a very virulent and uncharita- 
 ble performance, and he seems to have deserved no 
 mercy at the hands of Burnet, whatever Swift may 
 have thought of him. Parnell also, a deserter from the 
 Whig party, as well as Swift, attacked Burnet, in 
 Poetry, as the latter had done in Prose, and with an 
 equally malignant spite against the Bishop's Prefaces 
 and Introductions ; the Bishop it seems had like to 
 have been burnt in his closet, which led the Tory, 
 or rather Jacobitical Poet, to amuse himself with a 
 contemplation of the probable effects of such a catas- 
 trophe. 
 
 " From that dire era, bane to Sarum's pride, 
 
 Which broke his schemes, and laid his friends aside ; 
 
 He talks and writes that Popery will return, 
 
 And we, and he, and all his works will burn ; 
 
 What touched himself was almost fairly proved, 
 
 (Oh! far from Britain be the rest removed !) 
 
 For, as he meant of late, to bless the age, 
 
 With flagrant PREFACES of party rage, 
 
 O'erwrought with passion, and the subjects' weight, 
 
 Lolling he nodded in his elbow seat, 
 
 Down fell the candle ; grease and zeal conspire, 
 
 Heat meets with heat, and pamphlets bum their fire ; 
 
 Here crawls a PREFACE with its half-burned maggots, 
 
 And there an INTRODUCTION brings its faggots." 
 
 Burnet received a lash also from the pen of Dryden 
 under the character of Buzzard, in his strange alle- 
 gory of the Hind and the Panther ; but the enmity of 
 the poet could not have redounded much to his credit, 
 had it been solely occasioned, as Dr. Johnson in his 
 life of that poet seems to assert, by the Bishop's se-
 
 xxiv PREFACE. 
 
 vere, but very reasonable censure of the obsceni- 
 ties, blasphemies, and falsehoods to be found in his 
 writings. Dr. Warton, in his notes upon this cele- 
 brated satirist, expresses himself very angrily upon 
 the occasion, commending Burnet and his works in 
 general, but particularly the History before us, in 
 the following terms : " The History of *he Refor- 
 mation is surely a most valuable work, and one of 
 the most decisive blows Popery ever received." 
 Burnet's fame is probably not in the way of suf- 
 fering much more from the attacks of Dryden ; the 
 Hind and Panther being little likely to have readers 
 in these times, of sufficient patience, to get to the end 
 of it, and indeed if otherwise, there are many chances 
 of their not finding Burnet under the character of 
 Buzzard, though to those who knew him, the satire 
 must have appeared grossly personal. Burnet's great 
 offence, was probably the difference between their 
 principles and parties ; though it must be acknow- 
 ledged that he had not been so sparing of Dryden's 
 feelings as he should have been, in his severe remarks 
 on the latter, on account of his projected translation 
 of Varillas' History of Heresies ; a book abounding 
 indeed in the foulest falsehoods, and very adverse to 
 the cause taken up by Burnet. It should be added 
 besides, that Dryden, in his life and character, was 
 not that monster of immorality Burnet represented him 
 to be, though his loose writings remain as much as 
 ever without excuse. But to return to the banter of 
 the Irish Dignitary. 
 
 The Bishop probably had a clearer view of the 
 dangers with which the country was threatened, to- 
 wards the close of Queen Anne's reign, than Swift, 
 or if the latter knew as much as Burnet, he grossly 
 dissembled for party purposes. In the first volume 
 of the Miscellanies, published by Bathurst in 1751, 
 we have a paper by Swift, entitled " Some Free
 
 PREFACE. xxv 
 
 Thoughts upon the Present State of Affairs ;" and 
 which was written in the year 1714, the very year 
 in which Burnet published his third volume. I 
 have shewn that his Introduction, which he published 
 in the year 1712, and which Swift sought to turn 
 into ridicule, was, according to the actual posture of 
 public affairs, by no means open to such ridicule ; 
 that Burnet's fears had a very reasonable founda- 
 tion, and that Swift was the mere mouth-piece of an 
 anti-constitutional party. In 1714, Swift took again 
 the same side of the question, and inveighed largely 
 against those who fancied there could be any danger 
 irom the Pretender ; " a mere nominal Prince," he 
 calls him, u who lies under all manner of disadvan- 
 tages. The vulgar imagine him to have been a child 
 imposed upon the nation, by the fraudulent zeal of 
 his parents and their bigotted counsellors ; who took 
 special care, against all the rules of common policy, 
 to educate him in their hateful superstition, sucked 
 in with his milk, and confirmed in his manhood he 
 is likewise said to be of weak intellects, and an un- 
 sound constitution : he was treated contemptibly 
 enough by the young princes of France, even during 
 the war ; is now wholly neglected by that crown, 
 and driven to live in exile upon a small exhibition. 
 He is utterly unknown in England, which he left in 
 the cradle." In this strain the facetious writer pro- 
 ceeds, to a much greater length, in order to shew that 
 all the apprehensions of the whigs, were idle, fac- 
 tious, and unreasonable ; and yet no sooner was the 
 Queen dead, and the first Prince of the House of 
 Hanover arrived in England to take possession of 
 his throne, than copies of a manifesto were sent into 
 England, printed in English, French, and Latin, 
 signed at the top James R. and dated at Plombieres, 
 the 29th of August, 1714, N. S., in which the claims 
 of Swift's Prince of " weak intellects, and delicate
 
 xxvi PREFACE. 
 
 constitution, a mere exile on a small exhibition," 
 to the crown of Great Britain, are set forth in the 
 strongest terms, and with a reference to the preced- 
 ing politics of the English Court, alluded to in Bur- 
 net's much vilified Introduction. He says, " The 
 Revolution ruined the English monarchy, laid the 
 foundation of a republican government, and devolved 
 the sovereign power on the people." He observes, 
 " that when he found the treaty of peace was upon 
 the point of being concluded, without any regard to 
 him, he published in April, 1712, his protestation 
 against it." He then gives the reason of his sitting 
 still for some time past, in these remarkable words : 
 " yet contrary to our expectations, upon the death 
 of the Princess our sister, of whose good intentions to- 
 wards us, we could not for some time past well doubt; 
 and this was the reason we then sat still, expecting 
 the good effects thereof: which were unfortunately 
 prevented by her deplorable death, we found that our 
 people, instead of taking this favourable opportunity 
 of retrieving the honour and true interests of their 
 country, by doing us and themselves justice, had 
 immediately proclaimed for their King, a foreign 
 Prince, to our prejudice, contrary to the funda- 
 mental and incontestable laws of hereditary right, 
 which their pretended acts of settlement can never 
 abrogate." This manifesto then, which was trans- 
 mitted from the Continent to the Duke of Marl- 
 borough, and others of His Majesty's Council, and 
 proved to be genuine by the Duke of Lorrain, is 
 sufficient of itself to shew, that Burnet's alarms, 
 both in the years 1712 and 1714, were by no means 
 groundless, or assumed only for seditious purposes. 
 To conclude : 
 
 It has not been judged necessary in this Preface 
 to deny any of the charges brought against Burnet, 
 but rather to advertise the reader of the precise
 
 PREFACE. xxvii 
 
 nature and extent of them, that he may be upon his 
 guard. It has been endeavoured to obviate as far as 
 possible, the mistakes likely to arise from the mode 
 in which it has been usual to print the work, and to 
 bring together certain portions of the history which 
 had better not be disunited, as is commonly the case, 
 where the third volume is regarded rather as a regular 
 continuation of the work, than as merely supplemen- 
 tary to the two preceding volumes. I have not at- 
 tempted to conceal that the Author did make many 
 mistakes, but I have sought to secure to him the 
 credit of having very ingenuously acknowledged 
 them, and in many instances satisfactorily accounted 
 for them, and of having received with thankfulness 
 the emendations and corrections of others, that is, 
 when not obtruded upon him in an angry and 
 offensive manner. We have a remarkable proof 
 of this in the case of Mr. Baker, author of the Re- 
 flections on Learning, who had communicated to the 
 Bishop a variety of corrections, and who, though not 
 named, is spoken of by Burnet in the Preface to the 
 third volume, under the title of a learned and worthy 
 person ; the Bishop published all his corrections, 
 though he did not adopt them all. Of the sense en- 
 tertained by Mr. Baker of the Bishop's candour, the 
 following testimony remains. In the third volume 
 of his own copy of the History of the Reformation, in 
 the Public Library at Cambridge, Mr. Baker himself 
 has written as follows : "Ex dono doctisswni Auctoris, 
 ac celebcrrimi Prtesulis Gilberti Episcopi Salisburicnsis 
 I shall always have an honour for the Author's 
 memory, who entered all the corrections I had made, 
 at the end of this volume. If any more are found, 
 they were not sent, for he suppressed nothing." 
 This testimony of Baker, says the Author of Biogra- 
 phia Britannica, in favour of the candour of Burnet, 
 whose principles were so different from his own, is
 
 xxviii PREFACE. 
 
 certainly worthy of attention, and indeed, does ho- 
 nour to them both. Even Swift acknowledges that 
 the Bishop was a man of great good-nature and ge- 
 nerosity in which he certainly had the advantage 
 of his antagonist, who was sadly deficient in both 
 those qualities. 
 
 As to the Bishop's prejudices and partialities, they 
 must be referred to the temper of the times, the 
 peculiar character of his work, and the extraordinary 
 public transactions in which it was his lot to be 
 deeply involved ; one half of his work, however, at 
 all events, ought to be proof against the ill effects of 
 private partialities.; as far, that is, as they are what 
 they profess to be, correct transcripts of original, 
 authentic, and ancient documents, and if his preju- 
 dices have tended to mark him as a party man, I 
 have endeavoured to shew, that the prejudices of his 
 contemporaries and opponents were not less strong, 
 and in many points, much more adverse to the free 
 principles of our admirable constitution, than those 
 of the Right Reverend Author of this History. I 
 have, however, at present, judged it necessary to 
 notice only those prejudices with which he stands 
 charged as the Author of the Introduction to the 
 third volume, and which was calculated when it 
 first appeared, to excite the most lively apprehen- 
 sions of the return of Popery; apprehensions which, 
 though the wits of the other party chose to turn into 
 ridicule at the time, appear to have had a good his- 
 torical foundation. As to all his other works, we 
 have nothing to do with them here ; a good account 
 of them is to be found, not only in the article assigned 
 to the Bishop, in the Biographia Britannica, but in 
 the Appendix to the History of his Own Times, 
 1818, and to which the reader is referred for further 
 information. 
 
 E. NARES.
 
 TO 
 
 THE KING. 
 
 SIR, 
 
 THE first step that was made in the Reformation of this 
 Church, was the restoring to your royal ancestors the 
 rights of the crown, and an entire dominion over all their 
 subjects, of which they had been disseized by the craft and 
 violence of an unjust Pretender: to whom the clergy, though 
 your Majesty's progenitors had enriched them, by a bounty 
 no less profuse than ill-managed, did not only adhere, but 
 drew with them the laity, over whose consciences they had 
 gained so absolute an authority, that our kings were to ex- 
 pect no obedience from their people, but what the popes were 
 pleased to allow. 
 
 It is true, the nobler part of the nation did frequently, 
 in parliament, assert the regal prerogatives against those 
 papal invasions ; yet these were but faint endeavours : for 
 an ill-executed law is but an unequal match to a principle 
 strongly infused into the consciences of the people. 
 
 But how different was this from the teaching of Christ and 
 his apostles ? They forbade men to use all those arts by 
 which the papacy grew up and yet subsists : they exhorted 
 them to obey magistrates, when they knew it would cost 
 them their lives : they were for setting up a kingdom, not 
 of this world, nor to be attained but by a holy and peace- 
 able religion. If this might every where take place, princes 
 would find government both easy and secure : it would raise 
 in their subjects the truest courage, and unite them with 
 the firmest charity : it would draw from them obedience to 
 the laws, and reverence to the persons of their kings. If 
 the standards of justice and charity which the gospel gives, 
 of doing as we would be done by, and loving our neighbours 
 as ourselves, were made the measures of men's actions, how 
 steadily would societies be governed, and how exactly would 
 Princes be obeyed ! 
 
 The design of the Reformation was to restore Christianity 
 to what it was at first, and to purge it of those corruptions 
 with which it was overrun in the later and darker ages.
 
 xxx EPISTLE DEDICATORY. 
 
 Great Sir, this work was carried on by a slow and un- 
 steady progress under King Henry the Eighth ; it advanced 
 in a fuller and freer course under the short but blessed reisrn 
 
 O 
 
 of King Edward ; was sealed with the blood of many mar- 
 tyrs under Queen Mary; was brought to a full settlement in 
 the happy and glorious days of Queen Elizabeth ; was de- 
 fended by the learned pen of King James : but the esta- 
 blished frame of it, under which it had so long flourished, 
 was overthrown with your Majesty's blessed Father, who fell 
 with it, and honoured it by his unexampled suffering for it ; 
 and was again restored to its former beauty and order by 
 your Majesty's happy return. 
 
 What remains to complete and perpetuate this blessing, 
 the composing of our differences at home, the establishing 
 a closer correspondence with the reformed churches abroad, 
 the securing us from the restless and wicked practices of 
 that party, who hoped so lately to have been at the end of 
 their designs ; and that which can only entitle us to a bless- 
 ing from God, the reforming of our manners and lives, as 
 our ancestors did our doctrine and worship ; all this is re- 
 served for your Majesty, that it may appear that your royal 
 title of Defender of the Faith is no empty sound, but the 
 real strength and glory of your crown. 
 
 For attaining these ends, it will be of great use to trace the 
 steps of our first reformers ; for if the land-marks they set 
 be observed, we can hardly go out of the way. This was my 
 chief design in the following sheets, which I now most hum- 
 bly offer to your Majesty, hoping, that as you were graci- 
 ously pleased to command that I should have free access to 
 all Records for composing them, so you will not deny your 
 royal patronage to the History of that Work, which God 
 grant your Majesty may live to raise to its perfection, and 
 to complete in your reign the glory of all your titles. This 
 is a part of the most earnest as well as the daily prayers of, 
 
 May it please your sacred Majesty, 
 
 Your Majesty's most loyal, most faithful, 
 And most devoted subject and servant, 
 
 G. BURNET.
 
 THE PREFACE. 
 
 THERE is no part of history better received than the ac- 
 count of great changes and revolutions of states and 
 governments, in which the variety of unlooked-for accidents 
 and events both entertains the reader and improves him. 
 
 Of all changes, those in religion, that have been sudden 
 and signal, are inquired into with the most searching curi- 
 osity : where the salvation of souls being concerned, the 
 better sort are much affected ; and the credit, honour, and 
 interest of churches and parties draw in those, who though 
 they do not much care for the religious part, yet make 
 noise about it to serve other ends. The changes that were 
 made in religion in the last century have produced such 
 effects every where, that it is no wonder if all persons de- 
 sire to see a clear account of the several steps in which they 
 advanced, of the counsels that directed them, and the mo- 
 tives, both religious and political, that inclined men of all 
 conditions to concur in them. Germany produced a Sleidan, 
 France a Thuanus, and Italy a Friar Paul, who have given 
 the world as full satisfaction in what was done beyond sea 
 as they could desire. And though the two last lived and 
 died in the communion of the church of Rome, yet they 
 have delivered things to posterity, with so much candour 
 and evenness, that their authority is disputed by none but 
 those of their own party. 
 
 But while foreign churches have such historians, ours 
 at home have not had the like good fortune : for whether 
 it was, that the reformers at first presumed so far on their 
 legal and calm proceedings, on the continued succession of 
 their clergy, the authority of the law, and the protection of 
 the Prince, that they judged it needless to write a history ; 
 and therefore employed their best pens rather to justify 
 what they did, than to deliver how it was done ; or whether 
 by a mere neglect the thing was omitted, we cannot deter- 
 mine. True it is, that it was not done to any degree of 
 exactness, when matters were so fresh in men's memories, 
 that things might have been opened with greater advan- 
 tages, and vouched by better authority, than it is to be ex- 
 pected at this distance.
 
 xxxii PREFACE. 
 
 They were soon after much provoked by Sanders's history, 
 which he published to the world in Latin : yet either de- 
 spising a writer, who did so impudently deliver falsehoods, 
 that from his own book many of them may be disproved, or 
 expecting a command from authority, they did not then set 
 about it. The best account I can give of their silence, is, 
 that most of Sanders's calumnies being levelled at Queen 
 Elizabeth, whose birth and parents he designed chiefly to 
 disgrace ; it was thought too tender a point by her wise 
 counsellors to be much inquired into : it gave too great cre- 
 dit to his lies to answer them ; an answer would draw forth 
 a reply, by which those calumnies would still be kept alive ; 
 and therefore it was not without good reason thought better 
 to let them lie unanswered and despised. From whence it 
 is come that in this age that author is in such credit, that 
 now he is quoted with much assurance : most of all the writers, 
 in the church of Rome, rely on his testimony as a good au- 
 thority. The collectors of the general history of that age 
 follow his thread closely, some of them transcribe his very 
 words. One Pollini, a Dominican, published a history of 
 the changes that were made in England, in Italian, at 
 Rome, anno 1594, which he should more ingenuously have 
 called a translation or paraphrase of Sanders's History : 
 and of late more candidly, but no less maliciously, one of 
 the best pens of France has been employed to translate him 
 into their language, which has created such prejudices in 
 the minds of many there, that our Reformation, which gene- 
 rally was more modestly spoken of, even by those who wrote 
 against it, is now looked on by such as read Sanders, and 
 believe him, as one of the foulest things that ever was. 
 
 Fox, for all his voluminous work, had but few things in 
 his eye when he made his collection, and designed only to 
 discover the corruptions and cruelties of the Roman clergy, 
 and the sufferings and constancy of the reformers. But his 
 work was written in haste, and there are so many defects in 
 it, that it can by no means be called a complete history of 
 these times ; though I must add, that having compared his 
 Acts and Monuments with the records, I have never been 
 able to discover any errors or prevarications in them, but 
 the utmost fidelity and exactness. Parker, archbishop of 
 Canterbury, designed only, in his account of the British An- 
 tiquities, to do justice and honour to his^ee, and so gives 
 us barely the life of Cranmer, with some few and general 
 hints of what he did. Hall was but a superficial writer, 
 and was more careful to get full informations of the clothes 
 that were worn at the interviews of princes, justs, tourna- 
 ments, and great solemnities, than about the counsels or 
 secret transactions of the time he lived in. Holingshed,
 
 PREFACE. xxxiii 
 
 Speed, and Stow, give bare relations of things that were 
 public, and commit many faults. Upon their scent most of 
 our later writers have gone, and have only collected and 
 repeated what they wrote. 
 
 The Lord Herbert judged it unworthy of him to trifle as 
 others had done, and therefore made a more narrow search 
 into records and original papers, than all that had gone be- 
 fore him ; and with great fidelity and industry, has given us 
 the history of King Henry the Eighth. But in the transac- 
 tions that concern religion, he dwells not so long as the 
 matter required, leaving those to men of another profession ; 
 and judging it, perhaps, not so proper for one of his con- 
 dition to pursue a full and accurate deduction of those 
 matters. 
 
 Since he wrote, two have undertaken the ecclesiastical 
 history; Fuller and Heylin. The former got into his hands 
 some few papers that were not seen before he published 
 them; but, being a man of fancy, and affecting an odd way 
 of writing, his work gives no great satisfaction. But Doctor 
 Heylin wrote smoothly and handsomely ; his method and 
 style are good, and his work was generally more read than 
 any thing that had appeared before him : but either he was 
 very ill informed, or very much led by his passions ; and he 
 being wrought on by most violent prejudices against some 
 that were concerned in that time, delivers many things in 
 such a manner, and so strangely, that one would think he 
 had been secretly set on to it by those of the church of Rome, 
 though I doubt not he was a sincere protestant, but vio- 
 lently carried away by some particular conceits. In one 
 thing he is not to be excused ; that he never vouched any 
 authority for what he writ, which is not to be forgiven any 
 who write of transactions beyond their own time, and de- 
 liver new things not known before. So that upon what 
 grounds he wrote a great deal of his book we can only 
 conjecture, and many in their guesses are not apt to be very 
 favourable to him. 
 
 Things being delivered to us with so much alloy and un- 
 certainty, those of the church of Rome do confidently dis- 
 parage our Reformation. The short history of it, as it is 
 put in their mouths, being, that it was begun by the lusts 
 and passions of King Henry the Eighth, carried on by the 
 ravenousness of the Duke of Somerset, under Edward the 
 Sixth, and confirmed by the policy of Queen Elizabeth 
 and her council to secure her title. These things being 
 generally talked and spread abroad in foreign parts, espe- 
 cially in France, by the new translation of Sanders, and not 
 being yet sufficiently cleared, many have desired to see a 
 fuller and better account of those transactions than has yet 
 VOL. i. c
 
 xxxiv PREFACE. 
 
 been given ; so the thing being necessary, I was the more 
 encouraged to set about it by some persons of great worth 
 and eminence, who thought I had much leisure and other 
 good opportunities to go through with it, and wished me to 
 undertake it. The person that did engage me chiefly to 
 this work, was on many accounts much fitter to have under- 
 taken it himself, being the most indefatigable in his industry, 
 and the most judicious in his observations, of any I know, 
 and is one of the greatest masters of style now living. But 
 being engaged in the service of the church, in a station that 
 affords him very little leisure, he set me on to it, and fur- 
 nished me with a curious collection of his own observations. 
 And in some sort this work may be accounted his ; for he 
 corrected it with a most critical exactness ; so that the first 
 materials, and the last finishing of it, are from him. But 
 after all this, I lie under such restraints from his modesty, 
 that I am not allowed to publish his name. 
 
 I had two objections to it, besides the knowledge of my 
 own unfitness for such a work. One was my unacquaint- 
 edness with the laws and customs of this nation, not being 
 born in it: the other was the expense that such a search 
 as was necessary required, which was not easy for me to 
 bear. My acquaintance with the most ingenious master, 
 William Petyt, counsellor of the Inner Temple, cleared 
 one difficulty, he offering me his assistance and direction, 
 without which I must have committed great faults. But I 
 must acknowledge myself highly obliged by the favour and 
 bounty of the honourable master of the rolls, Sir Hare- 
 bottle Grimstone, of whose worth and goodness to me I 
 must make a large digression, if I would undertake to say 
 all that the subject will bear: the whole nation expressed 
 their value of him, upon the most signal occasion, when 
 they made him their mouth and speaker in that blessed 
 assembly which called home their King, after which real 
 evidence all little commendations may be well forborne. The 
 obligations he has laid on me are such, that, as the gratitude 
 and service of my whole life, is the only equal return I can 
 make for them ; so as a small tribute I judge myself obliged 
 to make my acknowledgments in this manner, for the leisure 
 I enjoy under his protection, and the support I receive from 
 him; and if this Work does the world any service, the best 
 part of the thanks is due to him, that furnished me with 
 particular opportunities of carrying it on. Nor must I con- 
 ceal the nobleness of that renowned promoter of learning, 
 Master Boyle, who contributed liberally to the expense this 
 Work put me to. 
 
 Upon these encouragements I set about it : and began 
 with the search of all public records and offices, the parlia-
 
 PREFACE. xxxv 
 
 raent and treaty rolls, with all the patent rolls, and the re- 
 gisters of the sees of Canterbury and London, and of the 
 Augmentation Office. Then I laid out for all the MSS. I 
 could hear of, and found things beyond my expectation in 
 the famous Cotton Library, where there is such a collection 
 of original papers relating to these times, as perhaps the 
 world can shew nothing like it. I had also the favour of 
 some MSS. of great value, both from the famous and emi- 
 nently learned Doctor Stillingfleet, who gave me great as- 
 sistance in this Work, and from Mr. Petyt, and others. 
 
 When I had looked these over, I then used all the endea- 
 vours I could, to gather together the books that were printed 
 in those days, from which I not only got considerable hints 
 of matters of fact, but (that which I chiefly looked for) the 
 arguments upon which they managed the controversies then 
 on foot, of which I thought it was the part of an ecclesias- 
 tical historian to give an account, as I could recover them, 
 that it may appear upon what motives and grounds they 
 proceeded. 
 
 The three chief periods of Henry the Eighth's reign, in 
 which religion is concerned, are, first From the beginning 
 of his reign, till the process of his divorce with Queen 
 Katherine commenced. The second is From that till his 
 total breaking off from Rome, and setting up his supremacy 
 over all causes and persons. The third is From that to his 
 death. 
 
 When I first set about this Work, I intended to have 
 carried on the history of the Reformation to the reign of 
 Queen Elizabeth, in which it was finished and fully settled ; 
 but I was forced to change that resolution. The chief rea- 
 son, among many others, was, that I have not yet been able 
 to discover such full informations of what passed under the 
 succeeding reigns, as were necessary for a history; and 
 though I have searched the public registers of that time, 
 yet I am still in the dark myself in matty particulars. This 
 made me resolve on publishing this volume first, hoping, that 
 those in whose hands any manuscripts or papers of that time 
 lie, will from what is now performed be encouraged to com- 
 municate them : or, if any have made a considerable progress 
 in those collections, I shall be far from envying them the ho- 
 nour of such a work, in which it had been inexcusable va- 
 nity in me to have meddled, if the desires of others, who have 
 great power over me, had not prevailed with me to set about 
 it. And, therefore, though I have made a good advance in 
 the following part of the Work, I shall most willingly resign 
 it up to any who will undertake it, and they shall have the 
 free use of all my papers. But if none will set about it, who 
 yet can furnish materials towards it, I hope their zeal for 
 
 c 2
 
 xxxvi PREFACE. 
 
 carrying on so desired a work, will engage them to give all 
 the help to it that is in their power. 
 
 There is only one passage belonging to the next volume, 
 which I shall take notice of here ; since from it I must plead 
 my excuse for several defects, which may seem to be in this 
 Work. In the search I made of the Rolls and other offices, 
 I wondered much to miss several commissions, patents, and 
 other writings, which by clear evidence I knew were granted, 
 and yet none of them appeared on record. This I could 
 not impute to any thing but the omission of the clerks, who 
 failed in the enrolling those commissions, though it was 
 not likely that matters of so high concernment should have 
 been neglected, especially in such a critical time, and under 
 so severe a king. But as I continued down my search to 
 the fourth year of Queen Mary, I found, in the twelfth roll 
 of that year, a commission, which cleared all my former 
 doubts, and by which I saw what was become of the things 
 I had so anxiously searched after. We have heard of the ex- 
 purgation of books practised in the church of Rome, but it 
 might have been imagined, that public registers and records 
 would have been safe; yet, lest these should have been af- 
 terwards confessors, it was resolved they should then be 
 martyrs; for, on the 29th of December, in the fourth year 
 of her reign, a commission was issued out under the great 
 seal to Bonner, bishop of London, Cole, dean of St. Paul's, 
 and Martin, a doctor of the civil law, which is of that im- 
 portance, that I shall here insert the material words of it : 
 " Whereas it is come to our knowledge, that, in the time of 
 the late schism, divers accounts, books, scrolls, instruments, 
 and other writings were practised, devised, and made, con- 
 cerning professions against the Pope's holiness, and the see 
 apostolic; and also sundry infamous scrutinies taken in ab- 
 beys and other religious houses, tending rather to subvert 
 and overthrow all good religion and religious houses, than 
 for any truth contained therein: which being in the custody 
 of divers registers, and we intending to have those writings 
 brought to knowledge, whereby they may be considered and 
 ordered according to our will and pleasure, thereupon, those 
 three or any two of them are empowered to cite any persons 
 before them, and examine them upon the premises upon 
 oath, and to bring all such writings before them, and certify 
 their diligence about it to Cardinal Pool, that further order 
 might be given about them." 
 
 When 1 saw this, I soon knew which way so many writ- 
 ings had gone: and as I could not but wonder at their bold- 
 ness, who thus presumed to raze so many records; so their 
 ingenuity in leaving this commission in the rolls, by which 
 any who had the curiosity to search for it, might be satisfied
 
 PREFACE. xxxvii 
 
 how the other commissions were destroyed, was much to be 
 commended. Yet in the following Work it will appear that 
 some few papers escaped their hands. 
 
 I know it is needless to make great protestations of my 
 sincerity in this Work. These are of course, and are little 
 considered; but I shall take a more effectual way to be be- 
 lieved, for I shall vouch my warrants for what I say, and 
 tell where they are to be found. And having copied out of 
 records and MSS. many papers of great importance, I shall 
 not only insert the substance of them in the following Work, 
 but at the end of it shall give a collection of them at their 
 full length, and in the language in which they were originally 
 written : from which, as the reader will receive full evidence 
 of the truth of this History; so he will not be ill-pleased, 
 to observe the genius and way of the great men in that time, 
 of which he will be better able to judge, by seeing their let- 
 ters and other papers, than by any representation made of 
 them at second-hand. They are digested into that order in 
 which they are referred to in the History. 
 
 It will surprise some to see a book of this bigness writ- 
 ten of the history of our Reformation, under the reign of 
 King Henry the Eighth : since the true beginnings of it are 
 to be reckoned from the reign of King Edward the Sixth, in 
 which the Articles of our church, and the forms of our wor- 
 ship, were first compiled and set forth by authority. And, 
 indeed, in King Henry's time, the Reformation was rather 
 conceived than brought forth, and two parties were in the 
 last eighteen years of his reign struggling in the womb, having 
 now and then advantages on either side, as the unconstant 
 humour of that King changed, and as his interests, and often 
 as his passions, swayed him. 
 
 Cardinal Wolsey had so dissolved his mind into pleasures, 
 and puffed him up with flattery and servile compliances, that 
 it was not an easy thing to serve him ; for being boisterous 
 and impatient naturally, which was much heightened by his 
 most extravagant vanity and high conceit of his own learning 
 and wisdom, he was one of the most uncounsellable persons 
 in the world. 
 
 The book which he wrote had engaged him deep in these 
 controversies, and by perpetual flatteries he was brought to 
 fancy it was written with some degree of inspiration. And 
 Luther in his answer had treated him so unmannerly, that 
 it was only the necessity of his affairs that forced him into 
 any correspondence with that party in Germany. 
 
 And though Cranmer and Cromwell improved every ad- 
 vantage, that either the King's temper, or his affairs offered 
 them, as much as could be ; yet they were to be pitied, hav- 
 ing to do with a prince, who upon the slightest pretences
 
 xxxviii PREFACE. 
 
 threw down those whom he had most advanced ; which Crom- 
 well felt severely, and Cranmer was sometimes near it. 
 
 The faults of this King being so conspicuous, and the se- 
 verity of his proceedings so unjustifiable, particularly that 
 heinous violation of the most sacred rules of justice and go- 
 vernment, in condemning men without bringing them to 
 make their answers, most of our writers have separated the 
 concerns of this Church from his reign; and imagining, that 
 all he did was founded only on his revenge upon the court 
 of Rome, for denying his divorce, have taken little care to 
 examine how matters were transacted in his time. 
 
 But if we consider the great things that were done by 
 him, we must acknowledge that there was a signal provi- 
 dence of God, in raising up a king of his temper, for clear- 
 ing the way to that blessed work that followed : and that 
 could hardly have been done, but by a man of his humour; 
 so that I may very fitly apply to him the witty simile of an 
 ingenious writer, who compares Luther to a postilion in his 
 waxed boots and oiled coat, lashing his horses through thick 
 and thin, and bespattering all about him. 
 
 This character befits King Henry better (saving the re- 
 verence due to his crown), who, as the postilion of Reforma- 
 tion, made way for it through a great deal of mire and filth. 
 He abolished the Pope's power, by which not only that ty- 
 ranny was destroyed, which had been long a heavy burden 
 on this oppressed nation; but all the opinions, rites, and 
 constitutions, for which there was no better authority than 
 papal decrees, were to fall to the ground; the foundation 
 that supported them being thus sapped. He suppressed all 
 the monasteries; in which though there were some inexcus- 
 able faults committed, yet he wanted not reason to do what 
 he did : for the foundation of those houses being laid on the 
 superstitious conceit of redeeming souls out of purgatory, 
 by saying masses for them ; they, whose office that was, had, 
 by counterfeiting relics, by forging of miracles, and other 
 like impostures, drawn together a vast wealth, to the enrich- 
 ing of their saints ; of whom some, perhaps, were damned 
 souls, and others were never in being. These arts being 
 detected, and withal their great viciousness in some places, 
 and in all their great abuse of the Christian religion, made 
 it seem unfit they should be continued. But it was their 
 dependence on the see of Rome, which, as the state of things 
 then was, made it necessary that they should be suppressed. 
 New foundations might have done well; and the scantiness 
 of these, considering the number and wealth of those which 
 were suppressed, is one of the great blemishes of that reign. 
 But it was in vain to endeavour to amend the old ones. 
 Their numbers were so great, their riches and interests in
 
 PREFACE. xxxix 
 
 the nation so considerable ; that a prince of ordinary metal 
 would not have attempted such a design, much less have 
 completed it in five years time. With these fell the super- 
 stition of images, relics, and the redemption of souls out of 
 purgatory. And those extravagant addresses to saints that 
 are in the Roman offices were thrown out, only anorapro nobis 
 was kept up, and even that was left to the liberty of priests, 
 to leave it out of the litanies as they saw cause. These were 
 great preparations for a reformation. But it went further; 
 and two things were done, upon which a greater change was 
 reasonably to be expected. The Scriptures were translated 
 into the English tongue, and set up in all churches, and 
 every one was admitted to read them, and they alone were 
 declared the rule of faith. This could not but open the eyes 
 of the nation ; who finding a profound silence in these writ- 
 ings about many things, and a direct opposition to other 
 things that were still retained, must needs conclude, even 
 without deep speculations or nice disputing, that many 
 things that were still in the church had no ground in Scrip- 
 ture, and some of the rest were directly contrary to it. 
 This Cranmer knew well would have such an operation, and 
 therefore made it his chief business to set it forward, which 
 in conclusion he happily effected. 
 
 Another thing was also established, which opened the way 
 to all that followed ; that every national Church was a com- 
 plete body within itself; so that the Church of England, 
 with the authority and concurrence of their head and king, 
 might examine and reform all errors and corruptions, whe- 
 ther in doctrine or worship. All the provincial councils in 
 the ancient Church, were so many precedents for this, who 
 condemned heresies, and reformed abuses as the occasion 
 required. And yet these being all but parts of one empire, 
 there was less reason for their doing it without staying for 
 a general council, which depended upon the pleasure of one 
 man (the Roman emperor) than could be pretended, when 
 Europe was divided into so many kingdoms; by which a 
 common concurrence of all these churches was a thing 
 scarce to be expected : and therefore this church must be in 
 a very ill condition, if there could be no endeavours for a 
 reformation, till all the rest were brought together. 
 
 The grounds of the new covenant between God and man 
 in Christ, were also truly stated, and the terms on which sal- 
 vation was to be hoped for, were faithfully opened accord- 
 ing to the New Testament. And this being, in the strict no- 
 tion of the word, the Gospel, and the glad tidings preached 
 through our blessed Lord and Saviour, it must be confessed 
 that there was a great progress made, when the nation was 
 well instructed about it; though there was still an alloy of
 
 xl PREFACE. 
 
 other corruptions, embasing the puri-ty of the faith. And, in- 
 deed, in the whole progress of these changes, the King's de- 
 sign seemed to have been to terrify the court of Rome, and 
 cudgel the pope into a compliance with what he desired : for 
 in his heart he continued addicted to some of the most extra- 
 vagant opinions of that church; such as transubstantiation, 
 and the other corruptions in the mass, so that he was to his 
 life's end more papist than protestant. 
 
 There are two prejudices, which men have generally 
 drunk in against that time. The one is, from the King's 
 great enormities, both in his personal deportment and go- 
 vernment, which make many think no good could be done 
 by so ill a man, and so cruel a prince. I am not to defend 
 him, nor to lessen his faults. The vastness and irregularity 
 of his expense procured many heavy exactions, and twice 
 extorted a public discharge of his debts, embased the coin, 
 with other irregularities. His proud and impatient spirit 
 occasioned many cruel proceedings. The taking so many 
 lives, only for denying his supremacy, particularly Fisher's 
 and More's, the one being extremely old, and the other one 
 of the glories of his nation for probity and learning : the 
 taking advantage from some irruptions in the north, to break 
 the indemnity he had before proclaimed to those in the re- 
 bellion, even though they could not be proved guilty of those 
 second disorders : his extreme severity to all Cardinal Pole's 
 family: his cruel using, first Cromwell, and afterwards the 
 Duke of Norfolk and his son, besides his unexampled pro- 
 ceedings against some of his wives; and that which was 
 worst of all, the laying a precedent for the subversion of 
 justice, and oppressing the clearest innocence by attainting 
 men without hearing them : these are such remarkable ble- 
 mishes, that as no man of ingenuity can go about the whiten- 
 ing them ; so the poor reformers drunk so deep of that bitter 
 cup, that it very ill becomes any of their followers to endea- 
 vour to give fair colours to those red and bloody characters 
 with which so much of his reign is stained. 
 
 Yet after all this sad enumeration, it was no new nor un- 
 usual thing in the methods of God's providence, to employ 
 princes who had great mixtures of very gross faults to do 
 signal things for his service. Not to mention David and 
 Solomon, whose sins were expiated with a severe repent- 
 ance; it was the bloody Cyrus that sent back the Jews to 
 their land, and gave them leave to rebuild their temple. 
 Constantine the Great is, by some of his enemies, charged 
 with many blemishes both in his life and government. Clo- 
 vis of France, under whom that nation received the Christian 
 faith, was a monster of cruelty and perfidiousness, as even 
 Gregory of Tours represents him, who lived near his time,
 
 PREFACE. xli 
 
 and nevertheless makes a saint of him. Charles the Great, 
 whom some also make a saint, both put away his wife for 
 a very slight cause, and is said to have lived in most unna- 
 tural lusts with his own daughter. Irene, whom the church 
 of Rome magnifies as the restorer of their religion in the east, 
 did, both contrary to the impressions of nature, and of her 
 sex, put out her own son's eyes, of which he died soon after, 
 with many other execrable things. And whatever reproaches 
 those of the church of Rome cast on the Reformation, 
 upon the account of this King's faults, may be easily turned 
 back on their popes, who have never failed to court and ex- 
 tol princes that served their ends, how gross and scanda- 
 lous soever their other faults have been. As Phocas, Bru- 
 nichild, Irene, Mathildis, Edgar of England, and many 
 more. But our church is not near so much concerned in 
 the persons of those princes, under whom the Reformation 
 began, as theirs is in the persons of their popes, who are 
 believed to have far higher characters of a Divine power 
 and spirit in them, than other princes pretend to. And yet 
 if the lives of those popes, who have made the greatest ad- 
 vances in their jurisdiction, be examined, particularly Gre- 
 gory the Seventh, and Boniface the Eighth, vices more em i- 
 ment than any can be charged on King Henry, will be found 
 in them. And if a lewd and wicked pope may yet have the 
 Holy Ghost dwelling in him, and directing him infallibly ; 
 why may not an ill king do so good a work as set a refor- 
 mation forward : and if it were proper to enter into a dissec- 
 tion of four of those popes, that sat at Rome during this 
 reign, Pope Julius will be found beyond him in a vast am- 
 bition, whose bloody reign did not only embroil Italy, but a 
 great part of Christendom : Pope Leo the Tenth was as 
 extravagant and prodigal in his expense, which put him on 
 baser shifts, than ever this King used to raise money ; not 
 by embasing the coin, or raising new and heavy taxes, but 
 by embasing the Christian religion, and prostituting the par- 
 don of sin in that foul trade of indulgences : Clement the 
 Seventh was false to the highest degree ; a vice which can- 
 not be charged on this King : and Paul the Third was a vile 
 and lewd priest, who not only kept his whore, but gloried 
 in it, and raised one of his bastards to a high dignity, making 
 him Prince of Parma and Piacenza ; and himself is said to 
 have lived in incest with others of them. And, except the 
 short reign of Hadrian the Sixth, there was no pope at Rome 
 all this while, whose example might make any other prince 
 blush for his faults ; so that Guicciardine, when he calls 
 Pope Clement a good pope, adds, " I mean not goodness 
 apostolical, for in those days he was esteemed a good pope, 
 that did not exceed the wickedness of the worst of men."
 
 xlii PREFACE. 
 
 In sum, God's ways are a great deep, who has often 
 shewed his power and wisdom, in raising up unlikely and un- 
 promising instruments, to do great services in the world ; not 
 always employing the best men in them, lest good instru- 
 ments should share too deep in the praises of that which 
 is only due to the Supreme Creator and Governor of the 
 world ; and therefore he will stain the pride of all glory that 
 such as glory may only glory in the Lord. Jehu did an ac- 
 ceptable service to God, in destroying the idolatry of Baal, 
 though neither the way of doing it be to be imitated, being 
 grossly insincere, nor was the reformation complete, since 
 the worshipping the two calves was still kept up ; and it is 
 very like, his chief design in it was to destroy all the party 
 that favoured Ahab's family ; yet the thing was good, and 
 was rewarded by God: so whatever this King's other faults 
 were, and how defective soever the change he made was, and 
 upon what ill motives soever it may seem to have proceeded ; 
 yet the things themselves being good, we ought not to think 
 the worse of them because of the instrument, or manner by 
 which they were wrought; but are to adore and admire the 
 paths of the Divine wisdom, that brought about such a 
 change in a church, which, being subjected to the see of 
 Rome, had been more than any other part of Europe most 
 tame under its oppressions, and was most deeply drenched 
 in superstition: and this by the means of a Prince, who was 
 the most devoted to the interest of Rome of any in Christen- 
 dom, and seemed to be so upon knowledge, being very 
 learned ; and continued to the last much leavened with su- 
 perstition, and was the only king in the world whom that 
 see declared Defender of the Faith. And that this should 
 have been carried on so far, with so little opposition, some 
 risings, though numerous and formidable, being scattered 
 and quieted without blood ; and that a mighty prince who was 
 victorious almost in all his undertakings, Charles the Fifth, 
 and was both provoked in point of honour and interest, yet 
 could never find one spare season to turn his arms upon Eng- 
 land, are great demonstrations of a particular influence of 
 Heaven in these alterations, and of its watchful care of them. 
 But the other prejudice touches the Reformation in a 
 more vital and tender part ; and it is, that Cranmer, and 
 the other bishops, who promoted the Reformation in the 
 succeeding reign, did in this comply too servilely with King 
 Henry's humours, both in carrying on his frequent divorces, 
 and in retaining those corruptions in the worship, which by 
 their throwing them off in the beginning of King Edward's 
 reign, we may conclude were then condemned by them ; so 
 that they seem to have prevaricated against their consciences 
 in that compliance.
 
 PREFACE. xliii 
 
 It were too faint a way of answering so severe a charge, 
 to turn it back on the church of Rome, and to shew the 
 base compliances of some, even of the best of their popes, as 
 Gregory the Great, whose congratulations to the usurper 
 Phocas, are a strain of the meanest and indecentest flat- 
 tery that ever was put in writing. And his compliments to 
 Brunichild, who was one of the greatest monsters, both for 
 lust and cruelty that ever her sex produced, shew that there 
 was no person so wicked that he was ashamed to flatter : 
 but the blemishing them will not (I confess) excuse our 
 reformers, therefore other things are to be considered for 
 their vindication. They did not at once attain the full 
 knowledge of Divine truth, so that in some particulars, as 
 in that of the corporal presence in the sacrament, both 
 Cranmer and Ridley were themselves then in the dark. 
 Bertram's book first convinced Ridley, and he was the chief 
 instrument in opening Cranmer's eyes ; so if themselves 
 were not then enlightened, they could not instruct others. 
 As for other things, such as the giving the cup to the laity, 
 the worshipping God in a known tongue, and several refor- 
 mations about the mass, though they judged them neces- 
 sary to be done as soon as was possible ; yet they had not 
 so full a persuasion of the necessity of these, as to think it 
 a sin not to do them. The Prophet's words to Naaman, the 
 Syrian, might give them some colour for that mistake; and 
 the practice of the apostles, who continued not only to wor- 
 ship at the temple, but to circumcise and to offer sacrifices 
 (which must have been done by St. Paul, when he purified 
 himself in the temple) even after the law was dead, by the 
 appearing of the Gospel, seemed to excuse their compliance. 
 They had also observed, that as the apostles were " all things 
 to all men, that so they might gain some ;" so the primitive 
 Christians had brought in many rites of heathenism into 
 their worship : upon which inducements they were wrought 
 on to comply in some uneasy things, in which if these ex- 
 cuses do not wholly clear them, yet they very much lessen 
 their guilt. 
 
 And after all this, it must be confessed they were men, 
 and had mixtures of fear and human infirmities with their 
 other excellent qualities. And, indeed, Cranmer was in all 
 other points so extraordinary a person, that it was perhaps 
 fit there should be some ingredients in his temper, to lessen 
 the veneration, which his great worth might have raised too 
 high, if it had not been for these feeblenesses, which upon 
 some occasions appeared in him. But if we examine the 
 failings of some of the greatest of the primitive fathers, as 
 Athanasius, Cyril, and others, who were the most zealous 
 asserters of the faith, we must conclude them to have been
 
 xliv PREFACE. 
 
 nothing inferior to any that can be charged on Cranmer; 
 whom, if we consider narrowly, we shall find as eminent 
 virtues, and as few faults in him, as in any prelate that has 
 been in the Christian church for many ages. And if he was 
 prevailed on to deny his Master through fear, he did wash 
 off that stain by a sincere repentance, and a patient martyr- 
 dom, in which he expressed an eminent resentment of his 
 former frailty, with a pitch of constancy of mind above the 
 rate of modern examples. 
 
 But their vir.ues, as well as their faults are set before us 
 for our instruction; and how frail soever the vessels were, 
 they have conveyed to us a treasure of great value the pure 
 Gospel of our Lord and Saviour : which if we follow, and 
 govern our lives and hearts by it, we may hope in easier 
 and plainer paths to attain that blessedness which they 
 could not reach, but through scorching flames : and if we 
 do not improve the advantages which this light affords, we 
 may either look for some of those trials which were sent 
 for the exercise of their faith and patience, and perhaps for 
 the punishment of their former compliance ; or, if we escape 
 these, we have cause to fear worse in the conclusion.
 
 CONTENTS OF VOL. I. 
 
 BOOK I. 
 
 xlv 
 
 A summary view of King Henry the Eighth's reign, till the process of his divorce was begun, 
 in which the state of England, chiefly at it related to religion, is opened. 
 
 KING Henry's succession to the crown, 1. 
 He proceeds against Dudley and Empson, ib. 
 He holds a parliament, 3. His great expense, 
 Hi. Affairs beyond sea, ib. A peace and match 
 with France, 4. He offers his daughter to the 
 Dauphin, il>. The King of Spain chosen em- 
 peror, 5. He comes to England, ib. A second 
 war with France, 6. Upon Leo the Tenth's 
 death, Hadrian chosen Pope, ih. He dies, and 
 Clement the Seventh succeeds, 16. Charles 
 the Fifth, at Windsor, contracted to the 
 King's daughter, 7. But breaks his faith, ih. 
 The Clementine league, 8. Rome taken and 
 sacked, 9. The Pope is made a prisoner, ib. 
 The King's success against Scotland, ib. A 
 faction in his councils, 10. Cardinal Wolsey's 
 rising, 11. His preferments, ib. Thecharacter 
 of the Dukes of Norfolk and Suffolk, 14. 
 Cardinal Wolsey against parliaments, 15. 
 The King's breeding in learning, ib. He is 
 flattered by scholars, 17. The King's preroga- 
 tive in ecclesiastical affairs, 18. It was still 
 kept up by him, ib. A contest concerning 
 immunities, 19. A public debate about them, 
 20. Hunne murdered in prison, 23. The pro- 
 
 ceedings upon that, it. The King much court- 
 ed by Popes, 30. And declared Defender of 
 the Faith, 31. The Cardinal absolute in 
 England, ib. He designed to reform the 
 clergy, 32. And to suppress monasteries, ib. 
 The several kinds of convocations, ib. The 
 clergy grant a subsidy to the King, 34. Of 
 the state of monasteries, 35. The Cardinal 
 founds two colleges, 36. The first beginning 
 of reformation in England, 37. The cruelties 
 of the church of Rome, 38. The laws made 
 in England against heretics, 40. Under 
 Richard the Second, 41. Under Henry the. 
 Fourth, ib. And Henry the Fifth, 42. Heresy 
 declared by the King's judges, 44. War- 
 ham's proceeding against heretics, ib. The 
 Bishop of London's proceedings against them, 
 47. The progress of Luther's doctrine, 48. 
 His books were translated into English, 50. 
 The King wrote against him, 51. He replied, 
 ib. Endeavours to suppress the New Testa- 
 ment, ib. Sir Thomas More writes against 
 Luther, 52. Bilney and others proceeded 
 against for heresy, 53. 
 
 BOOK II. 
 
 Of the process of divorce between King Henry and Queen Katherine, and of what passed from the 
 nineteenth to the twenty-Jifth year of his reign, in which he was declared Supreme Head of 
 the Church of England. 
 
 The beginning of the suit of divorce, 54. 
 Prince Arthur married the Infanta, ib. And 
 died soon after, 55. A marriage proposed 
 between Henry and her, ib. It is allowed by 
 the Pope, 56. Henry protested against it, 57. 
 His father dissuaded it, ib. Being come to the 
 crown, he marries her, ib. She bore some 
 children, but only the Lady Mary lived, ib. 
 Several matches proposed for her, ib. The 
 King's marriage questioned by foreigners, 58. 
 
 Anno 1527. He himself has scruples con- 
 cerning it, 59. The grounds of these, 60. 
 All his bishops, except Fisher, condemn it, 
 1. The reasons of state against it, il>. Wol- 
 sey goes into France, 62. The King's fears 
 and hopes, ib. Arguments against the bull, 
 62. Calumnies cast on Anne Boleyn, 65. 
 They are false and ill-contrived, 66. Her 
 birth and education, 69. She was contracted 
 to the Lord Pieicy, 7 1. The divorce moved 
 for at Rome, 72. The first dispatch concern- 
 ing it, ib. 
 
 Anno 1528. The Pope granted it, 75. 
 And gave a bull of dispensation, 76. The 
 Pope's craft and policy, ih. A subtile me- 
 thod proposed by the Pope, 78. Staphileus 
 sent from England, 80. '1 he Cardinal's let- 
 ters to the Pope, 81. A fuller bull is de- 
 
 sired by the King, 82. Gardiner and Fox 
 are sent to Rome, ib. The bull desired by 
 them, 83. Wolsey's earnestness to procure 
 it, 85. Campegio declared legate, 86. He 
 delays his journey, ib. The Pope grants the 
 decretal bull, 87. Two letters from Anne 
 Boleyn to Wolsey, 88. Wolsey desires the 
 bull may be seen by some of the King's coun- 
 cil, 90. The Emperor opposes the King's bt. si- 
 ness, ib. A breve is found in Spain, 91. It was 
 thought to be forged, 92. Campegio comes to 
 England, 93. And lets the King seethe bull, 
 ib. But refuses to shew it to others, ib. Wol- 
 sey moves the Pope that some might see it, 
 94. But in vain, ib. Campana is sent by the 
 Pope to England, 96. The King offers the Pope 
 a guard, ib. The Pope inclines to the Em- 
 peror, 97. Threatenings used to him, ib. 
 
 Anno 1529. He repents the sending over 
 a bull, 98. But feeds the King with promises, 
 99. The Pope's sickness, 101. Wolsey 
 aspires to the papacy, ib. Instructions for pro- 
 moting him, 102. New motions for the di- 
 vorce, 104. The Pope relapses dangerously, 
 105. A new dispatch to Rome, ib. Wolsey's 
 bulls for the bishoprick of Winton, 107. The 
 Emperor protests against the legates, ib. Yet 
 the Pope promises not to recal it, 108. The
 
 xlvi 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 legates write to the Pope, 109. Compegio led 
 an ill life, 111. The Emperor moves for an 
 avocation, ib. The Pope's dissimulation, 112. 
 Great contests about the avocation, 113. The 
 legates begin the process, 115. A severe 
 charge against the Queen, ib. The King and 
 Queen appear in court, 116. The Queen's 
 speech, 1 17. The King declares his scruples, 
 118. The Queen appeals to the Pope, 119. 
 Articles framed and witnesses examined, ib. 
 An avocation pressed at Home, ib. The Pope 
 joins with the Emperor, 121. Yet is in great 
 perplexities, ib. The avocation is granted, 
 123. The proceedings of the legates, ib. 
 Campegio adjourns the court, 124. Which 
 gave great offence, 125. Wolsey's danger, ib. 
 Anne Boleyn returns to court, 127. Cranmer's 
 opinion about the divorce, 128. Approved by 
 the King, 129. Cardinal Wolsey's fall, ib. The 
 meanness of his temper, ISO. He is attached 
 of treason, 131. Hedies : his character, 132. 
 A parliament called, ib. Complaints against 
 the clergy, 134. The King's debts are dis- 
 charged, ib. The Pope and the Emperor unite, 
 136. The women's peace, ib. 
 
 Anno 1530. The Emperor is crowned at 
 Bononia, ib. The Universities consulted in the 
 King's suit of divorce, 137. The answers 
 from Oxford and Cambridge, 138, 139. Dr. 
 Crooke employed in Venice, 141. Many in 
 Italy wrote for the divorce, 143. It was op- 
 posed by the Pope and the Emperor, 144. No 
 money given by the King's agents, 145. Great 
 rewards given by the Emperor, 146. It is 
 determined for the King at Bononia, Padua, 
 Ferrara, and Orleans, 147, 148. At Paris, 
 Bourges, and Thoulouse, 149. The opinions 
 of some reformers, 150. And of the Luthe- 
 rans, 152. The King will not appear at Rome, 
 154. Cranmer offers to defend the divorce, 
 ib. The clergy, nobility, and gentry write to 
 the Pope for the divorce, 155. The Pope's 
 answer to them, 156. A proclamation against 
 bulls, 157. Books written for the divorce, ib. 
 Reasons out of the Old and New Testament, 
 158 161. The authorities of popes and coun- 
 cils, 161. And the Greek and Latin fathers, 
 162. And canonists, ib. Marriage is complete 
 by consent, 163. Violent presumptions of the 
 consummation of the former marriage, ib. The 
 Pope's dispensation of no force, 164. Bishops 
 are not to obey his decrees, 165. The autho- 
 rity of tradition, 166. The reasons against 
 the divorce, 168. Answers made to these, 169. 
 The Queen is intractable, 171. 
 
 Anno 1531. A session of parliament, 172. 
 The clergy found in a pramunire, ib. The pre- 
 rogatives of the kings of England in eccle- 
 siastical affairs, 173. The encroachments of 
 popes, ib. Statutes made against them, 174. 
 The popes endeavoured to have those repealed, 
 177. But with no effect, 182. The clergy 
 excused themselves, ib. Yet they submit and 
 acknowledge the King Supreme Head of the 
 Church, 183. The King pardons them, 184. 
 
 And with some difficulty the laity, ib. One 
 attainted for poisoning, 185. The King leaves 
 the Queen, 186. A disorder among the cler- 
 gy, ib. The Pope turns to the French, 187. 
 And offers his niece to the Duke of Orleans, 
 188. The Turk invades the empire, 189. 
 
 Anno 1532. The parliament complains of 
 the spiritual courts, ib. They reject a bill 
 concerning wards, 190. An act against an- 
 nates, 191. The Pope writes to the King, 
 192. The King's answer, 193. Sir Edward 
 Karne sent to Rome, 195. His negotiation 
 there, ib. He corrupts the Cardinal of Ra- 
 venna, 196. The process against the King 
 at Rome, ib. A bull for new bishopricks, 197. 
 The Pope desires the King would submit to 
 him, 199. A new session of parliament, ib. 
 A subsidy is voted, 200. The oaths the clergy 
 swore to the Pope and to the King, 200,201. 
 Chancellor More delivers up his office, 202. 
 The King meets with the French King, 203. 
 Eliot sent to Rome, ib. The King marries 
 Anne Boleyn, 205. New overtures for the 
 divorce, ib. 
 
 Anno 1533. A session of parliament, 260. 
 An act against appeals to Rome, ib. Archbi- 
 shop Warham dies, 207. Cranmer succeeds 
 him, 208. His bulls from Rome, ib. His con- 
 secration, 209. The judgment of the convo- 
 cation concerning the divorce, 210. Endea- 
 vours to make the Queen submit, 212. But 
 in vain, ib. Cranmer gives judgment, 214. 
 Censures that pass upon it, 215. The Pope 
 united to the French King, 217. A sentence 
 against the King's proceedings, 218. Queen 
 Elizabeth is born, 219. An interview between 
 the Pope and the French King, ib. The King 
 submits to the Pope, 220. The imperialists 
 oppose the agreement, 222. And procure a 
 definitive sentence, ib. The King resolves 
 to abolish the Pope's power in England, 223. 
 It was long disputed, ib. Arguments against 
 it from Scripture, 224. And the primitive 
 church, 226. Arguments for the King's su- 
 premacy, 229. From Scripture and the laws 
 of England, 229 232. The supremacy ex- 
 plained,233. Pains taken to satisfy Fisher, 234. 
 
 Anno 1534. A session of parliament, ib. 
 An act for taking away the Pope's power, 236. 
 About the succession to the crown, 237. For 
 punishing heretics, 240. The submission of 
 the clergy, 241. About the election of bishops, 
 242. And the Maid of Kent, 243. The inso- 
 lence of some friars, 247. The Nun's speech 
 at her death , 249. Fisher is dealt with gently, 
 250. The oath for the succession taken by 
 many, 252. More and Fisher refuse it, 254. 
 And are proceeded against, 255. Another 
 session of parliament, 256. The King's su- 
 premacy is enacted, ib. An act for suffragan 
 bishops, 257. A subsidy is granted, 258. 
 More and Fisher are attainted, ib. The pro- 
 gress of the Reformation, 260. Tindal and 
 others at Antwerp send over books and the 
 New Testament, ib. The Supplication of the
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 xlvii 
 
 Beggars, 262. More answers and Frith re- 
 plies, 263. Cruel proceeding against reform- 
 ers, 265. Bilney's sufferings, 266. The suf- 
 ferings of Byfield, 268. And Bainham, 269. 
 Articles abjured by some, 270. Tracy's Tes- 
 tament, 271. Frith's sufferings, 272. His 
 arguments against the corporal presence in 
 the sacrament, ib. His opinion of the sacra- 
 ment and purgatory for which he was con- 
 
 demned, 276, 277. His constancy at his 
 death, ih. A stop put to cruel proceedings, 
 279. The Queen favoured the reformers, ib. 
 Cranmer promoted it, 280. And was assisted 
 by Cromwell, 281. A strong party against 
 it, ib. Reasons used against it, 282. And for 
 it,ib. The judgmentof some bishops concerning 
 a general council, 283. A speech of Cranmer's 
 of it, 285. 
 
 BOOK III. 
 
 Of the other transaction! about religion and reformation, during the rest of the 
 reign of King Henry the Eighth. 
 
 Anno 1535. The rest of the King's reign 
 was troublesome, 289. By the practices of 
 the clergy, 290. Which provoked the King 
 much, 291. The bishops swear the King's 
 supremacy, 292. The Franciscans only re- 
 fuse it, 294. A visitation of monasteries, ib. 
 The instructions of the visitors, 297. Injunc- 
 tions sent by them, 299. The state of the 
 monasteries in England, and their exemp- 
 tions, 300, 301. They were deserted, but 
 again set up by King Edgar, 301, 302. Arts 
 used by the monks. 302. They were gene- 
 rally corrupt, 304. And so grew the friars, ib. 
 The King's other reasons for suppressing mo- 
 nasteries, 305. Cranmer's design in it, 306. 
 The proceedings of the visitors, 307. Some 
 houses resigned to the King, 308. 
 
 Anno 1536. Queen Katherine dies, S09. 
 A session of parliament in which the lesser 
 monasteries were suppressed, 311. The rea- 
 sons for doing it, 312. The translation of the 
 Bible in English designed, 313. The reasons 
 for it, ib. The opposition made to it, 314. 
 Queen Anne's fall driven on by the popish 
 party, 316. The King became jealous, 317. 
 She is put in the Tower, 320. She confessed 
 some indiscreet words, 321. Cranmer's let- 
 ters concerning her, 322. She is brought to a 
 trial, 325. And condemned, 327. And also 
 divorced, 328. She prepares for death, 329. 
 The Lieutenant of the Tower's letters about 
 her, 16. Her execution, 330. The censures 
 made on this, 331 . Lady Mary is reconciled 
 to her father, and makes a full submission, 
 334. Lady Elizabeth is well used by the 
 King, 336. A letter of hers to the Queen, 337. 
 A new parliament is called, ib. An act of 
 succession, 339. The Pope endeavours a re- 
 conciliation, 340. But in vain, ib. The pro- 
 ceedings of the convocation, 342. Articles 
 agreed on about religion, 347. Published by 
 the King's authority, 350. But variously cen- 
 sured, 351. The convocation declared against 
 the council summoned by the Pope, 353. The 
 King publishes his reasons against it, 354. 
 Cardinal Pole writes against the King, 356. 
 Many books are written for the King, 3r>7 . In- 
 structions for the dissolution of monasteries, 
 358. Great discontents among all sorts, 359. 
 Endeavours to qualify these, 360. The people 
 were disposed to rebel, 361. The King's in- 
 
 junctions about religion, 363. They were 
 much censured, 365. A rising in Lincolnshire, 
 366. Their demands, and the King's answer, 
 ib. It was quieted by the Duke of Suffolk, 367. 
 A great rebellion in the north, 368. The Duke 
 of Norfolk was sent against them, 370. They 
 advance to Doncaster,371. Their demands, 
 372. The King's answer to them, 374. 
 
 Anno 1537. The rebellion is quieted, 375. 
 New risings soon dispersed, 376. The chief, 
 rebels executed, 377. A new visitation of 
 monasteries, 378. Some great abbots resign, 
 379. Confessions of horrid crimes are made, 
 381. Some are attainted, 384. And their ab- 
 beys suppressed, 387. The superstition and 
 cheats of these houses discovered, 389. 
 
 Anno 1538. Some images publicly broken, 
 390. Thomas Becket's shrine broken, 392. 
 New injunctions about religion, 394. Invec- 
 tives against the King at Rome, ib. The 
 Pope's bulls against the King, 395. The 
 clergy in England declared against these, 
 399. The Bible is printed in English, 400. 
 New injunctions, 401. Prince Edward is born, 
 403. The compliance of the popish party, ib. 
 Lambert appealed to the King, 406. And is 
 publicly tried, t6. Many arguments brought 
 against him, 407. He is condemned and 
 burnt, 408. The popish party gain ground, 
 409. A treaty with the German princes, 410. 
 Bonner's dissimulation, ib. 
 
 Anno 1539. A parliament is called, 412. 
 The Six Articles are proposed, ib. Arguments 
 against them, 413. An act passed for them, 
 416. Which is variously censured, 417. An 
 act about the suppression of all monasteries, 
 418. Another for erecting new bishopricks, 
 421. The King's design about these, 422. An 
 act for obedience to the King's proclamations, 
 423. An act concerning precedence, 424. 
 Some acts of attainder, 425. The King's care 
 of Cranmer, 426. Who wrote against the Six 
 Articles, 427. Proceedings upon that act, 428. 
 Bonner's commission for holding his bishop- 
 rick of the King, 429. The total dissolution 
 of abbeys, 430. Which were sold or given 
 away, 431. A project of a seminary for mi- 
 nisters of state, 432. A proclamation for the 
 use of the Bible, 433. The King designs to 
 marry Anne of Cleve, 434. Who comes over, 
 but is disliked by the King, 436.
 
 xlviii 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 Anno 1540. But he marries her, yet could 
 never love her, 439. A parliament is called, 
 440. Where Cromwell speaks as lord vice- 
 gerent, ib. The suppression of the knights of 
 St. John of Jerusalem, 442. Cromwell's fall, 
 443. The King is in love with Katherine 
 Howard, 444. Cranmer's friendship to Crom- 
 well, 445. Cromwell's attainder, 446. Cen- 
 sures passed upon it, 448. The King's di- 
 vorce is proposed, 449. And referred to the 
 convocation, 450. Reasons pretended for it, 
 ib. The convocation agree to it, 451. Which 
 was much censured, ib. It is confirmed in par- 
 liament, 452. The Queen consents to it, 453. 
 An act about the incontinence of priests, ib. 
 Another act about religion, 454. Another con- 
 cerning precontracts, 455. Subsidies granted 
 by clergy and laity, ib. Cromwell's death, 
 456. His character, 457. Designs against 
 Cranmer, 458. Some bishops and divines con- 
 sult about religion, 459. An explanation of 
 faith, ib, Cranmer's opinion about it, 462. 
 They explain the Apostles' Creed, 463. And 
 the Seven Sacraments with great care, 464. 
 As also the Ten Commandments, 467. The 
 Lord's Prayer, the Ave Maria, and free-will, 
 468. And justification and good works, 469, 
 470. Published by the King, but much cen- 
 sured, 471. A correction of the missals, 473. 
 The sufferings of Barnes and others, 474. They 
 are condemned unheard, 476. Their speeches 
 at their death, 477. Bonner's cruelty, 480. 
 New bishopricks founded, 482. Cranmer's 
 design is defeated, 483. These foundations 
 are censured, 484. The state of the court, 485. 
 The Bible is set up in churches, 486. An or- 
 der for churchmen's housekeeping, 487. The 
 King goes to York, 488. The state of Scot- 
 land, 489. The beginning of the Reformation, 
 ib. Patrick Hamilton's sufferings, 490. A fur- 
 ther prosecution , 494. The King wholly guided 
 by the clergy, 496. Some put to death, others 
 escaped, 498. The Queen's ill life is disco- 
 vered, 500. 
 
 Anno 1542. A parliament called, 502. An 
 act about the Queen much censured, 502, 503. 
 A design to suppress the English Bible, 505. 
 The Bible ordered to be revised by the uni- 
 versities, 506. Bishop Bonner's injunctions, 
 ib. The way of preaching at that time, 508. 
 Plays and interludes then acted, 510. War 
 between England and Scotland, 511. The 
 Scots are defeated, and their king dies, 
 513. 
 
 Anno 1543. Cranmer promotes a reforma- 
 
 tion, 516. An act of parliament for it, ih. 
 Another about the King's proclamations, 518. 
 A league between the King and the Emperor, 
 519. A match designed with Scotland, ib. But 
 the French party prevailed there, 521. A war 
 with France, 522. A persecution of the re- 
 formers, 523. Marbeck's great ingeniousness, 
 524. Three burnt at Windsor, 525. Their per- 
 secutors are perjured, ib. A design against 
 Cranmer, 526. It came to nothing, 527. His 
 Christian behaviour, 528. 
 
 Anno 1544. A new parliament, ib. An act 
 about the succession, ib. An act against con- 
 spiracies, 530. An act for revising the canon 
 law, ib. A discharge of the King's debts, 531. 
 The war against Scotland, ib. AudJey, the 
 Chancellor dies, 532. The prayers are put in 
 English, 533. Bulloign is taken, ib. 
 
 Anno 1545. The Germans mediate a 
 peace between England and France, 534. 
 Some great church preferments, 535. Wishart's 
 sufferings in Scotland, ib. Cardinal Beaton is 
 killed, 540. 
 
 Anno 1546. Anew parliament, 542. Cha- 
 pels and chantries given to the King, ib. The 
 King's speech to the parliament, 543. The 
 King confirms the rights of universities, 545. 
 A peace with France, 546. Designs of a fur- 
 ther reformation, ib. Shaxton's apostacy, ib. 
 The troubles of Anne Askew, 547. She en- 
 dures the rack, 549. And is burnt with some 
 others, ib. A design against Cranmer, 550. 
 The King takes care of him, ib. A design 
 against the Queen, 552. The cause of the 
 Duke of Norfolk's disgrace, 554. 
 
 Anno 1547. The Earl of Surrey is exe- 
 cuted, 556. The Duke of Norfolk's submis- 
 sion, ib. A parliament meets, 557. The Duke 
 of Norfolk is attainted, 558. His death pre- 
 vented by the King, J6. The Emperor's de- 
 signs against the protestants, 559. The King's 
 sickness, 560. His latter will a forgery, 561. 
 The King's severities against the popish 
 party, 563. Some Carthusians executed for 
 denying the King's supremacy, 565. And a 
 priest for treason, ib. Three monks executed, 
 566. Fisher's trial and death, 567. His cha- 
 racter, 568. More's trial and death, 56 9. His 
 character, 570. Attainders after the rebellion 
 was quieted, 573. Censures passed upon it, ib. 
 Friar Forrest's equivocation and heresy, 574. 
 The proceedings against Cardinal Pole's 
 friends, 575. Attainders without hearing the 
 parties, 578. The conclusion, 581. Addenda, 
 583.
 

 
 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 PART I. BOOK I. 
 
 A SUMMARY VIEW OF KING HENRY THE EIGHTH'S REIGN, 
 TILL THE PROCESS OF HIS DIVORCE WAS BEGUN, IN 
 WHICH THE STATE OF ENGLAND, CHIEFLY AS IT RELATED 
 TO RELIGION, IS OPENED. 
 
 TC^NGLAND had for a whole age felt the miseries King 
 -" of a long and cruel war between the two houses "^S 
 of York and Lancaster; during which time as the tolhe 
 Crown had lost great dominions beyond sea, so the Aprils?,- 
 nation was much impoverished, many noble families 130<J ' 
 extinguished, much blood shed, great animosities 
 every where raised, with all the other miseries of a 
 lasting civil war : but they now saw all these happily 
 composed, when the two families did unite in King 
 Henry the Eighth. In his father's reign they were 
 rather cemented and joined than united ; whose great 
 partiality to the house of Lancaster, from which he 
 was descended, and severity to the branches of the 
 house of York, in which even his own Queen had a 
 large share, together with the impostors that were set 
 up to disturb his reign, kept these heats alive, which 
 were now all buried in his grave : and this made the 
 succession of his son so universally acceptable to the 
 whole nation, who now hoped to revive their former 
 pretensions in France, and to have again a large share 
 in all the affairs of Europe, from which their domes- 
 tic broils had so long excluded them. 
 
 There was another thing, which made his first n e pro . 
 coming to the Crown no less acceptable, which was, ^*?* st 
 that the same day that his father died,* he ordered Du(Ue y 
 Dudley and Empson to be committed to the Tower : 
 his father, whether out of policy, or inclination, or 
 
 * Hall says, the same day. L. Herbert says, the day following. 
 VOL. 1. B
 
 2 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 both, was all his life much set on the gathering of 
 treasure, so that those ministers were most accept- 
 able, who could fill his coffers best : and though this 
 occasioned some tumults, and disposed the people to 
 all those commotions, which fell out in his reign : yet 
 he being successful in them all, continued in his 
 course of heaping up money. 
 
 Towards the end of his life, he found out those 
 two instruments, who outdid all that went before 
 them, and what by vexatious suits upon penal but 
 obsolete laws, what by unjust imprisonments, and other 
 violent and illegal proceedings, raised a general odium 
 upon the government; and this grew upon him with 
 his years, and was come to so great a height towards 
 the end of his life, that he died in good time for his 
 own quiet : for as he used all possible endeavours to 
 get money, so what he got, he as carefully kept, and 
 distributed very little of it among those about him ; 
 so that he had many enemies, and but few friends. 
 This being well considered by his son, he began his 
 government with the disgrace of those two ministers, 
 against whom he proceeded according to law ; all 
 the other inferior officers whom they had made use of 
 were also imprisoned. 
 
 When they had thus fallen, many and great com- 
 plaints came in from all parts against them ; they 
 also apprehending the danger they were like to be in 
 upon their master's death, had been practising with 
 their partners to gather about them all the power 
 they could bring together, whether to secure them- 
 selves from popular rage, or to make themselves seem 
 considerable, or formidable to the new King. This 
 and other crimes being brought in against them, they 
 were found guilty of treason in a legal trial. But 
 the King judged this was neither a sufficient repara- 
 tion to his oppressed people, nor satisfaction to jus- 
 Han, tice : therefore he went further, and both ordered re- 
 stitution to be made by his father's executors of great 
 sums of money, which had been unjustly extorted 
 from his subjects ; and in his first parliament which 
 he summoned to the twenty-first of January following,
 
 PART I BOOK I. 3 
 
 he not only delivered up Empson and Dudley with HehoMs 
 their complices to the justice of the two houses, who me,' a 
 attainted them by act of parliament, and a little after 3 ^ lj 
 gave order for their execution ; but did also give his 
 royal assent to those other laws by which the subject Aug. is. 
 was secured from the like oppressions for the future : 
 and that he might not at all be suspected of any such 
 inclinations as his father had to amass treasure, he 
 was the most magnificent in his expense of any prince 
 in Christendom, and very bountiful to all about him; 
 and as one extreme commonly produces another, so 
 his father's covetousness led him to be prodigal, and 
 the vast wealth which was left him, being reckoned 
 no less than 1,800,000/. was in three years dissipated, His great 
 
 Pi .,. i i i i i i e^pense- 
 
 aS it me son in his expense had vied industry with his 
 
 father in all his thrift. 
 
 Thomas, earl of Surrey (afterwards Duke of Nor- 
 folk), to shew how compliant he was to the humours 
 of the princes whom he served, as he had been lord- 
 treasurer to the father the last seven years of his life ; 
 so being continued in the same office by this King, 
 did as dexterously comply with his prodigality, as he 
 had done formerly with his sparingness. 
 
 But this in the beginning of the Prince's reign did 
 much endear him both to the court and nation : there 
 being a freer circulation of money, by which trade 
 was encouraged ; and the courtiers tasted so liberally 
 of the King's bounty, that he was every where much 
 magnified, though his expense proved afterwards 
 heavier to the subject, than ever his father's avarice 
 had been. 
 
 Another thing that raised the credit of this King iiisaf. 
 was, the great esteem he was in beyond sea, both for b*y* nd 
 his wisdom and power ; so that in all the treaties of ** 
 peace and war he was always much considered ; and 
 he did so exactly pursue that great maxim of princes, 
 of holding the balance, that still as it grew heavier, 
 whether in the scale of France, or Spain, he governed 
 himself and them as a wise arbiter. His first action 
 was against France, which by the accession of the 
 duchy of Britain, through his father's oversight, was 
 
 B2
 
 4 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 made greater and more formidable to the neighbour- 
 ing princes ; therefore the French successes in Italy 
 having united all the princes there against them, 
 Spain and England willingly joined themselves in 
 the quarrel. The kingdom of Spain being also then 
 united, conquered Navarre, which set them at great 
 ease, and weakened the King of France on that side. 
 Wh6se affairs also declining in Italy, this King find- 
 ing him so much lessened, made peace with him ; 
 having first managed his share of the war, with great 
 Aug. 21, honour at sea and land : for going over in person, he 
 cL 2, did both defeat the French army, and take Terwin 
 1513> and Tourney ; the former he demolished, the latter he 
 kept : and in these exploits he had an unusual honour 
 done him, which, though it was a slight thing, yet 
 was very pleasant to him : Maximilian the Emperor 
 taking pay in his army, amounting to a hundred 
 * crowns a day, and upon all public solemnities giving 
 
 the King the precedence. 
 
 Aug. 7, T^ peace between England and France was made 
 A peace, firmer by Lewis, the French King's marrying the 
 match King's sister ; but he dying soon after, new counsels 
 France. were to be taken. Francis, who succeeded, did in 
 ^9- the beginning of his reign, court this King with great 
 dies,' offers to renew the peace with him, which was accord - 
 ig^ 1 ' ingly done. Afterwards Francis falling in with all his 
 force upon the duchy of Milan, all endeavours were 
 used to engage King Henry into the war, both by the 
 Pope and Emperor, this last feeding him long with 
 hopes of resigning the empire to him, which wrought 
 much on him; insomuch tjiat he did give them a 
 great supply in money, but he could not be engaged 
 to divert Francis by making war upon him : and 
 Francis ending the war of Italy by a peace, was so 
 far from resenting what the King had done, that he 
 j^dy courted him into straiter league, and a match was 
 betrothed agreed between the Dauphin and the Lady Mary, the 
 , King's daughter, and Tourney was delivered up to 
 the French again. 
 
 But now Charles, archduke of Austria by his fa- 
 ther, and heir to the house of Burgundy by his grand-
 
 PART I. BOOK I. 5 
 
 mother, and to the crown of Spain by his mother, 
 began to make a great figure in the world ; and his 
 grandfather, Maximilian, dying, Francis and he were Emperor 
 co-rivals for the empire : but Charles being preferred i2, S i5i9! 
 in the competition, there followed, what through per- ^" 
 sonal animosities, what through reason of state, and June28 - 
 a desire of conquest, lasting wars between them ; 
 which, though they were sometimes for a while closed 
 up, yet were never clearly ended. And those two 
 great monarchs, as they eclipsed most other princes 
 about them, so they raised this King's glory higher, 
 both courting him by turns, and that not only by ear- 
 nest and warm addresses, but oft by unusual submis- 
 sions ; in which they, knowing how great an ingre- 
 dient vanity was in his temper, were never deficient 
 when their affairs required it. All which tended to 
 make him appear greater in the eyes of his own peo- 
 ple. In the year 1520, there was an interview agreed 1520. 
 on between the French King and him ; but the Em- 
 peror, to prevent the effects he feared from it, resolved 
 to outdo the French King in the compliment, and, 
 without any treaty or previous assurances, came to 
 Dover, and solicited the King's friendship against The Em pe 
 Francis : and to advance his design gained Cardinal &J!u*d 
 Wolsey, who then governed all the King's counsels, May 26 - 
 by the promise of making him pope ; in which he 
 judged he might, for a present advantage, promise a 
 thing that seemed to be at so great a distance (Pope 
 Leo the Tenth being then but a young man), and with 
 rich presents, which he made both to the King, the 
 Cardinal, and all the court, wrought much on them. 
 But that which prevailed most with the King was, 
 that he saw, though Charles had great dominions, 
 yet they lay at such a distance, that France alone was 
 a sufficient counterpoise to him; but if Francis could 
 keep Milan, recover Naples, Burgundy, and Navarre, 
 to all which he was then preparing, he would be an 
 uneasy neighbour to himself; and if he kept the foot- 
 ing he then had in Italy, he would lie so heavily on 
 the papacy, that the popes could no longer carry 
 equally in the affairs of Christendom; upon which
 
 ;6 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 much depended, according to the religion of that 
 time. Therefore he resolved to take part with the 
 Emperor, till at least Francis was driven out of Italy, 
 and reduced to juster terms : so that the following 
 June r. interview, between Francis and him, produced nothing 
 but a vast expense and high compliments ; and from 
 July 10. a second interview, between the King and the Em- 
 peror, Francis was full of jealousy, in which what 
 A second followed justified his apprehensions; for the war 
 pva r Je! th going on between the Emperor and Francis, the King 
 entered into a league with the former, and made war 
 upon France. 
 
 i*ox. But the Pope dying sooner than it seems the Eni- 
 i! e i52i! c peror looked for, Cardinal Wolsey claimed his pro- 
 mise for the papacy ; but before the messenger came 
 Adrian to him, Adrian, the Emperor's tutor, was chosen pope : 
 pope jan. yet to feed the Cardinal with fresh hopes, a new pro- 
 9,1522. m - se was ma( j e f or the nex t vacancy, and in the mean- 
 while he was put in hope of the archbishopric of To- 
 He died ledo. But two years after, that Pope dying, the Em- 
 is^'. 14 ' peror again broke his word with him ; yet though he 
 was thereby totally alienated from him, he concealed 
 element his indignation till the public concerns should give 
 
 theVIIih i ' j , ., i C 
 
 chosen, him a good opportunity to prosecute it upon a better 
 
 KOV. 19. co ] our anc i by hi s letters to Rome, dissembled* his 
 
 resentments so artificially, that in a congratulation he 
 
 wrote to Pope Clement, he " protested his election 
 
 was matter of such joy both to the King and himself, 
 
 that nothing had ever befallen them which pleased 
 
 them better, and that he was the very person whom 
 
 1522. they had wished to see raised to that greatness." But 
 
 while the war went on, the Emperor did cajole the 
 
 King with the highest compliments possible, which 
 
 Emperor always wrought much on him, and came in person 
 
 i^ver, 3 ' into England to be installed knight of the garter, where 
 
 May 26. a new j ea g ue was concluded, by which, besides mutual 
 
 assistance, a match was agreed on between the Em- 
 
 * The Cardinal's dissimulation upon this occasion has been questioned, and 
 possibly with reason, as far as regarded Clement, whose election the King's 
 ambassadors were instructed to promote to the utmost of their power, if Wol- 
 sey's own chance of success should become doubtful. See the corrections at the 
 end of the History of the Reformation in other editions, and Collier, 11. 19. N
 
 PART I. BOOK I. 7 
 
 peror and Lady Mary, the King's only child by his 
 Queen, of whom he had no hopes of more issue. This 1 "to 
 was sworn to on both hands, and the Emperor was ^ e ^ iD8 ' s 
 
 ' -T daughter, 
 
 obliged, when she was of age, to marry her, per verba J<"> e 19. 
 de present}, under pain of excommunication and the 
 forfeiture of 100,000/. 
 
 The war went on with great success on the Empe- 
 ror's part, especially after the battle of Pavia, in which 
 Francis's army was totally defeated, and himself taken 
 prisoner and carried into Spain. After which, the 
 Emperor being much offended with the Pope for join- 
 ing with Francis, turned his arms against him, which 
 were so successful that he besieged and took Rome, Ma y 6 - 
 and kept the Pope a prisoner six months. 
 
 The Cardinal, finding the public interests concur so 
 happily with his private distastes, engaged the King to 
 take part with France, and afterwards with the Pope 
 against the Emperor, his greatness now becoming the 
 terror of Christendom; for the Emperor, lifted up with 
 his success, began to think of no less than a universal 
 empire. And first, that he might unite all Spain to- 
 gether, he preferred a match with Portugal, to that 
 which he had before contracted in England : and he 
 thought it not enough to break off his sworn alliance 
 with the King, but he did it with a heavy imputation 
 on the Lady Mary : for in his council it was said 
 that she was illegitimate, as being born in an unlaw- 
 ful marriage, so that no advantage could be expected 
 from her title to the succession, as will appear more 
 particularly in the Second Book. And the Pope hav- 
 ing dispensed with the oath, he married the Infanta 
 of Portugal. Besides, though the King of England 
 had gone deep in the charge, he would give him no 
 share in the advantages of the war ; much less give 
 him that assistance which he had promised him, to 
 recover his ancient inheritance in France. The King 
 being irritated with this manifold ill usage, and led 
 on by his own interests, and by the offended Cardi- 
 nal, joined himself to the interests of France. Upon 
 which there followed, not only a firm alliance, but a 
 personal friendship, which appeared in all the most
 
 8 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 obliging expressions that could be devised. And 
 
 upon the King's threatening to make war on the Em- 
 
 Mar.is, peror, the French King was set at liberty, though on 
 
 1526 ' very hard terms, if any thing can be hard that sets a 
 
 king out of prison; but he still acknowledged he 
 
 owed his liberty to King Henry. 
 
 The cie. Then followed the famous Clementine League be- 
 il^e, tween the Pope and Francis, the Venetians, the Flo- 
 f y 6 22 > rentines, and Francis Sforza, duke of Milan, by which 
 the Pope absolved the French King from the oath he 
 had sworn at Madrid, and they all united against the 
 Emperor, and declared the King of England Pro- 
 tector of the League. This gave the Emperor great 
 distaste, who complained of the Pope as an ungrate- 
 ful and perfidious person. The first beginning of 
 the storm fell heavy on the Pope ; for the French 
 King, who had a great mind to have his children 
 again into his own hands, that lay hostages in Spain, 
 went on but slowly in performing his part. And the 
 King of England would not openly break with the 
 Emperor, but seemed to reserve himself to be arbiter 
 between the princes. So that the Colonnas, being 
 sept. so. of the imperial faction, with 3000 men entered Rome, 
 and sacked a part of it, forcing the Pope to fly into 
 the castle of St. Angelo, and to make peace with the 
 Emperor. But as soon as that fear was over, the 
 Pope, returning to his old arts, complained of the 
 Cardinal of Colonna, and resolved to deprive him of 
 that dignity, and with an army entered the kingdom 
 of Naples, taking divers places that belonged to that 
 family. But the confederates coming slowly to his 
 assistance, and he hearing of great forces that were 
 coming from Spain against him, submitted himself to 
 the Emperor, and made a cessation of arms ; but 
 being again encouraged with some hopes from his 
 allies, and (by a creation of fourteen cardinals for 
 i5S7. money) having raised 300,000 ducats, he disowned 
 the treaty, and gave the kingdom of Naples to Count 
 Vaudemont, whom he sent with forces to subdue it. 
 But the Duke of Bourbon prevented him, and went 
 to Rome, and giving the assault, in which himself
 
 PART I. BOOK I 9 
 
 received his mortal wound, the city was taken by Rome 
 storm, and plundered for several days, about 5000 ^j en 
 being killed. The Pope, with seventeen cardinals, ^ e j^ 
 fled to the castle of St. Angelo, but was forced to 
 render his person, and to pay 400,000 ducats to the 
 army. 
 
 This gave great offence to all the princes of Chris- 
 tendom, except the Lutherans of Germany ; but none 
 resented it more loudly than this King, who sent over 
 Cardinal Wolsey to make up a new treaty with J<Jy 
 Francis, which was chiefly intended for setting the 
 Pope at liberty. Nor did the Emperor know well 
 how to justify an action which seemed so inconsistent 
 with his devotion to the see of Rome ; yet the Pope 
 was for some months detained a prisoner, till at 
 length the Emperor having brought him to his own 
 terms, ordered him to be set at liberty : but he being 
 weary of his guards, escaped in a disguise, and owned Dec. 9. 
 his liberty to have flowed chiefly from the King's en- 
 deavours to procure it. And thus stood the King as 
 to foreign affairs : he had infinitely obliged both the 
 Pope and the French King, and was firmly united to 
 them, and engaged in a war against the Emperor, 
 when he began first to move about his divorce. 
 
 As for Scotland, the near alliance between him and The King's 
 James the Fourth, king of Scotland, did not take again" 3 
 away the standing animosities between the two na- Scotlau<1 - 
 tions, nor interrupt the alliance between France and 
 Scotland. And therefore when he made the first war 
 upon France, in the fourth year of his reign, the King 
 of Scotland came with a great army into the north of 
 England, but was totally defeated by the Earl of Sur- s P t.cj, 
 rey in Flodden Field. The King himself was either 15 
 killed in the battle, or soon after ; so that the king- 
 dom falling under factions, during the minority of the 
 new king, the government was but feeble, and scarce 
 able to secure its own quiet. And the Duke of Al- 
 bany, the chief instrument of the French faction, met 
 with such opposition from the parties that were raised 
 against him by King Henry's means, that he could 
 give him no disturbance. And when there came to
 
 10 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 - be a lasting peace between England and France, then, 
 as the King needed to fear no trouble from that war- 
 like nation, so he got a great interest in the govern- 
 ment there. And at this time money becoming a 
 more effectual engine than any the war had ever pro- 
 duced, and the discovery of the Indies having brought 
 great wealth into Europe, princes began to deal more 
 in that trade than before : so that both France and 
 England had their instruments in Scotland, and gave 
 considerable yearly pensions to the chief heads of par- 
 ties and families. In the search I have made, I have 
 found several warrants for sums of money, to be sent 
 into Scotland, and divided there among the favourers 
 of the English interest ; and it is not to be doubted 
 but France traded in the same manner, which con- 
 tinued till a happier way was found out for extin- 
 guishing these quarrels, both the crowns being set on 
 one head. 
 
 s Having thus shewed the state of this King's govern- 
 h*tt ment as to foreign matters, I shall next give an ac- 
 me. coun t O f the administration of affairs at home, both 
 as to civil and spiritual matters. The King upon his 
 first coming to the crown did choose a wise council, 
 partly out of those whom his father had trusted, partly 
 out of those that were recommended to him by his 
 grandmother, the Countess of Richmond and Derby, 
 in whom was the right of the house of Lancaster, 
 though she willingly devolved her pretensions onhei 
 son, claiming nothing to herself, but the aUsfaction 
 of being mother to a king. She was a wise and re- 
 1509. ligious woman, and died soon after her grant son came 
 to the crown. There was a faction in trn council, 
 between Fox, bishop of Winchester, an r he Lord 
 Treasurer, which could never be well made ap, though 
 they were often reconciled : Fox always complaining 
 of the Lord Treasurer, for squandering away so soon 
 that vast mass of treasure left by the King's father, in 
 which the other justified himself, that what he did 
 was by the King's warrants, which he could not dis- 
 obey : but Fox objected that he was too easy to an- 
 swer, if not to procure these warrants, and that he
 
 .ft. Graves fculp. 

 
 
 PART I. BOOK I. 11 
 
 ought to have given the King better advice. In the JID.SJ 
 King's first parliament things went as he desired, upon lj 
 his delivering up Empson and Dudley, in which his 
 preventing the severity of the houses, and proceeding 
 against them at the common law, as it secured his 
 ministers from an unwelcome precedent, so the whole 
 honour of it fell on the King's justice. 
 
 His next parliament was in the third year of his Feb.4, 
 reign, and there was considered the brief from Pope 
 Julius the Second to the King, complaining of the in- 
 dignities and injuries done to the apostolic see and 
 the Pope by the French King, and entreating the 
 King's assistance with such cajoling words as are al- 
 ways to be expected from popes on the like occasions. 
 It was first read by the Master of the Rolls in the 
 House of Lords, and then the Lord Chancellor (War- 
 ham, archbishop of Canterbury), and the Lord Trea- 
 surer, with other lords, went down to the House of 
 Commons and read it there. Upon this and other 
 reasons they gave the King subsidies towards the war 
 with France. At this time Fox, to strengthen his 
 party against the Lord Treasurer, finding Thomas cardinal 
 Wolsey to be a likely man to get into the King's fa- *$?* 
 vour, used all his endeavours to raise him, who was 
 at that time neither unknown nor inconsiderable : he 
 was at first made a privy counsellor, and frequently 
 admitted to the King's presence, and waited on him 
 over to France. The King liked him well, which he 
 so managed that he quickly engrossed the King's fa- 
 vour to himself, and for fifteen years together was the 
 most absolute favourite that had ever been seen in 
 England : all foreign treaties and places of trust at 
 home were at his ordering ; he did what he pleased, 
 and his ascendant over the King was such, that there 
 never appeared any party against him all that while. 
 The great artifice by which he insinuated himself so 
 much on the JKing, is set down very plainly by one 
 that knew-^iim well, in these words: "In him the caT.. n dih's 
 King conceived such a loving fancy, especially for se y! ss. 
 that he was most earnest and readiest in all the coun- ^ 
 cil to advance the King's only will and pleasure, hav-
 
 12 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 ing no respect to the case ; and whereas the ancient 
 counsellors would, according to the office of good 
 counsellors, divers times persuade the King to have 
 sometime a recourse unto the council, there to hear 
 what was done in weighty matters ; the King was 
 nothing at all pleased therewith ; for he loved nothing 
 worse than to be constrained to do any thing con- 
 trary to his pleasure, and that knew the almoner very 
 well, having secret insinuations of the King's inten- 
 tions ; and so fast as the others counselled the King 
 to leave his pleasures, and to attend to his affairs, so 
 busily did the almoner persuade him to the contrary, 
 which delighted him much, and caused him to have 
 the greater affection and love to the almoner." Having 
 got into such power, he observed the King's inclina- 
 tions- exactly, and followed his interests closely: for 
 though he made other princes retain him with great 
 presents and pensions, yet he never engaged the King 
 into any alliance, but what was for his advantage. For 
 affairs at home, after he was established in his great- 
 ness, he affected to govern without parliaments, there 
 being from the seventh year of his reign, after which 
 he got the great seal, but one parliament in the four- 
 teenth and fifteenth year, and no more till the one- 
 and-twentieth, when matters were turning about: but 
 he raised great sums of money by loans and benevo- 
 lences. And indeed if we look on him as a minister 
 of state, he was a very extraordinary person ; but as 
 he was a churchman, he was the disgrace of his pro- 
 fession. He not only served the King in all his secret 
 pleasures, but was lewd and vicious himself; so that 
 his having the French pox (which in those days was 
 a matter of no small infamy) was so public, that it 
 was brought against him in parliament, when he fell 
 in disgrace : he was a man of most extravagant va- 
 nity, as appears by the great state he lived in ; and, 
 to feed that, his ambition and covetousness were pro- 
 portionable. 
 
 ct. He was first made bishop of Tourney, when that 
 Rst. town was taken from the French; then he was made 
 temp. *. bishop of Lincoln,* which was the first bishopric that
 
 PART I. BOOK I. 13 
 
 fell void in this kingdom; after that, upon Cardinal March s. 
 Bembridge's death, he parted with Lincoln and was ^Tiiot. 
 made archbishop of York ; b then Hadrian, that was "- ov , 6 
 a cardinal and bishop of Bath and Wells, being de- R e g ni, i. 
 prived, that see was given to him ; then the abbey ?Tu'g R s8.' 
 of St. Albans d was given to him in comendam: he "p^f 1 "' 
 next parted with Bath and Wells, and got the bishop- ** 
 ric of Duresme," which he afterwards exchanged for is. Regui, 
 the bishopric of Winchester/ But besides all that H pa p'' 
 he had in his own hands, the King granted him a full l*f* 1 ' 
 power of disposing of all the ecclesiastical benefices 2 pan. 
 in England (which brought him in as much money f jify 4 . 
 as all the places he held); for having so vast a power fp a " t egni 
 committed to him,' both from the King and the Pope, R - p - 
 as to church preferments, it may be easily gathered 
 what advantages a man of his temper would draw 
 from it. Warham was lord chancellor the first seven 
 years of the King's reign, but retired to give place to 
 his aspiring favourite, who had a mind to the great 
 seal, that there might be no interfering between the 
 legantine and chancery courts. And perhaps it 
 wrought somewhat on his vanity, that even after he 
 was cardinal, Warham, as lord chancellor, took place 
 of him, as appears from the entries made in the 
 Journals of the House of Peers in the parliament held 
 the seventh year of the King's reign, and afterwards 
 gave him place, as appears on many occasions, par- 
 ticularly, in the letter written to the Pope, 1530, set 
 down by the Lord Herbert, which the Cardinal sub- 
 scribed before Warham. We have nothing on record 
 to shew what a speaker he was, for all the Journals of 
 parliament from the seventh to the twenty-fifth year 
 of this King are lost; but it is like he spoke, as his 
 predecessor in that office Warham did, whose speeches 
 as they are entered in the Journals, are sermons begun 
 with a text of Scripture ; which he expounded and 
 applied to the business they were to go upon, stuffing 
 them with the most fulsome flattery of the King that 
 was possible. 
 
 The next in favour and power was the Lord Trea- 
 surer, restored to his father's honour of Duke of Nor-
 
 14 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 folk, to whom his son succeeded in that office, as well 
 as in his hereditary honours ; and managed his interest 
 with the King so dexterously, that he stood in all the 
 changes that followed, and continued lord treasurer 
 during the reign of this King, till near the end of it, 
 when he fell through jealousy, rather than guilt; this 
 shewed how dexterous a man he was, that could stand 
 so long in that employment under such a King. 
 
 But the chief favourite in the King's pleasures, was 
 Charles Brandon, a gallant graceful person, one of 
 the strongest men of the age, and so a fit match for the 
 King at his justs and tiltings, which was the manly di- 
 version of that time, and the King taking much plea- 
 sure in it, being of a robust body, and singularly ex- 
 pert at it, he who was so able to second him in these 
 courses, grew mightily in his favour ; so that he made 
 is.sto him first Viscount Lisle, and some months after, Duke 
 pal?"' of Suffolk. Nor was he less in the ladies' favours, than 
 the king's ; for his sister the Lady Mary liked him, and 
 being but so long married to King Lewis of France, as 
 to make her queen-dowager of France, she resolved to 
 choose her second husband herself, and cast her eye 
 on the Duke of Suffolk, who was then sent over to the 
 court of France. Her brother had designed the mar- 
 riage between them, yet would not openly give his 
 consent to it ; but she, by a strange kind of wooing, 
 prefixed him the term of four days to gain her consent, 
 in which she told him, if he did not prevail, he should 
 for ever lose all his hopes of having her, though, after 
 such a declaration, he was like to meet with no great 
 difficulty from her. So they were married, and the King 
 was easily pacified and received them into favour; nei- 
 ary ther did his favour die with her, for it continued all his 
 life: but he never meddled much in business, and by 
 all that appears was a better courtier than statesman. 
 Little needs be said of any other person more than will 
 afterwards occur. 
 
 The King loved to raise mean persons, and upon 
 the least distaste to throw them down : and, falling 
 into disgrace, he spared not to sacrifice them to public 
 discontents. His court was magnificent, and his ex-
 
 PART I. BOOK I. 15 
 
 pense vast ; he indul ged himself in his pleasures : and 
 the hopes of children (besides the Lady Mary) failing 
 by the Queen, he who of all things desired issue most, 
 kept one Elizabeth Blunt, by whom he had Henry 
 Fitzroy, whom in the seventeenth year of his reign he June i?. 
 created Earl of Nottingham, and the same day made K O -. pti. 
 him Duke of Richmond and Somerset, and intended Duke O f 
 afterwards to have put him in the succession of the died'/jun 
 crown after his other children; but his death pre- 22>l536 - 
 vented it. 
 
 As for his parliaments, he took great care to keep a 
 good understanding with them, and chiefly with the 
 House of Commons, by which means he seldom failed 
 to carry matters as he pleased among them : only in 
 the parliament held in the fourteenth and fifteenth of 
 his reign, the demand of the subsidy towards the war 
 with France, being so high as 800,000 lib. the fifth 
 of men's goods and lands to be paid in four years, and 
 the Cardinal being much hated, there was great op- 
 position made to it ; for which the Cardinal blamed 
 Sir Thomas More much, who was then speaker of the 
 House of Commons ; and finding that which was of- 
 fered, was not above the half of what was asked, went 
 himself to the House of Commons, and desired to hear 
 the reasons of those who opposed his demands, that he 
 might answer them : but he was told the order of their 
 House was to reason only among themselves, and so 
 went away much dissatisfied. It was with great diffi- 
 culty that they obtained a subsidy of three shillings in 
 the lib. to be paid in four years. This disappointment, 
 it seems, did so offend the Cardinal, that as no par- 
 liament had been called for seven years before, so there 
 was none summoned for seven years after. And thus 
 stood the civil government of England in the nine- 
 teenth year of the King's reign, when the matter of 
 divorce was first moved. But I shall next open the 
 state of affairs in reference to religious and spiritual 
 concerns. 
 
 King Henry was bred with more care than had been H B was 
 usually bestowed on the education of princes for many ^j^. 
 ages, who had been only trained up to those exercises
 
 16 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 that prepared them to war ; and if they could read and 
 write, more was not expected of them. But learning 
 began now to flourish ; and as the house of Medici in 
 Florence had great honour by the protection it gave 
 to learned men, so other princes everywhere cherished 
 the muses. King Henry the Seventh, though illiterate 
 himself, yet took care to have his children instructed 
 in good letters. And it generally passes current that 
 he bred his second son a scholar, having designed 
 him to be archbishop of Canterbury, but that has no 
 foundation ; for the writers of that time tell, that his 
 elder brother, Prince Arthur, was also bred a scholar. 
 And all the instruction King Henry had in learning, 
 must have been after his brother was dead, when that 
 design had vanished with his life. For he being born 
 the twenty-eighth of June, 1491, and Prince Arthur 
 dying the second of April, 1502, he was not full eleven 
 years of age when he became prince of Wales ;* at 
 which age princes have seldom made any great pro- 
 gress in learning. But King Henry the Seventh, 
 judging either that it would make his sons greater 
 princes, and fitter for the management of their affairs, 
 or being jealous of their looking too early into busi- 
 ness, or their pretending to the crown upon their mo- 
 ther's title, which might have been a dangerous com- 
 petition to him, that was so little beloved by his sub- 
 jects, took this method for amusing them with other 
 things : thence it was that his son was the most learned 
 prince that had been in the world for many ages, and 
 deserved the title Beau-clerke, on a better account 
 than his predecessor, that long before had carried it. 
 
 * Here it is supposed that the next heir-apparent of the crown was prince 
 of Wales. The heir-apparent of the crown is indeed prince, but is not prince 
 of Wales, strictly speaking, unless he has it given him by creation. And it is 
 said, that there is nothing on record to prove that any of King Henry's children 
 were ever created prince of Wales. There are indeed some hints of the Lady 
 Mary's being styled Princess of Wales, for when a family was appointed for 
 her, 1525, Veysey, bishop of Exeter, her tutor, was made president of Wales. 
 She also is said to have kept her house at Ludlow ; and Leland says, that 
 Teken Hill, a house in those parts built for Prince Arthur, was repaired for her. 
 And Tho. Linacre dedicates his " Rudiments of Grammar" to her, by the title 
 of Princess of Cornwall and Wales. [Henry is said (book iii. anno 1547, and 
 vol. ii. p. 4.) to have intended to create Edward Prince of Wales, but to have 
 been prevented by death, and the same is noticed in Edward's own Journal. 
 Elizabeth was, by the King, declared, to be Princess of Wales, on her birth, 
 though only heir presumptive, and contrary to the opinion of the lawyers. N.]
 
 PART I. BOOK I. 17 
 
 The learning then in credit, was either that of the 
 schools, about abstruse questions of divinity, which 
 from the days of Lombard were debated and descanted 
 on with much subtlety and nicety, and exercised all 
 speculative divines ; or the study of the canon law, 
 which was the way to business and preferment. To 
 the former of these the King was much addicted, and 
 delighted to read often in Thomas Aquinas; and this 
 made Cardinal Wolsey more acceptable to him, who 
 was chiefly conversant in that sort of learning. He 
 loved the purity of the Latin tongue, which made him 
 be so kind to Erasmus, that was the great restorer of 
 it, and to Polydore Virgil ; though neither of these 
 made their court dexterously with the Cardinal, which 
 did much intercept the King's favour to them ; so that 
 the one left England, and the other was but coarsely 
 used in it, who has sufficiently revenged himself upon 
 the Cardinal's memory. The philosophy then in 
 fashion was so intermixed with their divinity, that the 
 King understood it too ; and was also a good musi- 
 cian, as appears by two whole masses which he com- 
 posed. He never wrote well, but scrawled so that his 
 hand was scarce legible. 
 
 Being thus inclined to learning, he was much 
 courted by all hungry scholars, who .generally over 
 Europe dedicated their books to him, with such flat- 
 tering epistles, that it very much lessens him, to see 
 how he delighted in such stuff. For if he had not 
 taken pleasure in it, and rewarded them, it is not likely 
 that others should have been every year writing after 
 such ill copies. Of all things in the world, flattery 
 wrought most on him ; and no sort of flattery pleased 
 him better than to have his great learning and wisdom 
 commended. And in this, his parliaments, his cour- 
 tiers, his chaplains, foreigners and natives, all seemed 
 to vie who should exceed most, and came to speak 
 to him in a style which was scarce fit to be used to 
 any creature. But he designed to entail these praises 
 on his memory, cherishing churchmen more than any 
 king in England had ever done ; he also courted the 
 Pope with a constant submission, and upon all occa- 
 VOL. i. c
 
 18 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 sions made the Pope's interest his own, and made v/ar 
 and peace as they desired him. So that had he died 
 any time before the nineteenth year of his reign he 
 could scarce have escaped being canonized, notwith- 
 standing all his faults; for he abounded in those vir- 
 tues which had given saintship to kings for near a 
 thousand years together, and had done more than 
 they all did, by writing a book for the Roman faith. 
 The king's England had for above three hundred years been 
 m ecciesi- 6 the tamest part of Christendom to the papal authority, 
 mauers. and had been accordingly dealt with. But though 
 the parliaments, and two or three high-spirited kings, 
 had given some interruption to the cruel exactions 
 and other illegal proceedings of the court of Rome, 
 yet that court always gained their designs in the end. 
 But even in this King's days, the crown was not quite 
 stripped of all its authority over spiritual persons. 
 The investitures of bishops and abbots, which had 
 been originally given by the delivery of the pastoral 
 ring and staff, by the kings of England, were, after 
 some opposition, wrung out of their hands : yet I find 
 they retained another thing, which upon the matter 
 was the same. When any see was vacant a writ was 
 issued out of the chancery for seizing on all the tem- 
 cnstodia poralities of the bishoprick, and then the kingrecom- 
 52!"*' mended one to the pope, upon which his bulls were 
 expeded at Rome, and so by a warrant from the pope 
 he was consecrated, and invested in the spiritualities 
 of the see ; but was to appear before the king, either 
 in person or by proxy, and renounce every clause in 
 his letters and bulls, that were or might be prejudicial 
 to the prerogative of the crown, or contrary to the laws 
 of the land, and was to swear fealty and allegiance 
 to the king. And after this a new writ was issued out 
 of the chancery, bearing that this was done, and that 
 Kestitutio thereupon the temporalities should be restored. Of 
 
 temporal i- r 
 
 tatis. this there are so many precedents in the records, that 
 every one that has searched them must needs find them 
 in every year ; but when this began, I leave to the 
 more learned in the law to discover. And for proof 
 
 vuri>. i. of it the reader will find in the Collection the fullest
 
 PART 1. BOOK I. 19 
 
 record which I met with concerning it in Henry the 
 Seventh's reign, of Cardinal Adrian's being invested 
 in the bishoprick of Bath and Wells. So that upon 
 the matter the kings then disposed of all bishopricks, 
 keeping that still in their own hands which made them 
 most desired in those ages ; and so had the bishops 
 much at their devotion. 
 
 But King Henry in a great degree parted with this, 
 by the above-mentioned power granted to Cardinal 
 Wolsey, who being legate as well as lord chancellor, 
 it was thought a great error in government, to lodge 
 such a trust with him, which might have passed into 
 a precedent, for other legates pretending to the same 
 power ; since the papal greatness had thus risen, and 
 oft upon weaker grounds, to the height it was then 
 at. Yet the King had no mind to suffer the laws 
 made against the suing out of bulls in the Court of 
 Rome without his leave to be neglected ; for I find License 
 several licenses granted to sue bulls in that court, p^of 
 bearing for their preamble the statute of the sixteenth e t ' rb 3 urg ' 
 of Richard the Second against the Pope's pretended i ?< 
 
 T7 1 J 5*. Reg. 
 
 power in England. Rot.pat. 
 
 But the immunity of ecclesiastical persons was a 
 thing that occasioned great complaints. And good 
 cause there was for them. For it was ordinary for 
 persons after the greatest crimes to get into orders ; 
 and then not only what was past must be forgiven 
 them, but they were not to be questioned for any crime 
 after holy orders given, till they were first degraded ; 
 and till that was done, they were the bishop's pri- 
 soners, Whereupon there arose a great dispute in the 
 beginning of this King's reign, of which none of our 
 historians having taken any notice, I shall give a full 
 account of it. 
 
 King Henry the Seventh, in his fourth parliament, A contest 
 did a little lessen the privileges of the clergy, enact- ll\^ 
 ing that clerks convicted should be burnt in the hand. tical . im - 
 
 T> l rf inanity. 
 
 but tins not proving a sumcient restraint, it was en- Keiiway-s 
 acted in parliament in the fourth year of this King, 
 that all murderers and robbers should be denied the 
 benefit of their clergy. But though this seemed a 
 
 c 2
 
 20 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 very just law, yet to make it pass through the House 
 of Lords, they added two provisos to it the one, for 
 excepting all such as were within the holy orders of 
 bishop, priest, or deacon ; the other, that the act 
 should only be in force till the next parliament. With 
 these provisos it was unanimously assented to by the 
 Lords on the 26th of January, 1513, and being agreed 
 to by the Commons, the royal assent made it a law : 
 pursuant to which, many murderers and felons were 
 denied their clergy, and the law passed on them to 
 the great satisfaction of the whole nation. But this 
 gave great offence to the clergy, who had no mind to 
 suffer their immunities to be touched or lessened. 
 And judging, that if the laity made bold with inferior 
 orders, they would proceed further even against sacred 
 orders ; therefore, as their opposition was such, that 
 the act not being continued, did determine at the next 
 parliament (that was in the fifth year of the King), 
 so they, not satisfied with that, resolved to fix a cen- 
 sure on that act as contrary to the franchises of the 
 holy church. And the Abbot of Winchelcomb being 
 more forward than the rest, during the session of par- 
 liament in the seventh year of this King's reign, in a 
 sermon at Paul's Cross, said openly, That that act 
 was " contrary to the law of God, and to the liberties 
 of the holy church, and that all who assented to it, 
 as well spiritual as temporal persons, had, by so 
 doing, incurred the censures of the church." And 
 for confirmation of his opinion, he published a book 
 to prove, that all clerks, whether of the greater or 
 lower orders, were sacred, and exempted from all 
 temporal punishment by the secular judge, even in 
 criminal cases. This made great noise, and all the 
 temporal lords, with the concurrence of the House of 
 Commons, desired the King to suppress the growing 
 insolence of the clergy. So there was a hearing of 
 the matter before the King, with all the judges and 
 the King's temporal council. Doctor Standish, guar- 
 dian of the Mendicant Friars in London (afterwards 
 bishop of St. Asaph), the chief of the King's spiritual 
 council, argued, That by the law, clerks had been
 
 PART I.. BOOK I. 21 
 
 still convened and judged in the King's court for civil 
 crimes, and that there was nothing either in the laws 
 of God or the church inconsistent with it ; and that 
 the public good of the society, which was chiefly 
 driven at by all laws, and ought to be preferred to 
 all other things, required that crimes should be pu- 
 nished. But the Abbot of Winch elcomb, being coun- 
 sel for the clergy, excepted to this, and said, " There 
 was a decree made by the church expressly to the 
 contrary, to which all ought to pay obedience under 
 the pain of mortal sin ; and that therefore the trying 
 of clerks in the civil courts was a sin in itself." 
 Standish upon this turned to the King and said, " God 
 forbid that all the decrees of the church should bind. 
 It seems the bishops think not so, for though there 
 is a decree that they should reside at their cathedrals 
 all the festivals of the year, yet the greater part of 
 them do it not ;" adding, that no decree could have 
 any force in England till it was received there ; and 
 that this decree was never received in England, but 
 that, as well since the making of it, as before, clerks 
 had been tried for crimes in the civil courts. I'o this 
 the Abbot made no answer, but brought a place of 
 Scripture to prove this exemption to have come from 
 our Saviour's words, Nolite tangere christos mcos, 
 Touch not mine anointed ; and therefore princes or- 
 dering clerks to be arrested and brought before their 
 courts, was contrary to Scripture, against which no 
 custom can take place. Standish replied, these words 
 were never said by our Saviour, but were put by 
 David in his Psalter one thousand years before 
 Christ ; and he said these words had no relation to 
 the civil judicatories, but because the greatest part of 
 the world was then wicked, and but a small number 
 believed the law, they were a charge to the rest of 
 the world, not to do them harm. But though the 
 Abbot had 'been very violent, and confident of his 
 being able to confound all that held the contrary opi- 
 nion, yet he made no answer to this. The laity that 
 were present being confirmed in their former opinion 
 by hearing the matter thus argued, moved the bishops
 
 part, 
 
 22 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 to order the Abbot to renounce bis former opinion, 
 and recant his sermon at Paul's Cross. But they 
 flatly refused to do it, and said they were bound by 
 the laws of the holy church to maintain the Abbot's 
 opinion in every point of it. Great heats followed 
 upon this during the sitting of the parliament, of 
 which there is a very partial entry made in the jour- 
 nal of the Lords' House ; and no wonder, the clerk of 
 Made cierk, the parliament, Dr. Tylor, doctor of the canon law, 
 ^ 29 ' being at the same time speaker of the Lower House 
 f Convocation. The entry is in these words : " In 
 journal this parliament and convocation, there were most 
 
 rocerum 1 11 11 
 
 7 Hen. s. dangerous contentions between the clergy and the 
 ft'fin/tuT secular power, about the ecclesiastical liberties ; one 
 fuit hoc Standish, a minor friar, being the instrument and pro- 
 
 pui'li.'i- * 1. 
 
 meotam moter of all that mischief." But a passage fell out, 
 isis. 60 ' that made this matter be more fully prosecuted in the 
 Ty'iorjuris Michaelmas term. One Richard Hunne, a merchant- 
 poDuncii^ tailor in London, was questioned by a clerk in Mid- 
 ric^pariL dlesex for a mortuary, pretended to be due for a child 
 Domin7 m of his that died five weeks old. The clerk claiming 
 Regis: et j-^g beering-shect, and Hunne refusing: to give it : 
 
 codem tern- OO' 
 
 pore Pro- upon that he was sued, but his counsel advised him 
 convoca- to sue the clerk in a prcemunire, for bringing the 
 quod'raro"' King's subjects before a foreign court ; the spiritual 
 accidit. in court sitting by authority from the legate. This 
 
 hoc par- 1111 i -11 
 
 liamento et touched the clergy so in the quick, that they used all 
 tiolTe^eri. the arts they could to fasten heresy on him ; and un- 
 cuiosissima: derstanding that he had WicklifTs Bible, upon that 
 
 seditiones liPl i -I-TII-II 
 
 exortae he was attached ot heresy, and put in the Lollard s 
 
 crrum'e' tower at Paul's, and examined upon some articles 
 
 P e C tena^ objected to him by Fitz- James, then bishop of London. 
 
 super liber. He denied them as they were charged against him, 
 ciesiasticis, but acknowledged he had said some words sounding 
 
 frare am that way, for which he was sorry, and asked God's 
 
 minore, mercy, and submitted himself to the Bishop's correc- 
 
 nomine 1*11 
 
 standish, tion; upon which he ought to have been enjoined 
 
 mTorn^j penance, and set at liberty ; but he persisting still in 
 
 aSl his suit in the King's courts, they used him most 
 
 latore. cruelly. On the 4th of December he was found 
 
 Hall and J I 1 i 1 i 
 
 FOX. hanged in the chamber where he was kept pri-
 
 PART I. BOOK I. 23 
 
 soner.* And Dr. Horsey, chancellor to the Bishop * HUM* 
 of London, with the other officers who had the charge p* D S on d 
 of the prison, gave it out that he had hanged himself. 
 But the Coroner of London coming to hold an inquest 
 on the dead body, they found him hanging so loose, 
 and in a silk girdle, that they clearly perceived he 
 was killed ; they also found his neck had been broken, 
 as they judged, with an iron chain, for the skin was 
 all fretted and cut ; they saw some streams of blood 
 about his body, besides several other evidences, which 
 made it clear he had not murdered himself; where- 
 upon they did acquit the dead body, and laid the 
 murder on the officers that had the charge of that 
 prison : and by other proofs they found the Bishop's 
 Sumner and the Bell-ringer guilty of it ; and by the 
 deposition of the Sumner himself, it did appear, that 
 the Chancellor and he, and the Bell-ringer, did mur- 
 der him, and then hang him up. 
 
 But as the inquest proceeded in this trial, the 
 Bishop began a new process against the dead body 
 of Richard Hunne, for other points of heresy; and 
 several articles were gathered out of Wickliff's pre- 
 face to the Bible with which he was charged. And 
 his having the book in his possession being taken for 
 good evidence, he was judged an heretic, and his body 
 delivered to the secular power. When judgment was 
 given, the Bishops of Duresme and Lincoln, with 
 many doctors both of divinity and the canon law, sat 
 with the Bishop of London ; so that it was looked on 
 as an act of the whole clergy, and done by common And his 
 consent. On the 20th of December his body was ^ e d, 
 burnt at Smithfield. f/^ 20 - 
 
 But this produced an effect very different from what 
 was expected ; for it was hoped that he being found 
 an heretic, nobody should appear for him any more : 
 whereas, on the contrary, it occasioned a great outcry, 
 the man having lived in very good reputation among 
 his neighbours : so that after that day the city of 
 London was never well affected to the popish clergy, 
 but inclined to follow any body who spoke against 
 them, and every one looked on it as a cause of com-
 
 24 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 mon concern. All exclaimed against the cruelty of 
 their clergy, that for a man's suing a clerk according 
 to law, he should be long and hardly used in a severe 
 imprisonment, and at last cruelly murdered ; and all 
 this laid on himself to defame him, and ruin his family. 
 And then to burn that body which they had so han- 
 dled, was thought such a complication of cruelties, as 
 'few barbarians had ever been guilty of. The Bishop 
 rinding that the inquest went on, and the whole matter 
 was discovered, used all possible endeavours to stop 
 their proceedings ; and they were often brought be- 
 fore the King's council, where it was pretended that 
 all proceeded from malice and heresy. The Cardinal 
 laboured to procure an order to forbid their going any 
 further, but the thing was both so foul and so evident 
 that it could not be done : and that opposition made 
 it more generally believed. In the parliament there 
 was a bill sent up to the Lords by the Commons for 
 restoring Hurine's children, which was passed, and 
 had the royal assent to it; but another bill being 
 brought in about this murder, it occasioned great 
 heats among them. The Bishop of London said that 
 Hunne had hanged himself, that the inquest were 
 false perjured caitiffs, and if they proceeded further, 
 he could not keep his house for heretics ; so that the 
 bill which was sent up by the Commons was but once 
 April 3. read in the House of Lords, for the power of the 
 clergy was great there. But the trial went on, and 
 both the Bishop's Chancellor and the Sumner were 
 indicted as principals in the murder. 
 
 The convocation that was then sitting, finding so 
 great a stir made, and that all their liberties were now 
 struck at, resolved to call Dr. Standish to an account 
 for what he had said and argued in the matter ; so 
 he being summoned before them, some articles were 
 objected to him by word of mouth, concerning the 
 judging of clerks in civil courts ; and the day fol- 
 lowing, they being put in writing, the bill was deli- 
 vered to him, and a day assigned for him to make 
 answer. The Doctor perceiving their intention, and 
 judging it would go hard with him, if he were tried
 
 PART I. BOOK I. 25 
 
 before them, went and claimed the King's protection, 
 from this trouble that he was now brought in, for 
 
 o * 
 
 discharging his duty as the King's spiritual counsel. 
 But the clergy made their excuse to the King, that 
 they were not to question him for any thing he had 
 said as the King's counsel ; but for some lectures he 
 read at St. Paul's and elsewhere, contrary to the law 
 of God and liberties of the holy church, which they 
 were bound to maintain ; and desired the King's 
 assistance, according to his coronation oath, and as 
 he would not incur the censures of the holy church. 
 On the other hand, the temporal lords and judges, with 
 the concurrence of the House of Commons, addressed 
 the King to maintain his coronation oath, and to 
 protect Standish from the malice of his enemies. 
 
 This put the King in great perplexity, for he had 
 no mind to lose any part of his temporal jurisdiction, 
 and on the other hand was no less apprehensive of 
 the dangerous effects that might follow on a breach 
 with the clergy. So he called for Dr. Veysey, then 
 dean of his chapel, and afterwards bishop of Exeter, 
 and charged him upon his allegiance to declare the 
 truth to him in that matter : which after some study 
 he did, and said, upon his faith, conscience, and al- 
 legiance, he did think that the convening of clerks 
 before the secular judge, which had been always prac- 
 tised in England, might well consist with the law of 
 God and the true liberties of the holy church. This 
 gave the King great satisfaction ; so he commanded 
 all the judges, and his council both spiritual and tem- 
 poral, and some of both Houses, to meet at Black- 
 friars, and to hear the matter argued. The bill against 
 Dr. Standish was read, which consisted of six articles 
 that were objected to him. " First, that he had said 
 that the lower orders were not sacred. Secondly, 
 that the exemption of clerks was not founded on a 
 divine right. Thirdly, that the laity might coerce 
 clerks when the prelates did not their duty. Fourthly, 
 that no positive ecclesiastical law binds any but those 
 who receive it. Fifthly, that the study of the canon 
 law was needless. Sixthly, that of the whole volume
 
 26 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 of the Decretum, so much as a man could hold in his 
 fist, and no more, did oblige Christians." To these 
 Dr. Standish answered, That for those things ex- 
 pressed in the third, the fifth, and the sixth articles, 
 he had never taught them ; as for his asserting them 
 at any time in discourse, as he did not remember it, 
 so he did not much care, whether he had done it or 
 not. To the first, he said, lesser orders in one sense 
 are sacred, and in another they are not sacred. For 
 the second and fourth, he confessed he had taught 
 them, and was ready to justify them. It was objected 
 by the clergy, that as, by the law of God, no man 
 could judge his father, it being contrary to that com- 
 mandment, " Honour thy father :" so churchmen being 
 spiritual fathers, they could not be judged by the 
 laity, who were their children. To which he an- 
 swered, That as that only concluded in favour of 
 priests, those inferior orders not being fathers ; so it 
 was a mistake to say a judge might not sit upon his 
 natural father, for the judge was by another relation 
 above his natural father : and though the command- 
 ment is conceived in general words, yet there are 
 some exceptions to be admitted ; as though it be said, 
 " Thou shalt not kill," yet in some cases we may law- 
 fully kill ; so in the case of justice a judge may law- 
 fully sit on his father. 
 
 But Dr. Veysey's argument was that which took 
 most with all that were present. He said, it was cer- 
 tain that the laws of the church did not bind any but 
 those who received them. To prove this, he said, that 
 in old times all secular priests were married ; but in 
 the days of St. Augustine, the apostle of England, 
 there was a decree made to the contrary, which was 
 received in England, and in many other places, by 
 virtue whereof the secular priests in England may not 
 marry; but this law not being universally received, the 
 Greek church never judged themselves bound by it, 
 so that to this day the priests in that church have 
 wives as well as other secular men. If then the 
 churches of the east, not having received the law of 
 the celibate of the clergy, have never been con-
 
 PART I. BOOK I. 27 
 
 demned by the church for not obeying it ; then the 
 convening clerks having been always practised in 
 England, was no sin, notwithstanding the decree to 
 the contrary, which was never received here. Nor is 
 this to be compared to those privileges that concern 
 only a private man's interest, for the commonwealth 
 of the whole realm was chiefly to be looked at, and 
 to be preferred to all other things. 
 
 When the matter was thus argued on both sides, 
 all the judges delivered their opinions, in these words : 
 " That all those of the convocation who did award the 
 citation against Standish, were in the case of a prcc- 
 miuiire facias ;" and added somewhat about the con- 
 stitution of the parliament, which being foreign to 
 my business, and contrary to a received opinion, I 
 need not mention, but refer the reader to Keilway for 
 his information, if he desires to know more of it : and 
 thus the court broke up. But soon after, all the lords, 
 spiritual and temporal, with many of the House of 
 Commons, and all the judges and the King's council, 
 were called before the King to Baynard's Castle ; and 
 in all their presence the Cardinal kneeled down before 
 the King, and in the name of the clergy said, " That 
 none of them intended to do any thing that might 
 derogate from his prerogative, and least of all himself, 
 who owed his advancement only to the King's favour. 
 But this matter of convening of clerks, did seem to 
 them all to be contrary to the laws of God and the 
 liberties of the church, which they were bound by their 
 oaths to maintain according to their power :" there- 
 fore in their name he humbly begged, " That the 
 King, to avoid the censures of the church, would refer 
 the matter to the decision of the Pope and his council, 
 at the court of Rome." To which the King answered, 
 
 O ' 
 
 " It seems to us, that Dr. Standish, and others of our 
 spiritual council, have answered you fully in all 
 points." The Bishop of Winchester replied, " Sir, I 
 warrant you Dr. Standish will not abide by his opi- 
 nion at his peril." But the Doctor said, " What should 
 one poor friar do alone, against all the bishops and 
 clergy of England ?" After a short silence the Arch-
 
 28 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 bishop of Canterbury said, " That in former times 
 divers holy fathers of the church had opposed the 
 execution of that law, and some of them suffered mar- 
 tyrdom in the quarrel." To whom Fineux, Lord 
 Chief Justice, said, " That many holy kings had 
 maintained that law, and many holy fathers had given 
 obedience to it, which it is not to be presumed they 
 would have done, had they known it to be contrary to 
 the law of God ;" and he desired to know, by what 
 law bishops could judge clerks for felony, it being a 
 thing only determined by the temporal law ; so that 
 either it was not at all to be tried, or it was only in 
 the temporal court ; so that either clerks must do as 
 they please, or be tried in the civil courts. To this 
 no answer being made, the King said these words : 
 " By the permission and ordinance of God we are 
 king of England, and the kings of England in times 
 past never had any superior, but God only. There- 
 fore know you well that we will maintain the right of 
 our crown, and of our temporal jurisdiction, as well 
 in this, as in all other points, in as ample manner 
 as any of our progenitors have done before our time. 
 And as for your decrees, we are well assured that you 
 of the spirituality go expressly against the words of 
 divers of them, as hath been shewed you by some of 
 our council ; and you interpret your decrees at your 
 pleasure, but we will not agree to them more than our 
 progenitors have done in former times." But the 
 Archbishop of Canterbury made most humble in- 
 stance, that the matter might be so long respited, till 
 they could get a resolution from the court of Rome, 
 which they should procure at their own charges ; and 
 if it did consist with the law of God, they should 
 conform themselves to the law of the land. To this 
 the King made no answer : but the warrants being 
 out against Dr. Horsey, the Bishop of London's chan- 
 cellor, he did abscond in the Archbishop's house ; 
 though it was pretended he was a prisoner there, till 
 afterwards a temper was found, that Horsey should 
 render himself a prisoner in the King's Bench and be 
 tried, But the Bishop of London made earnest appli-
 
 BOOK I. PART I. 29 
 
 cation to the Cardinal that he would move the King 
 to command the Attorney General to confess the in 
 dictment was not true, that it might not be referred to 
 a jury ; since he said the citizens of London did so 
 favour heresy, that if he were as innocent as Abel, 
 they would find any clerk guilty. The King, not will- 
 ing to irritate the clergy too much, and judging he 
 had maintained his prerogative by bringing Horsey to 
 the bar, ordered the Attorney to do so. And accord- 
 ingly, when Horsey was brought to the bar, and 
 indicted of murder, he pleaded Not Guilty ; which 
 the Attorney acknowledging, he was dismissed, and 
 went and lived at Exeter, and never again came back 
 to London, either out of fear or shame. And for Dr. 
 Standish, upon the King's command, he was also dis- 
 missed out of the court of convocation. 
 
 It does not appear that the Pope thought fit to in- 
 terpose in this matter. For though upon less provo- 
 cations, popes had proceeded to the highest censures 
 against princes, yet this King was otherwise so neces- 
 sary to the Pope at this time, that he was not to be 
 offended. The clergy suffered much in this business, 
 besides the loss of their reputation with the people, 
 who involved them all in the guilt of Hunne's mur- 
 der ; for now their exemption being well examined, 
 was found to have no foundation at all but in their 
 own decrees ; and few were much convinced by that 
 authority, since upon the matter it was but a judgment 
 of their own, in their own favours : nor was the city 
 of London at all satisfied with the proceedings in the 
 King's Bench, since there was no justice done ; and 
 all thought the King seemed more careful to maintain 
 his prerogative than to do justice. 
 
 This I have related the more fully, because it seems 
 to have had great influence on people's minds, and to 
 have disposed them much to the changes that followed 
 afterwards. How these things were entered in the 
 books of convocation, cannot be now known. For 
 among the other sad losses sustained in the late burn- 
 ing of London, this was one, that almost all the regis- 
 ters of the spiritual courts were burnt, some few of the
 
 30 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 archbishops of Canterbury and bishops of London's 
 registers being only preserved. But having com- 
 pared Fox's account of this and some other matters, 
 and finding it exactly according to the registers that 
 are preserved, I shall the more confidently build on 
 what he published from those records that are now 
 lost. 
 
 The King fhis was the only thing in the first eighteen years 
 L'popes of the King's reign that seemed to lessen the great- 
 and hl Ji ness of the clergy, but in all other matters he was a 
 much J most faithful son of the see of Rome. Pope Julius, 
 
 courted At' 1 i 
 
 by them, soon after his coming to the crown, sent him a golden 
 collect, rose, with a letter to Archbishop Warham to deliver 
 Nmb. 2. j t . ^^ though such presents might seem fitter for 
 young children than for men of discretion, yet the 
 King was much delighted with it ; and to shew his 
 Treaty gratitude, there was a treaty concluded the year fol- 
 s^iteg. lowing between the King and Ferdinand of Arragon, 
 for the defence of the papacy against the French 
 King. And when, in opposition to the council that 
 the French King and some other princes and cardinals 
 had called, first to Pisa (which was afterwards trans- 
 lated to Milan), and then to Lyons, that summoned 
 the Pope to appear before them, and suspended his 
 April 19, authority, Pope Julius called another council to be 
 1512 ' held in the Lateran ; the King sent the Bishop of 
 Worcester, the Prior of St. John's, and the Abbot of 
 Winchelcomb, to sit in that council, in which there 
 was such a representative of the Catholic church as 
 had not been for several of the later ages in the west- 
 ern church : in which a few bishops, packed out of 
 several kingdoms, and many Italian bishops, with a 
 vast number of abbots, priors, and other inferior dig- 
 nified clergymen, were brought to confirm together 
 whatever the popes had a mind to enact ; which pass- 
 ing easily among them, was sent over the world with 
 a stamp of sacred authority, as the decrees and deci- 
 sions of the holy universal church assembled in a 
 general council. 
 
 Nor was there a worse understanding between this 
 King and Pope Leo the Tenth, that succeeded Julius,
 
 BOOK I. PART I. 31 
 
 who did also compliment him with those papal pre- 
 sents of roses, and at his desire made Wolsey a car- 
 dinal ; and above all other things obliged him by con- 
 ferring on him the title of Defender of the Faith (upon o. n, 
 the presenting to the Pope his book against Luther), L.'iier- 
 in a pompous letter, signed by the Pope, and twenty- "" 
 seven cardinals, in which the King took great pleasure, 
 affecting it always beyond all his other titles, though 
 several of the former kings of England had carried 
 the same title, as Spelman informs us. So easy a 
 thing it was for popes to oblige princes in those days, 
 when a title or a rose was thought a sufficient recom- 
 pence for the greatest services. 
 
 The Cardinal governing all temporal affairs as he 
 did, it is not to be doubted but his authority was ab- 
 solute in ecclesiastical matters, which seem naturally 
 to lie within his province ; yet Warham made some 
 opposition to him, and complained to the king of his 
 encroaching too much in his legantine courts upon 
 his jurisdiction ; and the things being clearly made 
 out, the King chid the Cardinal sharply for it, who, 
 ever after that, hated Warham in his heart, yet he 
 proceeded more warily for the future. 
 
 But the Cardinal drew the hatred of the clergy A lM(or 
 upon himself, chiefly by a bull which he obtained the cier gy , 
 from Rome, giving him authority to visit all monas- \ 5 ^ e> 
 teries, and all the clergy of England, and to dispense ^f"^ 
 with all the laws of the church for one whole year article eg. 
 after the date of the bull. The power that was lodged L B a C h- 
 
 L O 
 
 in him by this bull was not more invidious, than the ment - 
 words in which it was conceived were offensive ; for 
 the preamble of it was full of severe reflections against 
 the manners and ignorance of the clergy, who were said 
 in it to have been delivered over to a reprobate mind. 
 This, as it was a public defaming them, so, how true 
 soever it might be, all thought it did not become the 
 Cardinal, whose vices were notorious and scandalous, 
 to tax others, whose faults were neither so great nor 
 so eminent as his were. The Ca nh- 
 
 He did also affect a magnificence and greatness, p^,'"^*' 
 not only in his habit (being the first clergyman in vir g a.
 
 32 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 England that wore silks), but in his family, his train, 
 and other pieces of state, equal to that of kings. And 
 even in performing divine offices, and saying mass, 
 he did it with the same ceremonies that the popes 
 use ; who judge themselves so nearly related to God, 
 that those humble acts of adoration, which are devo- 
 tions in other persons, would abase them too much. 
 He had not only bishops and abbots to serve him, 
 but even dukes and earls to give him the water and 
 the towel. He had certainly a vast mind ; and he 
 saw the corruptions of the clergy gave so great scan- 
 dal, and their ignorance was so profound, that unless 
 some effectual ways were taken for correcting these, 
 they must needs fall into great disesteem with the 
 people ; for though he took great liberties himself, 
 and, perhaps, according to the maxim of the canonists, 
 he judged cardinals, as princes of the church, were 
 not comprehended within ordinary ecclesiastical laws; 
 lie designs yet he seemed to have designed the reformation of 
 lion 6 . '*" the inferior clergy by all the means he could think 
 of, except the giving them a good example : there- 
 fore he intended to visit all the monasteries of Eng- 
 land, that so discovering their corruptions, he might 
 Ami a sup. the better justify the design he had to suppress most 
 of them, and convert them into bishoprics, cathedrals, 
 collegiate churches, and colleges ; for which end he 
 procured the bull from Rome ; but he was diverted 
 from making any use of it, by some who advised him 
 rather to suppress monasteries by the Pope's autho- 
 rity, than proceed in a method which would raise 
 great hatred against himself, cast foul aspersions on 
 religious orders, and give the enemies of the church 
 great advantages against it. Yet he had communi- 
 cated his design to the King, and his secretary Crom- 
 well understanding it, was thereby instructed how 
 to proceed afterwards, when they went about the total 
 suppression of the monasteries. 
 
 The caiimg The summoning of convocations he assumed by 
 
 cations? virtue of his legantine power. Of these there were 
 
 two sorts : the first was called by the King ; for with 
 
 the writs for a parliament, there went out always a 
 
 pressi 
 monaste 
 
 rie.s.
 
 BOOK I. PART I. 33 
 
 summons to the two Archbishops, for calling a con- 
 vocation of their provinces, the style of which will 
 be found in the Collection. It differs in nothing collect, 
 from what is now in use, but that the King did not 
 prefix the day : requiring them only to be summoned 
 to meet with all convenient speed ; and the Arch- 
 bishops, having the King's pleasure signified to them, 
 did in their writs prefix the day. Other convocations 
 were called by the Archbishops in their several pro- 
 vinces, upon great emergencies, to meet and treat of 
 things relating to the church, and were provincial 
 councils. Of this I find but one, and that called by Collect - 
 Warham in the first year of this King, for restoring 
 the ecclesiastical immunities that had been very much 
 impaired, as will appear by the writ of summons. 
 But the Cardinal did now, as legate, issue out writs 
 for convocations. In the year 1522, I find, by the Reg.-ronst. 
 register, there was a writ issued from the King to 
 Warham to call one, who, upon that, summoned it 
 to meet at St. Paul's, the 20th of April. But the 
 Cardinal prevailed so far with the King, that, on the 
 2d of May after, he, by his legantine authority, dis- 
 solved that convocation; and issued out a writ to 
 Tonstall, bishop of London, to bring the clergy of 
 Canterbury to St. Peter's in Westminster, there to 
 meet and reform abuses in the church, and consider 
 of other important matters that should be proposed 
 to them. What they did towards reformation I know 
 not, the records being lost ; but as to the King's sup- 
 ply, it was proposed, that they should give the King 
 the half of the full value of their livings for one year, 
 to be paid in five years. The Cardinal laid out to 
 them how much the King had merited from the 
 church, both by suppressing the schism that was 
 like to have been in the papacy in Pope Julius's time, 
 and by protecting the See of Rome from the French 
 tyranny ; but most of all, for that excellent book 
 written by him in defence of the faith against the 
 heretics : and that, therefore, since the French King 
 was making war upon him, and had sent over the 
 Duke of Albany to Scotland to make war also on that 
 
 VOL. I. D
 
 34 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 side, it was fit that on so great an occasion it should 
 appear that his clergy were sensible of their hap- 
 piness in having such a king ; which they ought to 
 express in granting somewhat, that was as much 
 beyond all former precedents, as the King had me- 
 rited more from them than all former kings had ever 
 done. 
 
 But the Bishops of Winchester and Rochester op- 
 posed this ; for they both hated the Cardinal. The 
 one thought him ungrateful to him who had raised 
 him ; the other, being a man of a strict life, hated him 
 for his vices. Both these spake against it as an un- 
 heard-of tax, which would so oppress the clergy, that 
 it would not be possible for them to live and pay it ; 
 and that this would become a precedent for after- 
 times, which would make the condition of the clergy 
 most miserable. But the Cardinal, who intended that 
 the convocation, by a great subsidy, should lead the 
 way to the parliament, took much pains for carrying 
 it through ; and got some to be absent, and others 
 were prevailed on to consent to it : and, for the fear 
 of its being made a precedent, a clause was put in the 
 act, That it should be no precedent for after-times. 
 Others laughed at this, and said, it would be a pre- 
 cedent for all that, if once passed. But in the end it 
 con**, was granted, with a most glorious preamble ; and by 
 Numb. 5. j t a u t h e na ti ves O f England that had any ecclesias- 
 tical benefice were to pay the full half 'of the true 
 value of their livings in five years ; and all foreigners 
 who were beneficed in England, were to pay a whole 
 year's rent in the same time ; out of which number 
 were excepted the Bishops of Worcester and Llandaff, 
 Polydore Virgil, Peter the Carmelite, Erasmus of 
 Rotterdam, Silvester Darius, and Peter Vannes, who 
 were to pay only as natives did. This increased the 
 hatred that the clergy bore the Cardinal. But he 
 despised them, and in particular was a great enemy 
 to the monks, and looked on them as idle mouths that 
 did neither the church nor state any service, but were, 
 through their scandalous lives, a reproach to the 
 church, and a burden to the state. Therefore he re-
 
 
 PART I. BOOK I. 35 
 
 solved to suppress a great number of them, and to 
 change them to another institution. 
 
 From the days of King Edgar, the state of monkery { 
 had been still growing in England. For most of the the mo 
 secular clergy being then married, and refusing to nastenes 
 put away their wives, were, by Dunstan archbishop 
 of Canterbury, and Ethel wald bishop of Winchester, 
 and Oswald bishop of Worcester, who were all monks, 
 turned out of their livings. There is in the rolls an not. Pat. 
 inspeximus of King Edgar's, erecting the priory and "nx! 6 "' 
 convent of Worcester, which bears date anno 964, Part - * 
 Edgari 6 to . on St. Innocent's day, signed by the King, 
 the Queen, two archbishops, five bishops, six abbots 
 (but neither bishopric nor abbey are named), six 
 dukes, and five knights. It bears, that the King, 
 with the counsel and consent of his princes and gen- 
 try, did confirm and establish that priory ; and that 
 he had erected forty-seven monasteries, which he in- 
 tended to increase to fifty, the number of jubilee; and 
 that the former incumbents should be for ever ex- 
 cluded from all pretensions to their benefices, because 
 they had rather chosen, with the danger of their order, 
 and the prejudice of the ecclesiastical benefice, to ad- 
 here to their wives, than to serve God chastely and 
 canonically. 
 
 The monks being thus settled in most cathedrals of 
 England, gave themselves up to idleness and pleasure, 
 which had been long complained of; but now that 
 learning began to be restored, they, being every where 
 possessed of the best church-benefices, were looked 
 upon by all learned men with an evil eye, as having 
 in their hands the chief encouragements of learning, 
 and yet doing nothing towards it ; they, on the con- 
 trary, decrying and disparaging it all they could, say- 
 ing, It would bring in heresy, and a great deal of 
 mischief. And the restorers of learning, such as 
 Erasmus, Vives, and others, did not spare them, but did 
 expose their ignorance and ill manners to the world. 
 
 Now the King naturally loved learning, and there- 
 fore the Cardinal, either to do a thing which he knew 
 would be acceptable to the King, or that it was also 
 
 D 2
 
 3G BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 agreeable to his own inclinations, resolved to set up 
 The car- some colleges, in which there should be both great 
 coifeges. encouragements for eminent scholars to prosecute 
 their studies, and good schools for teaching and train- 
 ing up of youth. This he knew would be a great 
 honour to him, to be looked upon as a patron of learn- 
 ing ; and, therefore, he set his heart much on it, to 
 have two colleges (the one at Oxford, the other at 
 Ipswich, the place of his birth) well constituted and 
 nobly endowed. But towards this, it was necessary 
 to suppress some monasteries, which was thought 
 every whit as justifiable and lawful, as it had been 
 many ages before to change secular prebends into 
 canons regular ; the endowed goods being still ap- 
 plied to a religious use. And it was thought hard to 
 say, That if the Pope had the absolute power of dis- 
 pensing the spiritual treasure of the church, and to 
 translate the merits of one man and apply them to 
 another ; that he had not a much more absolute power 
 over the temporal treasure of the church, to translate 
 church-lands from one use, and apply them to another. 
 And, indeed, the Cardinal was then so much con- 
 sidered at Rome, as a pope of another world, that 
 whatever he desired he easily obtained. Therefore, 
 on the 3d of April, 1524, Pope Clement, by a bull, 
 gave him authority to suppress the monastery of St. 
 Frideswide, in Oxford, and in the diocess of Lincoln, 
 and to carry the monks elsewhere, with a very full 
 The bun non obstante. To this the King gave his assent the 
 asslT 1 19th of April following. After this there followed 
 manv other bulls for other religious houses and recto- 
 ries that were impropriated. These houses being thus 
 suppressed by the law, they belonged to the King ; 
 who thereupon made them over to the Cardinal by 
 new and special grants, which are all enrolled. And 
 so he went on with these great foundations, and 
 brought them to perfection ; that at Oxford in the 
 eighteenth year, and that at Ipswich in the twentieth 
 year of the King's reign, as appears by the dates of 
 the King's patents for founding them. 
 
 In the last place, I come to shew the new opinions
 
 PART I. BOOK I. 37 
 
 in religion, or those that were accounted new then in 
 England ; and the state and progress of them till the 
 nineteenth year of the King's reign. 
 
 From the days of WicklirTe, there were many that The fit 
 disliked most of the received doctrines, in several parts S^r- 8 
 of the nation. The clergy were at that time very hate- jj^ 
 ful to the people ; for as the Pope did exact heavily 
 on them, so they, being oppressed, took all means 
 possible to make the people repay what the popes 
 wrested from them. Wickliffe being much encou- 
 raged and supported by the Duke of Lancaster and 
 the Lord Piercy, the bishops could not proceed against 
 him till the Duke of Lancaster was put from the King, 
 and then he was condemned at Oxford. Many opi- 
 nions are charged upon him, but whether he held 
 them or not, we know not, but by the testimonies of 
 his enemies, who write of him with so much passion, 
 that it discredits all they say ; yet he died in peace, 
 though his body was afterwards burnt. He translated 
 the Bible out of Latin into English, with a long pre- 
 face before it, in which he reflected severely on the 
 corruptions of the clergy, and condemned the wor- 
 shipping of saints and images, and denied the cor- 
 poral presence of Christ's body in the sacrament, and 
 exhorted all people to the study of the Scriptures. 
 His Bible, with this preface, was well received by a 
 great many, who were led into these opinions, rather 
 by the impressions which common sense and plain 
 reason made on them, than by any deep speculation 
 or study. For the followers of this doctrine were illi- 
 terate and ignorant men : some few clerks joined to 
 them, but they formed not themselves into any body 
 or association ; and were scattered over the kingdom, 
 holding these opinions in private without making any 
 public profession of them : generally they were known 
 by their disparaging the superstitious clergy, whose 
 corruptions were then so notorious, and their cruelty 
 so enraged, that no wonder the people were deeply 
 prejudiced against them. Nor were the methods they 
 used likely to prevail much upon them, being severe " 
 and cruel.
 
 38 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 The cm- In the primitive church, though in their councils 
 ^""hurch they were not backward to pass anathematisms on 
 of Rome. ev ery thing that they judged heresy, yet all capital 
 proceedings against heretics were condemned ; and 
 when two bishops did prosecute Priscillian and his 
 followers before the Emperor Maximus, upon which 
 they were put to death, they were generally so blamed 
 for it, that many refused to hold communion with 
 them. The Roman emperors made many laws against 
 heretics, for the fining and banishing of them, and 
 secluded them from the privileges of other subjects ; 
 such as making wills, or receiving legacies ; only the 
 Manichees (who were a strange mixture between 
 heathenism and Christianity) were to suffer death for 
 their errors. Yet the bishops in those days, particu- 
 larly in Afric, doubted much, whether, upon the in- 
 solencies of heretics or schismatics, they might desire 
 the Emperor to execute those laws for fining, banish- 
 ing, and other restraints. And St. Austin was not 
 easily prevailed on to consent to it. But at length 
 the Donatists were so intolerable, that after several 
 consultations about it, they were forced to consent to 
 those inferior penalties, but still condemned the taking 
 away of their lives, And even in the execution of the 
 imperial laws in those inferior punishments, they were 
 always interposing, to moderate the severity of the 
 prefects and governors. The first instance of severity 
 on men's bodies, that was not censured by the church, 
 was in the fifth century, under Justin the First, who 
 ordered the tongue of Severus (who had been patri- 
 arch of Antioch, but did daily anathematize the coun- 
 cil of Chalcedon) to be cut out. In the eighth cen- 
 tury, Justinian the Second (called Rhinotmetus from 
 his cropped nose) burnt all the Manichees in Arme- 
 nia : and in the end of the eleventh century, the 
 Bogomili were condemned to be burnt by the Patri- 
 arch and council of Constantinople. But in the end 
 of the twelfth, and in the beginning of the thirteenth 
 century, a company of simple and innocent persons 
 in the southern parts of France, being disgusted with 
 the corruptions, both of the popish clergy and of the
 
 PART I. BOOK I. . 39 
 
 public worship, separated from their assemblies ; and 
 then Dominick and his brethren-preachers, who came 
 among them to convince them, finding their preach- 
 ing did not prevail, betook themselves to that way 
 that was sure to silence them. They persuaded the 
 civil magistrates to burn all such as were judged ob- 
 stinate heretics. That they might do this by a law, 
 the fourth council of Lateran did decree, that all 
 heretics should be delivered to the secular power to 
 be extirpated (they thought -fit not to speak out, but 
 by the practice it was known that burning was that 
 which they meant) ; and if they did it not, they were 
 to be excommunicated ; and after that, if they still 
 refused to do their duty (which was upon the matter 
 to be the inquisitor's hangman), they were to deny it 
 at their utmost perils. For not only the ecclesiastical 
 censures, but anathemas were thought too feeble a 
 punishment for this omission. Therefore a censure 
 was found out, as severe upon the prince, as burning 
 was to the poor heretic : He was to be deposed by 
 the Pope, his subjects to be absolved from their oaths 
 of allegiance, and his dominions to be given away, to 
 any other fathful son of the church, such as pleased 
 the Pope best ; and all this by the authority of a 
 synod, that passed for a holy general council. This, 
 as it was fatal to the Counts of Thoulouse, who were 
 great princes in the south of France, and first fell 
 under the censures; so it was terrible to all other 
 princes, who thereupon, to save themselves, delivered 
 up their subjects to the mercy of the ecclesiastical 
 courts. 
 
 Burning was the death they made choice of, be- 
 cause witches, wizards, and sodomites had been so N. B re 
 executed. Therefore, to make heresy appear a ter- vium - 
 rible thing, this was thought the most proper punish- 
 ment of it. It had also a resemblance of everlasting 
 burning, to which they adjudged their souls, as well 
 as their bodies were condemned to the fire ; but with 
 this signal difference, that they could find no such 
 effectual way to oblige God to execute their sentence, 
 as they contrived against the civil magistrate. But,
 
 40 / BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 however, they confidently gave it out, that by virtue 
 of that promise of our Saviour's, " Whose sins ye bind 
 on earth, they are bound in heaven," their decrees 
 were ratified in heaven. And it not being easy to 
 disprove what they said, people believed the one, as 
 they saw the other sentence executed. So that, what- 
 ever they condemned as heresy, was looked on as the 
 worst thing in the world. 
 
 There was no occasion for the execution of this 
 law in England till the days of Wickliffe. And the 
 favour he had from some great men stopped the pro- 
 rh e laws ceedings against him. But in the fifth year of King 
 aga^ 1 *** Richard the Second, a bill passed in the House of 
 heretics. L or ds, and was assented to by the King, and pub- 
 lished for an act of parliament, though the bill was 
 never sent to the House of Commons. By this pre- 
 tended law it appears, WicklhTe's followers were then 
 very numerous ; that they had a certain habit, and 
 did preach in many places, both in churches, church- 
 yards, and markets, without license from the ordinary; 
 and did preach several doctrines, both against the 
 faith and the laws of the land, as had been proved be- 
 fore the Archbishop of Canterbury, the other bishops, 
 prelates, doctors of divinity, and of the civil and ca- 
 non law, and others of the clergy : that they would 
 not submit to the admonitions nor censures of the 
 church ; but by their subtle ingenious words did draw 
 the people to follow them and defend them by strong 
 hand, and in great routs. Therefore it was ordained, 
 that, upon the Bishop's certifying into the chancery 
 the names of such preachers and their abettors, the 
 Chancellor should issue forth commissions to the 
 sheriffs and other the King's ministers, to hold them 
 in arrest and strong prison, till they should justify 
 them according to the law and reason of holy church. 
 From the gentleness of which law it may appear, that 
 England was not then so tame as to bear the severity 
 of those cruel laws which were settled and put in 
 i^tit'utes execut ion in other kingdoms. 
 
 3. part. The custom at that time was to engross copies of all 
 of heresy, the acts of parliament, and to send them with a writ,
 
 PART I. BOOK I. 41 
 
 under the great seal, to the sheriffs, to make them be 
 proclaimed within their jurisdictions. And Robert 
 Braibrook, bishop of London, then lord chancellor, 
 sent this with the other acts of that parliament, to be 
 proclaimed. The writ bears date the 26th of May, 
 5 to Reg. But in the next parliament, that was held 
 in the sixth year of that King's reign, the Commons etc Rich, 
 preferred a bill reciting the former act, and constantly NO.^RO 
 affirmed that they had never assented to it, and there- Parl - 
 fore desired it might be declared to be void ; for they 
 protested it was never their intent to be justified, and 
 to bind themselves and their successors to the prelates, 
 more than their ancestors had done in times past. To 
 which the King gave the royal assent, as it is in the 
 records of parliament. But in the proclamation of the 
 acts of that parliament this act was suppressed ; so that 
 the former act was still looked on as a good law, and 
 is printed in the book of statutes. Such pious frauds 
 were always practised by the popish clergy, and were 
 indeed necessary for the supporting the credit of that 
 church. When Richard the Second was deposed, and 
 the crown usurped by Henry the Fourth, then he, in 
 gratitude to the clergy that assisted him in his coming 
 to the crown, granted them a law to their hearts' con- Another 
 tent in the second year of his reign. The preamble K^ g H. 
 bears, " That some had a new faith about the sacra- ry 1V - 
 ments of the church, and the authority of the same, 
 and did preach without authority, gathered conven- 
 ticles, taught schools, wrote books against the catholic 
 faith ; with many other heinous aggravations. Upon 
 which the prelates and clergy, and the commons of the 
 realm, prayed the King to provide a sufficient remedy 
 to so great an evil. Therefore the King, by the assent 
 of the states, and other discreet men of the realm, 
 being in the said parliament, did ordain, That none 
 should preach without license, except persons privi- 
 leged ; that none should preach any doctrine contrary 
 to the catholic faith, or the determination of the holy 
 church, and that none should favour and abet them, 
 nor keep their books, but deliver them to the diocesan 
 of the place within forty days after the proclamation
 
 42 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 of that statute. And that if any persons were defamed, 
 or suspected of doing against that ordinance, then the 
 ordinary might arrest them, and keep them in his 
 prison, till they were canonically purged of the articles 
 laid against them, or did abjure them according to 
 the laws of the church. Provided always, that the 
 proceedings against them were publicly and judicial- 
 ly done and ended, within three months after they had 
 been so arrested ; and if they were convict, the dio- 
 cesan, or his commissaries, might keep them in prison 
 as long as to his discretion shall seem expedient, and 
 might fine them as should seem competent to him, 
 certifying the fine into the King's exchequer ; and if 
 any being convict did refuse to abjure, or after abju- 
 ration did fall into a relapse, then he was to be left to- 
 the secular court, according to the holy canons. And 
 the mayors, sheriffs, or bailiffs, were to be personally 
 present at the passing the sentence, when they should 
 be required by the diocesan, or his commissaries, and 
 after the sentence they were to receive them, and 
 then before the people in a high place to be brent." 
 By this statute, the sheriffs, or other officers, were im- 
 mediately to proceed to the burning of heretics with- 
 out any writ or warrant from the King. But it seems 
 the King's learned council advised him to issue out 
 a writ, De hceretico comburendo, upon what grounds 
 of law I cannot tell. For in the same year when 
 William Sautre (who was the first that was put to 
 death upon the account of heresy) was judged relapse 
 Fitz-uer. by Thomas Arundel, archbishop of Canterbury, in a 
 mra Bref convocation of his province, and thereupon was de- 
 viurn. graded from priesthood, and left to secular power; a 
 writ was issued out to burn him, which in the writ is 
 called "the customary punishment," (relating it is like 
 to the customs that were beyond sea.) But this writ 
 was n'ot necessary by the law, and therefore it seems 
 these writs were not enrolled. For in the whole reign 
 of King Henry the Eighth, I have not been able to 
 find any of these writs in the rolls. But by Warham's 
 register I see the common course of the law was, to 
 certify into the chancery the conviction of a heretic,
 
 PART I. BOOK I. 43 
 
 upon which the writ was issued out, if the King did 
 not send a pardon. Thus it went on all the reign of 
 Henry the Fourth, but in the beginning of his son's 
 reign, there was a conspiracy (as was pretended) by 
 Sir John Oldcastle, and some others, against the King 
 and the clergy ; upon which many were put into prison, 
 and twenty-nine were both attainted of treason, and 
 condemned of heresy, so they were both hanged and 
 burnt. But, as a writer that lived in the following 
 age, says, " Certain affirmed that these were but feign- 
 ed causes, surmised of the spirituality more of dis- 
 pleasure than truth." That conspiracy, whether real 
 or pretended, produced a severe act against those he- 
 retics, who were then best known by the name of Lol- 
 lards. By which act, all officers of state, judges, jus- 
 tices of the peace, mayors, sheriffs, and bailiffs, were 
 to be sworn, when they took their employments, to 
 use their whole power and diligence to destroy all 
 heresies and errors, called Lollardies, and to assist the 
 ordinaries and their commissaries in their proceedings 
 against them ; and that the Lollards should forfeit all 
 the lands they held in fee simple, and their goods and 
 chattels to the King. 
 
 The clergy, according to the genius of that religion, 
 having their authority fortified with such severe laws, 
 were now more cruel and insolent than ever. And if 
 any man denied them any part of that respect, or of 
 those advantages, to which they pretended, he was 
 presently brought under the suspicion of heresy, and 
 vexed with imprisonments, and articles were brought 
 against him. 
 
 Upon which great complaints followed. And the 
 judges, to correct this, granted habeas corpus upon 
 their imprisonments, and examined the warrants, and 
 either bailed or discharged the prisoners as they saw 
 cause : for though the decrees of the church had made 
 many things heresy, so that the clergy had much mat- 
 ter to work upon; yet when offenders against them in 
 other things could not be charged with any formal he- 
 resy, then by consequences they studied to fasten it 
 on them, but were sometimes overruled by the judges.
 
 44 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 Thus, when one Keyser (who was excommunicated by 
 Fifth Thomas Bourchier, archbishop of Canterbury, at the 
 Edw'.V suit of another) said openly, that " That sentence was 
 not to be feared ;" for though the Archbishop, or his 
 commissary, had excommunicated him, " yet he was 
 not excommunicated before God ;" he was upon this 
 committed by the Archbishop's warrant, as one justly 
 suspected of heresy : but the judges, upon his moving 
 for an habeas corpus, granted it ; and the prisoner 
 being brought to the bar, with the warrant for his 
 imprisonment, they found the matter contained in it 
 was not within the statute, and first bailed him, and 
 after that they discharged him. One Warner of Lon- 
 don, having said, " That he was not bound to pay 
 tithes to his curate," was also imprisoned by Edward 
 Vaughan, at the command of the Bishop of London ; 
 but he escaped out of prison, and brought his action 
 of false imprisonment against Vaughan. Whereupon 
 Vaughan pleading the statute of Henry the Fourth, 
 and that his opinion was a heresy against the determi- 
 nation of the catholic faith ; the court of the Common 
 Pleas judged, That the words were not within the sta- 
 tute, and that his opinion was an error, but no heresy. 
 So that the judges, looking on themselves as the inter- 
 preters of the law, thought, that even in the case of he- 
 resy, they had authority to declare, what was heresy 
 by the law, and what not : but what opposition the 
 clergy made to this, I do not know. 
 
 I hope the reader will easily excuse this digression, 
 it being so material to the history that is to follow. I 
 shall next set down what I find in the records about 
 the proceedings against heretics in the beginning of 
 this reign. 
 
 *oct*dTn* s ^ n ^ e ^ f May, in the year 1511, six men and 
 against m s four women, most of them being of Tenterden, ap- 
 R^sT' peared before Archbishop Warham, in his manor of 
 fb^S* 1 ' Knoll, and abjured the following errors. First, that in 
 the sacrament of the altar is not the body of Christ, 
 but material bread. Secondly, that the sacraments of 
 baptism and confirmation are not necessary nor pro- 
 fitable for men's souls. Thirdly, that confessions of
 
 BOOK I. PART I. 45 
 
 sins ought not to be made to a priest. Fourthly, that 
 there is no more power given by God to a priest than 
 to a layman. Fifthly, that the solemnization of ma- 
 trimony is not profitable nor necessary for the well of 
 man's soul. Sixthly, that the sacrament of extreme 
 unction is not profitable nor necessary for man's soul. 
 Seventhly, that pilgrimage to holy and devout places 
 be not profitable, neither meritorious for man's soul. 
 Eighthly, that images of saints be not to be worshipped. 
 Ninthly, that a man should pray to no saint, but only 
 to God. Tenthly, that holy water and holy bread be 
 not the better after the benediction made by the priest, 
 than before. And as they abjured these opinions, so 
 they were made to swear, that they should discover all 
 whom they knew to hold these errors, or who were 
 suspected of them, or that did keep any private con- 
 venticles, or were fautors or comforters of them that 
 published such doctrines. Two other men of Tenter- 
 den did that day in the afternoon abjure most of these 
 opinions. The court sat again the 5th of May, and 
 the Archbishop enjoined them penance, to wear the 
 badge of a fagot in flames on their clothes during 
 their lives, or till they were dispensed with for it ; and 
 that in procession, both at the cathedral of Canterbury, 
 and at their own parish churches, they should carry 
 a fagot on their shoulders, which was looked on as 
 a public confession that they deserved burning. 
 
 That same day another of Tenterden abjured the 
 same doctrines. On the 15th of May the court sat at 
 Lambeth, where four men and one woman abjured. 
 On the 19th, four men more abjured. On the 3d of 
 June, a man and a woman abjured. Another woman, 
 the 26th of July ; another man, the 29th of July ; 
 two women on the 2d of August ; a man on the 3d, 
 and a woman on the 8th of August ; three men on the 
 16th of August ; and three men and a woman on the 
 3d of September. In these abjurations some were put 
 to abjure more, some fewer of the former doctrines ; 
 and in some of their abjurations two articles more 
 were added : First, that the images of the crucifix, of 
 our Lady and other saints, ought not to be worship-
 
 46 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 ped, because they were made with men's hands, and 
 were but stocks and stones. Secondly, that money 
 and labour spent in pilgrimages was all in vain. All 
 these persons (whether they were unjustly accused, or 
 were overcome with fear, or had but crude conceptions 
 of those opinions, and so were easily frighted out of 
 them) abjured and performed the penance that was 
 enjoined them. Others met with harder measure ; 
 for on the 29th of April, in the same year, 1511, one 
 William Carder, of Tenterden, being indicted on the 
 former articles, he denied them all but one, that he 
 had said it was enough to pray to Almighty God alone, 
 and therefore we needed not to pray to saints for any 
 mediation. Upon which witnesses were brought 
 against him, who were all such as were then prisoners, 
 but intended to abjure, and were now made use of to 
 convict others. They swore that he had taught them 
 these opinions. When their depositions were pub- 
 lished, he said he did repent if he had said any thing 
 against the faith and the sacraments ; but he did not 
 remember that he had ever said any such thing. Sen- 
 tence was given upon him as an obstinate heretic, 
 and he was delivered up to the secular power. On 
 the same day a woman, Agnes Grevill, was indicted 
 upon the same articles : she pleaded Not guilty ; but, 
 by a strange kind of proceeding, her husband and her 
 two sons were brought in witnesses against her. Her 
 husband desposed, that, in the end of the reign of 
 King Edward the Fourth, one Johnlve had persuaded 
 her into these opinions, in which she had persisted 
 ever since : her sons also deposed, that she had been 
 still infusing these doctrines into them. One Robert 
 Harrison was also indicted, and pleaded Not guilty ; 
 witnesses did prove the articles against him. And 
 on the 2d of May sentence was given against these 
 two as obstinate heretics. And the same day the 
 Archbishop signed the writs for certifying these sen- 
 tences into the chancery, which conclude in these 
 words : "Our holy mother the church, having nothing 
 farther that she can do in this matter, we leave the 
 fore-mentioned heretics, and every one of them, to
 
 BOOK I. PART I. 47 
 
 your Royal Highness, and to your secular council." 
 And on the 8th of May, John Brown and Edward 
 Walker, being also indicted of heresy on the former 
 points, they both pleaded Not guilty. But the wit- 
 nesses deposing against them, they were judged ob- 
 stinate heretics, and the former a relapse, for he had 
 abjured before Cardinal Morton. And on the 19th 
 of May sentence was given. When or how the sen- 
 tences were executed, I cannot find. Sure I am, there 
 are no pardons upon record for any of them ; and it 
 was the course of the law, either to send a pardon, or 
 to issue out the writ for burning them. 
 
 Fox mentions none of these proceedings ; only he 
 tells that John Brown was taken for some words said 
 in discourse with a priest, about the saying of masses 
 for redeeming souls out of purgatory. Upon which 
 he was committed for suspicion of heresy : but Fox 
 seems to have been misinformed about the time of his 
 burning, which he says was anno 1517; for they, 
 would not have kept a condemned heretic six years 
 out of the fire. I never find them guilty of any such 
 clemency. These severe sentences made the rest so 
 apprehensive of their danger, that all the others who 
 were indicted abjured. And in the year 1512, on 
 the 5th of June, two men and two women abjured 
 that article, That in the sacrament of the altar there 
 was only material bread, and not the body of Christ. 
 And on the 4th and 13th of September, two other 
 women abjured the former articles : and this is all 
 that is in Warham's register about heretics. 
 
 In what remains of Fitz-James, bishop of London's Fitz.jame S . 
 register, there are but three abjurations. In the year L^ILf 
 1509, one Elizabeth Sampson, of Aldermanbury, was ^'J^ 
 indicted for having spoke reproachfully of the images a g ain . st 
 of our Lady of Wilsden, Crom, and Walsingham, M.. 
 condemning pilgrimages to them, and saying, It was 
 better to give alms at home to poor people, than to 
 go on pilgrimages ; and that images were but stocks 
 and stones ; and denying the virtue of the sacrament 
 of the altar, when the priest was not in clean life, and 
 saying, It was but bread, and that Christ could not
 
 48 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 be both in heaven and in earth ; and for denying 
 Christ's ascension to heaven, and saying, That more 
 should not go to heaven than were already in it. But 
 she, to be free of further troubie, confessed herself 
 guilty, and abjured all those opinions. It is generally 
 observed, that in the proceedings against Lollards, 
 the clergy always mixed some capital errors, which 
 all Christians rejected, with those for which they ac- 
 cused them ; and some particulars being proved, they 
 gave it out that they were guilty of them all, to re- 
 present them the more odious. And in this case the 
 thing is plain : for this woman is charged for denying 
 Christ's ascension ; and yet another of the articles 
 was, That she said Christ's body could not be in the 
 sacrament, because it could not be both in heaven 
 and on earth. Which two opinions are inconsistent. 
 In the year 1511, William Potier was indicted for 
 saying, There were three Gods, and that he knew not 
 for what Christ's passion, or baptism, availed ; and 
 did abjure. Whether he had only spoke these things 
 impiously, or whether he held them in opinion, is not 
 clear. But certainly he was no Lollard. One Joan 
 Baker was also made to abjure some words she had 
 said, That images were but idols, and not to be wor- 
 shipped ; and that they were set up by the priests out 
 of covetousness, that they might grow rich by them ; 
 and that pilgrimages were not to be made. More is 
 not in that register : but Fox gives an account of six 
 others, who were burnt in Fitz-James's time. On 
 this I have been the longer, that it may appear what 
 were the opinions of the Lollards at that time, before 
 Luther had published any thing against the indul- 
 gences. For these opinions did very much dispose 
 people to receive the writings which came afterwards 
 out of Germany. 
 The pro- The first beginnings and progress of Luther's doc- 
 
 cress of ^ 
 
 Luther's trhies are so well known, that I need not tell how, 
 
 me ' upon the publishing of indulgences in Germany, in 
 
 so gross a manner, that for a little money any man 
 
 might both preserve himself, and deliver his friends 
 
 out of purgatory, many were offended at this mer-
 
 PART I. BOOK I. 49 
 
 chandise, against which Luther wrote. But it con- 
 cerning the see of Rome in so main a point of their 
 prerogative, which would also have cut off a great 
 branch of their revenue, he was proceeded against 
 with extreme severity : so small a spark as that col- 
 lision made could never have raised so great a fire, if 
 the world had not been strongly disposed to it, by the 
 just prejudices they had conceived against the popish 
 clergy, whose ignorance and lewd lives had laid them 
 so open to contempt and hatred, that any one that 
 would set himself against them, could not but be 
 kindly looked on by the people. They had engrossed 
 the greatest part both of the riches and power of 
 Christendom, and lived at their ease, and in much 
 wealth. And the corruptions of their worship and 
 doctrine were such, that a very small proportion of 
 common sense, with but an overly looking on the New 
 Testament, discovered them. Nor had they any 
 other varnish to colour them by, but the authority 
 and traditions of the church. But when some stu- 
 dious men began to read the ancient fathers and coun- 
 cils (though there was then a great mixture of sophis- 
 ticated stuff that went under the ancient names, and 
 was joined to their true works, which critics have 
 since discovered to be spurious), they found a vast 
 difference between the first five ages of the Christian 
 church, in which piety and learning prevailed, and 
 the last ten ages, in which ignorance had buried all 
 their former learning ; only a little misguided devo- 
 tion was retained for six of these ages ; and in the 
 last four, the restless ambition and usurpation of the 
 popes was supported by the seeming holiness of the 
 begging friars, and the false counterfeits of learning, 
 which were among the canonists, schoolmen, and ca- 
 suists. So that it was incredible to see, how men, 
 notwithstanding all the opposition the princes every 
 where made to the progress of these reputed new opi- 
 nions, and the great advantages by which the church 
 o f Rome both held and drew many into their inte- 
 rests, were generally inclined to these doctrines. 
 Those of the clergy who at first preached them, were 
 VOL. i. E
 
 50 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 of the begging orders of friars, who having fewer en- 
 gagements on them from their interests, were freer to 
 discover and follow the truth. And the austere dis- 
 cipline they had been trained under, did prepare them 
 to encounter those difficulties that lay in their way. 
 And the laity, that had long looked on their pastors 
 with an evil eye, did receive these opinions very 
 easily ; which did both discover the impostures with 
 which the world had been abused, and shewed a plain 
 and simple way to the kingdom of heaven, by putting 
 the Scriptures into their hands, and such other in- 
 structions about religion, as were sincere and ge- 
 nuine. The clergy, who at first despised these new 
 preachers, were at length much alarmed when they 
 saw all people running after them, and receiving their 
 doctrines. 
 
 As these things did spread much in Germany, Swit- 
 zerland, and the Netherlands, so their books came 
 over into England, where there was much matter 
 already prepared to be wrought on, not only by the 
 prejudices they had conceived against the corrupt 
 clergy, but by the opinions of the Lollards, which 
 had been now in England since the days of Wick- 
 liffe, for about one hundred and fifty years. Between 
 which opinions, and the doctrines of the Reformers, 
 there was great affinity ; and therefore, to give the 
 better vent to the books that came out of Germany, 
 many of them were translated into the English tongue, 
 and were very much read and applauded. This 
 quickened the proceedings against the Lollards, and 
 the inquiry became so severe, that great numbers were 
 brought into the toils of the bishops and their com- 
 missaries. If a man had spoken but a light word 
 against any of the constitutions of the church, he was 
 seized on by the bishop's officers ; and if any taught 
 their children the Lord's Prayer, the Ten Command- 
 ments, and the Apostles' Creed, in the vulgar tongue, 
 that was crime enough to bring them to the stake : 
 as it did six men and a woman at Coventry, in the 
 Fox - Passion week, 1519, being the 4th of April. Long- 
 land, bishop of Lincoln, was very cruel to all that
 
 PART I. BOOK I. 51 
 
 were suspected of heresy in his diocess : several of 
 them abjured, and some were burnt. 
 
 But all that did not produce what they designed by 
 it. The clergy did not correct their own faults ; and 
 their cruelty was looked on as an evidence of guilt, 
 and of a weak cause ; so that the method they took 
 wrought only on people's fears, and made them more 
 cautious and reserved, but did not at all remove the 
 cause, nor work either on their reasons or affections. 
 
 Upon all this, the King, to get himself a name, and The King 
 to have a lasting interest with the clergy, thought it not ^|" t L,, 
 enough to assist them with his authority, but would ther > 1521 
 needs turn their champion, and write against Luther* 
 in defence of the seven sacraments. This book was 
 magnified by the clergy as the most learned work that 
 ever the sun saw ; and he was compared to King So- 
 iomon, and to all the Christian emperors that had ever 
 been : and it was the chief subject of flattery for many 
 years, besides the glorious title of Defender of the 
 Faith, which the Pope bestowed on him for it. And 
 it must be acknowledged, that, considering the age, 
 and that it was the work of a king, it did deserve some 
 commendation. But Luther was not at all daunted at 
 it, but rather valued himself upon it, that so great a 
 King had entered the lists with him, and answered 
 his book. And he replied, not without a large mix- 
 ture of acrimony, for which he was generally blamed, 
 as forgetting that great respect that is due to the per- 
 sons of sovereign princes. 
 
 But all would not do. These opinions still gained 
 more footing, and William Tindal made a translation Oct. 23. 
 of the New Testament in English, to which he added S/ "' 
 some short glosses. This was printed in Antwerp, and fol - 45 - 
 
 . T? 1 J *U 1 cor* A with whi 
 
 sent over into hngland in the year 1526. Against that 
 which there was a prohibition published by every e^ 
 
 * No doubt this hook was wrote by the King, as other books were under 
 his name ; that is, by his bishops, or other learned men. Sir Thomas More 
 (who must have known the authors) gives this account of it: "That after 
 it was finished by his Grace's appointment, and consent of the makers of the 
 same, I was only a sorter out, and placer of the principal matters therein con- 
 tained." So it seems others were makers, and Sir Thomas More only a 
 sorter. By the style, it was guessed by some to be wrote by Erasmus. [Com- 
 pare below, book iii. anno 1535. N.} 
 
 E 2 
 
 :<-h
 
 52 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 bishop in his diocess, bearing that some of Luther's 
 followers had erroneously translated the New Testa- 
 ment, and had corrupted the word of God, both by a 
 false translation, and by heretical glosses : therefore 
 they required all incumbents to charge all within their 
 parishes, that had any of these, to bring them into the 
 Vicar-General within thirty days after that premoni- 
 tion, under the pains of excommunication and incur- 
 ring the suspicion of heresy. There were also many 
 other books prohibited at that time, most of them 
 written by Tindal. And Sir Thomas More, who was 
 collect, a man celebrated for virtue and learning, undertook 
 the answering of some of those ; but before he went 
 about it, he would needs have the bishop's license for 
 keeping and reading them. He wrote according to 
 the way of the age, with much bitterness : and though 
 he had been no friend to the monks, and a great de- 
 claimer against the ignorance of the clergy, and had 
 been ill used by the Cardinal ; yet he was one of the 
 bitterest enemies of the new preachers ; not without 
 great cruelty when became into power, though he was 
 otherwise a very good-natured man. So violently did 
 the Roman clergy hurry all their friends into those 
 excesses of fire and sword. 
 
 When the party became so considerable, that it was 
 known there were societies of them, not only in Lon- 
 don, but in both the universities, then the Cardinal 
 was constrained to act. His contempt of the clergy 
 was looked on as that which gave encouragement to 
 the heretics. When reports were brought to court of 
 a company that were in Cambridge, Biluey, Latimer, 
 and others, that read and propagated Luther's book 
 and opinions ; some bishops moved, in the year 1 523, 
 that there might be a visitation appointed to go to 
 Cambridge, for trying who were the fautors of heresy 
 there. But he, as legate, did inhibit it (upon what 
 grounds I cannot imagine), which was brought 
 against him afterwards in parliament (Art. 43. of his 
 impeachment). Yet when these doctrines were spread 
 every where, he called a meeting of all the bishops, 
 and divines, and canonists about London ; where
 
 PART I. BOOK I. 53 
 
 Thomas Bilney and Thomas Arthur were brought be- 
 fore them, and articles were brought in against them. 
 The whole process is set down at length by Fox, in all 
 points according to Tonstall's Register, except one 
 fault in the translation. When the Cardinal asked 
 Bilney whether he had not taken an oath before, not 
 to preach, or defend any of Luther's doctrines ; he 
 confessed he had done it, but not judicially, (judici- 
 aliter in the Register.) This Fox translates not law- 
 fully. In all the other particulars there is an exact 
 agreement between the Register and his Acts. The 
 sum of the proceedings of the court was, that after ex- 
 amination of witnesses, and several other steps in the 
 process, which the Cardinal left to the Bishop of 
 London, and the other bishops, to manage, Bilney 
 stood out long, and seemed resolved to suffer for a 
 good conscience. In the end, what through human 
 infirmity, what through the great importunity of the 
 Bishop of London, who set all his friends on him, 
 he did abjure on the 7th of December, as Arthur had 
 done on the 2d of that month. And though Bilney 
 was relapsed, and so was to expect no mercy by the 
 law, yet the Bishop of London enjoined him penance, 
 and let him go. For Tonstall being a man both of 
 good learning and an unblemished life, these virtues 
 produced one of their ordinary effects in him, great 
 moderation, that was so eminent in him, that at no 
 time did he dip his hands in blood. Geoffry, Loni, 
 and Thomas Gerrard, also abjured for having had 
 Luther's books, and defending his opinions. 
 
 These were the proceedings against heretics in the 
 first half of this reign. And thus far I have opened the 
 state of affairs, both as to religious and civil concerns, 
 for the first eighteen years of this King's time, with 
 what observations I could gather of the dispositions 
 and tempers of the nation at that time, which pre- 
 pared them for the changes that followed afterwards.
 
 54 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 PART I. BOOK II. 
 
 OF THE PROCESS OF DIVORCE BETWEEN KING HENRY AND 
 QUEEN KATHARINE, AND OF WHAT PASSED FROM THE 
 NINETEENTH TO THE TWENTY-FIFTH YEAR OF HIS REIGN 
 IN WHICH HE WAS DECLARED SUPREME HEAD OF THE 
 CHURCH OF ENGLAND. 
 
 T^ 
 
 -"- 
 
 ING HENRY hitherto lived at ease, and en- 
 joyed his pleasures ; he made war with much 
 honour, and that always produced a just and advan- 
 tageous peace. He had no trouble upon him in all 
 his affairs, except about the getting of money, and 
 even in that the Cardinal eased him. But now a do- 
 mestic trouble arose, which perplexed all the rest of 
 his government, and drew after it consequences of a 
 high nature. 
 
 The mar. Henry the Seventh, upon wise and good considera- 
 prfucfAr. tions, resolved to link himself in a close confederacy 
 tburto yyifa Ferdinand and Isabella, kings of Castile and 
 
 the Intaata i i i T -n 
 
 of Spain. Arragon, and with the House of Burgundy, against 
 France, which was looked on as the lasting and dan- 
 gerous enemy of England. And therefore a match 
 was agreed on between his son, Prince Arthur, and 
 Katharine, the infanta of Spain, whose eldest sister 
 Joan was married to Philip, that was then duke of 
 Burgundy and earl of Flanders ; out of which arose 
 a triple alliance between England, Spain, and Bur- 
 gundy, against the King of France, who was then be- 
 come formidable to all about him. There was given 
 with her 200,000 ducats, the greatest portion that had 
 been given for many ages with any princess, which 
 made it not the less acceptable to King Henry the 
 Seventh. 
 
 The Infanta was brought into England, and on the 
 1 4th of November was married at St. Paul's to the 
 Prince of Wales. They lived together as man and 
 wife till the 2d of April following ; and not only had 
 their bed solemnly blessed when they were put in it, 
 on the night of their marriage, but also were seen pub- 
 licly in bed for several days after, and went down to
 
 PART I. BOOK II. 55 
 
 live at Ludlow Castle in Wales, where they still i:. 
 bedded together. But Prince Arthur, though a strong So^rf 
 and healthful youth when he married her, yet died * 
 soon after, which some thought was hastened by his J^ rt 
 too early marriage. The Spanish ambassador had by death""?!-. 
 his master's orders taken proofs of the consummation 2> 1502> 
 of the marriage, and sent them into Spain ; the young 
 Prince also himself had by many expressions given 
 his servants cause to believe, that his marriage was 
 consummated the first night, which in a youth of six- 
 teen years of age, that was vigorous and healthful, 
 was not at all judged strange. It was so constantly 
 believed, that when he died, his younger brother, 
 Henry duke of York, was not called Prince of Wales 
 for some considerable time : some say for one month, Bacon's 
 some for six months. And he was not created Prince vn. ry 
 of Wales till ten months were elapsed, viz. in the Feb- 
 ruary following, when it was apparent that his bro- 
 ther's wife was not with child by him. These things 
 were afterwards looked on as a full demonstration 
 (being as much as the thing was capable of) that the 
 Princess was not a virgin after Prince Arthur's death. 
 
 But the reason of state still standing for keeping consuita- 
 up the alliance against France, and King Henry the r^T' 
 Seventh having no mind to let so great a revenue as "" e age 
 she had in jointure be carried out of the kingdom, it infama to 
 was proposed, that she should be married to the 
 younger brother Henry, now Prince of Wales. The 
 two prelates that were then in greatest esteem with 
 King Henry the Seventh, were Warham, archbishop 
 of Canterbury, and Fox, bishop of Winchester. The warham-s 
 former delivered his opinion against it, and told the ?n P L. S He 
 King, that he thought it was neither honourable nor b * rt< 
 well-pleasing to God. The Bishop of Winchester 
 persuaded it, and for the objections that were against 
 it, and the murmuring of the people, who did not like 
 a marriage that was disputable, lest out of it new 
 wars should afterwards arise about the right of the 
 crown, the Pope's dispensation was thought sufficient 
 to answer all ; and his authority was then so undis- 
 puted that it did it effectually. So a bull was ob-
 
 56 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 it h siio*. tained on the 26th of December, 1503, to this effect, 
 ?op^ c* " That the Pope, according to the greatness of his au- 
 lectums^ thority, having received a petition from Prince Henry 
 and the Princess Katharine, bearing, that whereas 
 the Princess was lawfully married to Prince Arthur 
 (which was perhaps consummated by the carnalis 
 copula) who was dead without any issue, but they, 
 being desirous to marry for preserving the peace 
 between the crowns of England and Spain, did peti- 
 tion his Holiness for his dispensation ; therefore the 
 Pope, out of his care to maintain peace among all 
 catholic kings, did absolve them from all censures 
 under which they might be, and dispensed with the 
 impediment of their affinity, notwithstanding any 
 apostolical constitutions or ordinances to the contrary, 
 and gave them leave to marry ; or, if they were al- 
 ready married, he, confirming it, required their con- 
 fessor to enjoin then some healthful penance for their 
 having married before the dispensation was obtained." 
 up, poii- i t was not muc h to be wondered at that the Pope 
 
 tical rea- * 
 
 sons. L. did readily grant this : for though very many both 
 
 Herbert. , . 1 *J J J i .1 -. . fi 
 
 cardinals and divines did then oppose it, yet the in- 
 terest of the papacy, which was preferred to all other 
 considerations, required it. For as that Pope, being 
 a great enemy to Lewis the Twelfth, the French King, 
 would have done anything to make an alliance against 
 him firmer ; so he was a warlike Pope, who consi- 
 dered religion very little, and therefore might be 
 easily persuaded to confirm a thing that must needs 
 oblige the succeeding kings of England to maintain 
 the papal authority, since from it they derived their 
 title to the crown ; little thinking, that by a secret di- 
 rection of an overruling Providence, that deed of his 
 would occasion the extirpation of the papal power in 
 England. So strangely doth God make the devices 
 of men become of no effect, and turn them to a con- 
 trary end to that which is intended. 
 
 Upon this bull they were married, the Prince of 
 Wales being yet under age. But Warham had so 
 possessed the King with an aversion to this marriage, 
 that on the same day that the Prince was of age, he,
 
 H.HoIbeir. pin*'

 
 PART II. BOOK I. 57 
 
 by his father's command, laid on him in the presence 1505. 
 of many of the nobility and others, made a protes- "^7it 
 tation in the hands of Fox, bishop of Winchester, i ^ ntytt 
 before a public notary, and read it himself, by which collect. 
 he declared, " That whereas he being under age was Morion!" 
 married to the Princess Katharine ; yet now, coming 
 to be of age, he did not confirm that marriage, but re- 
 tracted and annulled it, and would not proceed in it, 
 but intended in full form of law to avoid it and 
 break it off; which he declared he did freely and of 
 his accord." 
 
 Thus it stood during his father's life, who conti- His father 
 nued to the last to be against it ; and when he was Laded' 5 *. 
 just dying, he charged his son to break it off, though 
 it is possible that no consideration of religion might 
 work so much on him, as the apprehension he had of 
 the troubles that might follow on a controverted title 
 to the crown ; of which the wars between the houses APHIS*. 
 of York and Lancaster had given a fresh and sad de- L^y vTf. 
 monstration. The King being dead, one of the first diei - 
 things that came under consultation was, that the 
 young King must either break his marriage totally, 
 or conclude it. Arguments were brought on both Henry.be- 
 hands ; but those for it prevailed most with the King : ibe^'wo? 
 so, six weeks after he came to the crown, he was ^" her ' 
 married again publicly, and soon after they were both T1 y are 
 crowned. On the first day of the year she made him JM M.' 
 a very acceptable new-year's gift of a son, but he ^"^ ra> 
 died in the February thereafter : she miscarried often, . 
 and another son died soon after he was born; only another' 
 the lady Mary lived to a perfect age. &; *. 
 
 In this state was the King's family when the Queen I 51 *- 
 i f -L i'ii i T T **&? Mar y 
 
 lelt bearing more children, and contracted some dis- wo, Feb. 
 
 eases that made her person unacceptable to him ; but 19>1516 ' 
 was, as to her other qualities, a virtuous and grave 
 Princess, much esteemed and beloved both of the 
 King and the whole nation. The king being out of 
 hopes of more children declared his daughter Prin- Tr ^, J y 8 ' 
 cess of Wales, and sent her to Ludlow to hold her f l 
 court there, and projected divers matches for her. Hisa a J R h. 
 The first was with the Dauphin, which was agreed T nuaed
 
 58 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 totheDau- to between the King of France and him the 9th of 
 ' November, 1518, as appears by the treaty yet extant. 
 
 After. B u t this was broken afterwards upon the King's con- 
 
 wards to. 1 1 T" T' 
 
 the Empe- federating with the Emperor against France, and a 
 
 S2?i52 e new match agreed and sworn to between the Em- 
 
 peror and the King at Windsor, the 22d of June, 
 
 1522, the Emperor being present in person. This 
 
 being afterwards neglected and broken by the Em- 
 
 peror, by the advice of his cortes and states, as was 
 
 formerly related, there followed some overtures of a 
 
 offered to marriage with Scotland. But those also vanished, 
 
 sej."iss4. and there was a second treaty begun with France, 
 
 rriV" tne King offering his daughter to Francis himself, 
 
 April so, which he gladly accepting, a match was treated : and 
 
 on the last of April it was agreed that the Lady Mary 
 
 For King should be given in marriage either to Francis himself, 
 
 Scif, or or to his second son the Duke of Orleans ; and that 
 
 for his son alternative was to be determined by the two Kings, 
 
 the Duke . 
 
 of or. at an interview that was to be between them soon 
 after at Calais, with forfeitures on both sides if the 
 match went not on. 
 
 The King's But while this was in agitation, the Bishop of 
 "ueMioned Tarbe, the French ambassador, made a great demur 
 by foreign- ^Q^ ^g Princess Mary being illegitimate, as begot- 
 ten in a marriage that was contracted against a divine 
 precept, with which no human authority could dis- 
 pense. How far this was secretly concerted between 
 the French court and ours, or between the Cardinal 
 and the Ambassador, is not known. It is surmised, 
 that the King or the Cardinal set on the French to 
 make this exception publicly, that so the King might 
 have a better colour to justify his suit of divorce, since 
 other princes were already questioning it. For if, 
 upon a marriage proposed of such infinite advantage 
 to France, as that would be with the heir of the crown 
 of England, they nevertheless made exceptions, and 
 proceeded but coldly in it ; it was very reasonable to 
 expect that, after the King's death, other pretenders 
 would have disputed her title in another manner. 
 
 To some it seemed strange that the King did offer 
 his daughter to such great princes as the Emperor
 
 PART I. BOOK II. 50 
 
 and the King of France, to whom if England had 
 fallen in her right, it must have been a province : for 
 though in the last treaty with France, she was offered 
 either to the King, or his second son ; by which either 
 the children which the King might have by her, or the 
 children of the Duke of Orleans, should have been 
 heirs to the crown of England, and thereby it would 
 still have continued divided from France : yet this was 
 full of hazard : for if the Duke of Orleans, by his bro- 
 ther's death should become King of France, as it after- 
 wards fell out, or if the King of France had been once 
 possessed of England, then, according to the maxim 
 of the French government, that whatever their King 
 acquires he holds it in the right of his crown, England 
 was still to be a province to France, unless they freed 
 themselves by arms. Others judged that the King in- 
 tended to marry her to France, the more effectually 
 to seclude her from the succession, considering the 
 aversions his subjects had to a French government, 
 that so he might more easily settle his bastard son the 
 Duke of Richmond in the succession of the crown. 
 
 While this treaty went on, the King's scruples about The King 
 his marriage began to take vent. It is said that the tm^mh. 
 Cardinal did first infuse them into him, and made 
 Longland, bishop of Lincoln, that was the King's con- sande 
 fessor, possess the King's mind with them in confes- An g i. clu 
 sion.* If it was so, the King had, according to the 
 religion of that time, very just cause of scruple, when 
 his Confessor judged his marriage sinful, and the 
 Pope's legate was of the same mind. It is also said 
 that the Cardinal, being alienated from the Emperor, 
 that he might irreparably embroil the King and him, 
 and unite the King to the French interests, designed 
 this out of spite ; and that he was also dissatisfied 
 toward the Queen, who hated him for his lewd and 
 
 * In a MS. life of Sir Thomas More, wrote not many years after Longland's 
 death, this account is given : "I have heard Dr. Draycot, that was his (Long- 
 land's) chaplain and chancellor, say, that he once told the Bishop what rumour 
 ran ; and desired of him to know the truth. Who answered, that in very deed 
 he did not break the matter after that sort, as is said ; but the King brake the 
 matter to him first ; and never left urging him, until he had won him to give 
 his consent. Of which his doings he did fore think himself, and repented after- 
 wards," &c. MS. Coll. Email. Can'..
 
 .60 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 dissolute life, and had oft admonished and checked 
 
 him for it : and that he therefore, designing to engage 
 
 1525. the King to marry the French King's sister, the 
 
 Duchess of Alenson, did (to make way for that) set 
 
 this matter on foot : but as I see no good authority 
 
 for all this, except the Queen's suspicions, who did 
 
 afterwards charge the Cardinal as the cause of all her 
 
 trouble ; so I am inclined to think the King's scruples 
 
 in his were much ancienter, for the King declared to Simon 
 
 Bucer!" Grineus four years after this, that for seven years he 
 
 f/^ " had abstained from the Queen upon these scruples ; 
 
 MSS. so that by that it seems they had been received into 
 
 li Smith 
 
 the King's mind three years before this time. 
 Ti* What were the King's secret motives and the true 
 
 ofhu * grounds of his aversion to the Queen, is only known 
 scruples. j. Q Q Q( J . an( j ^ jj ^ (ji scover y O f ^\\ secrets at the day 
 
 of judgment, must lie hid. But the reasons which he 
 always owned, of which all human judicatories must 
 only take notice, shall be now fully opened. He found 
 by the law of Moses, If a man took his brother's wife, 
 they should die childless. This made him reflect on 
 the death of his children, which he now looked on as 
 a curse from God for that unlawful marriage. Upon 
 this he set himself to study the case, and called for 
 the judgments of the best divines and canonists. For 
 his own inquiry, Thomas Aquinas being the writer in 
 whose works he took most pleasure, and to whose judg- 
 ment he submitted most, did decide it clearly against 
 him. For he both concluded, that the laws in Levi- 
 ticus about the forbidden degrees of marriage were 
 moral and eternal, such as obliged all Christians; and 
 that the Pope could only dispense with the laws of 
 the church, but could not dispense with the laws of 
 God ; upon this reason, that no law can be dispensed 
 with, by any authority, but that which is equal to the 
 authority that enacted it. Therefore he infers, that the 
 Pope can indeed dispense with all the laws of the 
 church, but not with the laws of God, to whose au- 
 thority he could not pretend to be equal. But as the 
 King found this from his own private study, so having 
 commanded the Archbishop of Canterbury to require
 
 PART I. BOOK II. 61 
 
 the opinions of the bishops of England, they all in a 1527. 
 
 ., . r , ,1-1 j j i i j -i All his bi 
 
 writing, under their hands and seals, declared they shops> . 
 judged it an unlawful marriage. Only the Bishop of " e *| Jj^" 
 Rochester refused to set his hand to it, and though the unlawful. 
 Archbishop pressed him most earnestly to it, yet he 
 persisted in his refusal, saying, that it was against 
 his conscience. Upon which the Archbishop made caven 
 another write down his name, and set his seal to the l (\ v s \ X y, 
 resolution of the rest of the bishops. But this being 
 after wards questioned, the Bishop of Rochester denied 
 it was his hand, and the Archbishop pretended that 
 he had leave given him by the Bishop to put his hand 
 to it ; which the other denied. Nor was it likely that 
 Fisher, who scrupled in conscience to subscribe it 
 himself, would have consented to such a weak artifice. 
 But all the other bishops did declare against the mar- 
 riage ; and as the King himself said afterwards, in the 
 legantine court, neither the Cardinal nor the Bishop 
 of Lincoln did first suggest these scruples ; but the 
 King being possessed with them, did in confession 
 propose them to that Bishop ; and added, that the 
 Cardinal was so far from cherishing them, that he did 
 all he could to stifle them. 
 
 The King was now convinced that his marriage was The dan- 
 unlawful, both by his own study and the resolution of we'Vukl 
 his divines. And as the point of conscience wrought t f ' w 
 on him, so the interest of the kingdom required that 
 there should be no doubting about the succession to 
 the crown : lest, as the long civil war between the 
 houses of York and Lancaster had been buried with 
 his father, so a new one should rise up at his death. 
 The King of Scotland was the next heir to the crown 
 after his daughter. And if he married his daughter 
 to any out of France, then he had reason to judge, that 
 the French, upon their ancient alliance with Scotland, 
 and that they might divide and distract England, 
 would be ready to assist the King of Scotland in his 
 pretensions ; or if he married her in France, then all 
 those in England to whom the French government 
 was hateful, and the Emperor and other princes, to 
 whom the French power grew formidable, would have 
 
 T
 
 62 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 been as ready to support the pretensions of Scotland. 
 
 Or if he should either set up his bastard son, or the 
 
 children which his sister bore to Charles Brandon, 
 
 there was still cause to fear a bloody decision of a title 
 
 that was 1 so doubtful. And though this may seem a 
 
 consideration too politic and foreign to a matter of 
 
 that nature ; yet the obligation that lies on a prince 
 
 to provide for the happiness and quiet of his subjects, 
 
 was so weighty a thing, that it might well come in, 
 
 among other motives, to incline the King much to have 
 
 woisey this matter determined. At this time the Cardinal 
 
 FrMw, to went over into France, under colour to conclude a 
 
 July a, league between the two crowns, and to treat about the 
 
 1527 o 
 
 means of setting the Pope at liberty, who was then the 
 Emperor's prisoner at Rome ; and also for a project 
 of peace between Francis and the Emperor. But his 
 chief business was to require Francis to declare his 
 resolutions concerning that alternative about the Lady 
 Mary. To which it was answered, That the Duke 
 of Orleans, as a fitter match in years, was the French 
 King's choice ; but this matter fell to the ground upon 
 the process that followed soon after. 
 The King's The King did much apprehend the opposition the 
 
 fears and ^ & ,., l l l l 
 
 hopes Emperor was like to make to his designs ; either out 
 of a principle of nature and honour to protect his aunt, 
 or out of a maxim of state, to raise his enemy all the 
 trouble he could at home. But on the other hand 
 he had some cause to hope well even in that par- 
 ticular. For the question of the unlawfulness of the 
 match had been first debated in the cortes, or assembly 
 of the states at Madrid ; and the Emperor had then 
 shewn himself so favourable to it, that he broke the 
 match (to which he had bound himself) with the Prin- 
 cess. Therefore, the King had reason to think that 
 this at least would mitigate his opposition. The Em- 
 peror had also used the Pope so hardly, that it could 
 not be doubted that the Pope hated him. And it was 
 believed that he would find the protection of the King 
 of England most necessary to secure him, either from 
 the greatness of France or Spain, who were fighting 
 for the best part of Italy, which must needs fall into 
 
 about it.
 
 PART I. BOOK II. 63 
 
 one of their hands. Therefore the King did not doubt aw 
 but the Pope would be compliant to his desires. And 
 in this he was much confirmed by the hopes, or rather 
 assurance, which the Cardinal gave him of the Pope's 
 favour ; who, either calculating what was to be ex- 
 pected from that court, on the account of their own 
 interest, or upon some promises made him, had under- 
 taken to the King to bring that matter about to his 
 heart's content. It is certain that the Cardinal had L - Herbert. 
 carried over with him, out of the King's treasure; 
 240,000/. to be employed about the Pope's liberty. 
 But whether he had made a bargain for the divorce, 
 or had fancied that nothing could be denied him at 
 Rome, it does not appear. It is clear, by many of his 
 letters, that he had undertaken to the King, that the 
 business should be done ; and it is not like that a man 
 of his wisdom would have ventured to do that without 
 some good warrant. 
 
 But now that the suit was to be moved in the court The ar gu . 
 of Rome, they were to devise such arguments as were ^nst 
 like to be heard there. It would have been unacceptable lhe bul1 
 to have insisted on the nullity of the bull, on this ac- 
 count, because the matter of it was unlawful, and fell 
 not within the pope's power. For popes, like other 
 princes, do not love to hear the extent of their prero- 
 gative disputed or defined. And to condemn the bull 
 of a former pope as unlawful, was a dangerous prece- 
 dent, at a time when the pope's authority was rejected 
 by so many in Germany. Therefore the canonists, 
 as well as divines, were consulted to find such nullities 
 in the bull of dispensation, as, according to the canon 
 law, and the proceedings of the Rota, might serve to 
 invalidate it without any diminution of the papal 
 power. Which being once done, the marriage that fol- 
 lowed upon it must needs be annulled. When the 
 canonists examined the bull, they found much matter 
 to proceed upon. It is a maxim in law, that if the 
 pope be surprised in any thing, and bulls be procured 
 upon false suggestions and untrue premises, they may 
 be annulled afterwards. Upon which foundation most 
 of all the processes against popes' bulls were grounded.
 
 64 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 iw. Now they found by the preamble of this bill that it 
 was said, The King had desired that he might be dis- 
 pensed with to marry the Princess. This was false ; 
 for the King had made no such desire, being of an 
 age that was below such considerations, but twelve 
 years old. Then it appeared by the preamble, that 
 this bull was desired by the King, to preserve the 
 peace between the King of England, and Ferdinand 
 and Isabella (called Elizabetha in the bull), the kings 
 of Spain. To which they excepted, that it was plain 
 this was false, since the King, being then but twelve 
 years old, could not be supposed to have such deep 
 speculations, and so large a prospect, as to desire a 
 match upon a politic account. Then it being also in 
 the bull, that the Pope's dispensation was granted to 
 keep peace between the crowns ; if there was no 
 hazard of any breach or war between them, this was 
 a false suggestion, by which the Pope had been made 
 to believe, that this match was necessary for averting 
 some great mischief; and it was known that there was 
 no danger at all of that : and so this bull was obtained 
 by a surprise. Besides, both King Henry of England, 
 and Isabella of Spain, were dead before the King mar- 
 ried his Queen ; so the marriage could not be valid 
 by virtue of a bull that was granted to maintain amity 
 between princes that were dead before the marriage 
 was consummated : and they also judged, that the 
 protestation which the King made, when he came of 
 age, did retract any such pretended desire, that might 
 have been preferred to the Pope in his name ; and 
 that from that time forward, the bull could have no 
 further operation, since the ground upon which it 
 was granted, which was the King's desire, did then 
 cease ; any pretended desire before he was of age 
 being clearly annulled and determined by that pro- 
 testation after he was of age ; so that a subsequent 
 marriage, founded upon the bull, must needs be void. 
 woisey's These were the grounds upon which the canonists 
 rtL^KiDg, advised the process at Rome to be carried on. But 
 A g- J, first, to amuse and overreach the Spaniard, the King 
 sent word to his Ambassador in Spain, to silence the
 
 PART I. BOOK II. 65 
 
 noise that was made about it in that court. Whether 
 the King had then resolved on the person that should 
 succeed the Queen, when he had obtained what he 
 desired, or not, is much questioned. Some suggest, 
 that from the beginning he was taken with the charms 
 of Anne Boleyn, and that all this process was moved 
 by the unseen spring of that secret affection. Others 
 will have this amour to have been later in the King's 
 thoughts. How early it came there, at this distance, 
 is not easy to determine. But before I say more of it, 
 she being so considerable a person in the following re- 
 lation, I shall give some account of her. Sanders has 
 assured the world, " That the King had a liking to her 
 mother, who was daughter to the Duke of Norfolk ; 
 and to the end that he might enjoy her with the less J^P;^ 
 disturbance, he sent her husband, Sir Thomas Boleyn, For this he 
 to be ambassador in France ; and that, after two years' ui" i?fe S of 
 absence, his wife being with child, he came over, and jj^ "" 
 sued a divorce against her in the Archbishop of Can- took that 
 terbury's court ; but the King sent the Marquis of Dor- Z^b^" 
 set to let him know, that she was with child by him, ^. b<Miy 
 and that, therefore, the King desired he would pass the 
 matter over and be reconciled to his wife : to which he 
 consented. And so Anne Boleyn, though she went 
 under the name of his daughter, yet was of the King's 
 begetting." As he describes her, " she was ill shaped 
 and ugly, had six fingers, a gag tooth, and a tumour 
 under her chin, with many other unseemly things in 
 her person. At the fifteenth year of her age (says he), 
 both her father's butler arid chaplain lay with her : 
 afterwards she was sent to France, where she was first 
 kept privately in the house of a person of quality ; then 
 she went to the French court, where she led such a dis- 
 solute life, that she was called the English Hackney. 
 That the French King liked her, and from the free- 
 doms he took with her, she was called the King's 
 Mule. But returning to England, she was admitted 
 to the court, where she quickly perceived how weary 
 the King was of the Queen, and what the Cardinal 
 was designing ; and having gained the King's affec- 
 tion, she governed it so, that by all innocent free- 
 VOL. i. F
 
 66 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 doms she drew him into her toils, and by the appear- 
 ances of a severe virtue, with which she disguised 
 herself, so increased his affection and esteem, that he 
 resolved to put her in his Queen's place, as soon as 
 the divorce was granted." The same author adds, 
 " That the King had likewise enjoyed her sister," 
 with a great deal more to the disgrace of this lady 
 and her family. 
 
 I know it is not the work of an historian to refute 
 the lies of others, but rather to deliver such a plain ac- 
 count as will be a more effectual confutation than any 
 thing can be that is said by way of argument, which 
 belongs to other writers. And at the end of this 
 King's reign, I intend to set down a collection of the 
 most notorious falsehoods of that writer, together with 
 the evidences of their being so. But all this of Anne Bo- 
 leyn is so palpable a lie, or rather a complicated heap 
 of lies, and so much depends on it, that I presume it 
 will not offend the reader to be detained a few minutes 
 in the refutation of it. For if it were true, very much 
 might be drawn from it, both to disparage King 
 Henry, who pretended conscience to annul his mar- 
 riage, for the nearness of affinity, and yet would after 
 that marrv his own daughter. It leaves also a foul and 
 
 v O 
 
 lasting stain both on the memory of Anne Boleyn, and 
 of her incomparable daughter Queen Elizabeth. It 
 also derogates so much from the character of the first 
 Reformers, who had some kind of dependance on 
 Queen Anne Boleyn, that it seems to be of great im- 
 portance for directing the reader in the judgment he 
 is to make of persons and things, to lay open the false- 
 hood of this account. It were sufficient for blasting- 
 it, that there is no proof pretended to be brought for 
 any part of it, but a book of one Rastal, a judge. The 
 title of the book is, The Life of Sir Thomas More. 
 There is great reason to think, that Rastal never writ 
 any such book ; for it is most common for the lives of 
 great authors to be prefixed to their works. Now this 
 Rastal published all More's works in Queen Mary's 
 reign, to which, if he had written his life, it is likely 
 he would have prefixed it. No evidence, therefore,
 
 PART I. BOOK II. 67 
 
 being given for his relation, either from records, let- 
 ters, or the testimony of any person who was privy to 
 the matter, the whole is to be looked upon as a black 
 forgery, devised on purpose to defame Queen Eliza- 
 beth. For, upon her mother's death who can doubt 
 but that some, either to flatter the King, or to defame 
 her, would have published these things, which if they 
 had been true could be no secrets ? For a lady of her 
 mother's condition to bear a child two years after her 
 husband was sent out of England on such a public em- 
 ployment, and a process thereupon to be entered in the 
 Archbishop's courts, are things that are not so soon to 
 be forgotten. And that she herself was under so ill 
 a reputation, both in her father's family, and in France, 
 for common lewdness, and for being the King's con- 
 cubine, are things that could not lie hid. And yet 
 when the books of the Archbishop's courts (which are Anti-s 
 now burnt) were extant, it was published to the world, 
 and satisfaction offered to every one that would take 
 the pains to inform themselves, that there was no such 
 thing on record. Nor did any of the writers of that 
 time, either of the imperial or papal side, once mention 
 these things, notwithstanding their great occasion to 
 do it. But eighty years after, this fable was in vented, 
 or at leastitwas then first published, when it was safer 
 to lie, because none who had lived in the time could 
 disprove it. 
 
 But it has not only no foundation, but Sanders, 
 through the vulgar errors of liars, has strained his wit 
 to make so ill a story of the lady, that some things in 
 his own relation make it plainly appear to be impossible. 
 For, to pass by those many improbable things that he 
 relates, as namely, That both the King of England and 
 the French King, could be so taken with so ugly and 
 monstrous a woman, of so notorious and lewd manners; 
 and that this King, for the space of seven years, that 
 is, during the suit of the divorce, should continue ena- 
 moured of her, and never discover this, or having dis- 
 covered it should yet resolve, at all hazards, to make 
 her his wife ; which are things that would require 'no 
 common testimony to make them seem credible: there 
 
 F 2
 
 68 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 is beside, in that story, a heap of things so inconsistent 
 with one another, that none but such a one as Sanders 
 could have had either blindness or brow enough to have 
 made or published it. For first, if the King, that he 
 might the more freely enjoy Sir Thomas Boleyn's lady, 
 sent him over into France, as Sanders says, I shall 
 allow it as soon as may be, that it was in the very be- 
 ginning of his reign, 1509. Then the time when Anne 
 Boleyn was born, being, according to Sanders's ac- 
 count, two years after, that must be anno 1511, and 
 being, as he says, deflowered when she was fifteen, 
 that must be anno 1526. Then some time must be 
 allowed for her going to France, for her living pri- 
 vately there for some time, and afterwards for her com- 
 ing to court, and meriting those characters that he says 
 went upon her ; and, after all that, for her return into 
 England, and insinuating herself into the King's fa- 
 vour ; yet by Sanders's own relation, these things must 
 have happened in the same year, 1 526 ; for in that 
 year he makes the King think of putting away his wife, 
 in order to marry Anne Boleyn, when, according to 
 his account, she could be but fifteen years old, though 
 this King had sent Sir Thomas Boleyn into France the 
 first day of his coming to the crown. But that he was 
 not sent so early appears by several grants, that I have 
 seen in the Rolls, which were made to him in the first 
 four years of the King's reign: they sufficiently shew 
 that he was all that while about the King's person, and 
 mention no services beyond sea, but about the King's 
 person, as the ground upon which they were made. 
 Besides, I find in the Treaty-Rolls no mention of his 
 being ambassador the first eight years of the King's 
 Marchio. reign. In the first year the Bishops of Winchester and 
 1509- Duresme, and the Earl of Surry, are named in the treaty 
 between the two crowns, as the King's ambassadors in 
 France. After this, none could be ambassadors there 
 Feb. 12, for two years together; for before two years elapsed, 
 X5U.1314. there was a war proclaimed against France, and when 
 overtures were made for a peace, it appears by the 
 Treaty-Rolls that the Earl of Worcester was sent over 
 ambassador. And when the King's sister was sent over
 
 AH HE 1O1.XT1I
 
 PART I. BOOK II. 69 
 
 to Lewis, the French King, though Sir Thomas Boleyn 
 went over with her, he was not then so much consi- 
 dered as to be made an ambassador. For in the com- sept.23, 
 mission that was given to many persons of quality, to & ' Regn * 
 deliver her to her husband, King Lewis the Twelfth, 
 Sir Thomas Boleyn is not named. The persons in the 
 commission are the Duke of Norfolk, the Marquis of 
 Dorchester, the Bishop of Duresme,the Earls of Surry 
 and Worcester, the Prior of St. John's, and Doctor 
 West, dean of Windsor. A year after that, Sir Thomas 
 Boleyn was made ambassador ; but then it was too 
 late for Anne Boleyn to be yet unborn, much less 
 could it be, as Sanders says, that she was born two 
 years after it. 
 
 But the learned Cambden, whose study and profes- cambd. in 
 sion led him to a more particular knowledge of these admit* 
 things, gives us another account of her birth. He says Eliz - Kcg - 
 that she was born in the year 1507, which was two 
 years before the King came to the crown. And if it be 
 suggested, that then the Prince, to enjoy her mother, 
 prevailed with his father to send her husband be- 
 yond sea, that must be done when the Prince him- 
 self was not fourteen years of age; so they must 
 make him to have corrupted other men's wives at that 
 age, when yet they will not allow his brother (no, 
 not when he was two years older) to have known his 
 own wife. 
 
 But now I leave this foul fiction, and pfo to deliver Her birth, 
 
 * o 
 
 certain truths. Anne Boleyn's mother was daughter to 
 the Duke of Norfolk, and sister to the Duke that was 
 at the time of the divorce lord treasurer. Her father's 
 mother was one of the daughters and heirs to the Earl 
 of Wiltshire and Ormond, and her great grandfather, 
 Sir Geoffry Boleyn, who had been lord mayor of Lon- 
 don,married one of the daughters and heirs of the Lord 
 Hastings ; and their family, as they had mixed with so 
 much great blood, so had married their daughters to 
 very noble families. She being but seven years old, isu. 
 was carried over to France with the King's sister, which 
 shews she could have none of those deformities in her 
 
 i 11-1 i 
 
 , since such are not brought into the courts and ing.
 
 70 BURNETS REFORMATION., 
 
 families of queens. And though, upon the French 
 King's death, the Queen Dowager came soon back to 
 England, yet she was so liked in the French court, 
 that the next king Francis's Queen kept her about her- 
 self for some years : and after her death the King's 
 sister, the Duchess of Alenson, kept her in her court 
 all the while she was in France ; which, as it shews 
 there was somewhat extraordinary in her person, so 
 those princesses being much celebrated for their vir- 
 tues, it is not to be imagined that any person so noto- 
 riously defamed as Sanders would represent her, was 
 entertained in their courts. 
 
 Her com- When she came into England is not so clear ; it 
 England, is said that in the year 1522, when war was made on 
 i^Her. jr rancej ner father, who was then ambassador, was 
 rule and recalled, and brought her over with him, which is 
 
 Duplex. . TIT i e> t 1 i i i 
 
 cavendish not improbable ; but, it she came then, she did not 
 wTvtry stay long in England, for Cambden says, that she 
 cZbden serve ^ Queen Claudia of France till her death (which 
 was in July, 1524), and after that she was taken into 
 service by King Francis's sister. How long she con- 
 tinued in that service I do not find ; but it is probable 
 that she returned out of France with her father, from 
 his embassy in the year 1527 ; when, as Stow says, 
 he brought with him the picture of her mistress, who 
 was offered in marriage to this King. If she came 
 out of France before, as those authors before-men- 
 tioned say, it appears that the King had no design 
 upon her then, because he suffered her to return, and 
 when one mistress died to take another in France ; 
 but if she stayed there all this while, then it is pro- 
 bable he had not seen her till now at last, when she 
 came out of the Princess of Alenson's service ; but 
 whensoever it was that she came to the court of Eng- 
 land, it is certain that she was much considered in it. 
 And though the Queen, who had taken her to be one 
 of her maids of honour, had afterwards just cause to 
 be displeased with her as a rival : yet she carried 
 herself so, that in the whole progress of the suit, I 
 never find the Queen herself, or any of her agents, 
 fix the least ill character on her, which would most
 
 COO- 
 
 cted to 
 Lord 
 
 PART I. BOOK II. 71 
 
 certainly have been done, had there been any just 
 cause or good colour for it. 
 
 And so far was this lady, at least for some time, she a 
 from any thoughts of marrying the King, that she had *' 
 consented to marry the Lord Piercy, the Earl of Nor- Pieic y 
 thumberland's eldest son, whom his father, by a 
 strange compliance with the Cardinal's vanity, had 
 placed in his court and made him one of his servants.* 
 The thing is considerable, and clears many things that 
 belong to this history ; and the relator of it was an 
 ear- witness of the discourse upon it, as himself in- 
 forms us. The Cardinal, hearing that the Lord Piercy cavendish 
 was making addresses to Anne Boleyn, one day as he woi*y. 
 came from the court, called for him before his ser- 
 vants (" before us all," says the relator, including 
 himself"), " and chid him for it, pretending at first 
 that it was unworthy of him to match so meanly; but 
 he justified his choice, and reckoned up her birth and 
 quality, which he said was not inferior to his own. 
 And the Cardinal insisting fiercely to make him lay 
 down his pretensions, he told him he would willingly 
 submit to the King and him ; but that he had gone 
 so far before many witnesses, that he could not for- 
 sake it, and knew not how to discharge his conscience; 
 and therefore he entreated the Cardinal would pro- 
 cure him the King's favour in it. Upon that the Car- 
 dinal, in great rage, said, ' Why thinkest thou that 
 the King and I know not what we have to do in so 
 weighty a matter ? Yes, I warrant you ; but I can see 
 in thee no submission at all to the purpose ;' and said, 
 ' you have matched yourself with such an one, as nei- 
 ther the King, nor yet your father, will agree to it ; 
 and therefore I will send for thy father, who at his 
 coming shall either make thee break this unadvised 
 bargain, or disinherit thee for ever.' To which the 
 Lord Piercy replied, That he would submit himself 
 to him, if his conscience were discharged of the 
 weighty burden that lay upon it ; and, soon after, his 
 father coming to court, he was diverted another way." 
 
 * The Lord Piercy was in the Cardinal's family rather in a way of 
 education (not unusual in those times) than of service.
 
 72 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 Had that writer told us in what year this was done, 
 it had given a great light to direct us, but by this re- 
 lation we see that she was so far from thinking of the 
 King at that time, that she had engaged herself an- 
 other way; but how far this went on her side, or 
 whether it was afterwards made use of, when she was 
 divorced from the King, shall be considered in its 
 proper place. It also appears that there was a design 
 about her then formed between the King and the 
 Cardinal ; yet how far that went, whether to make 
 L. Her- her queen, or only to corrupt her, is not evident. It 
 is said, that upon this she ever after hated the Car- 
 dinal, and that he never designed the divorce after 
 he saw on whom the King had fixed his thoughts : 
 but all this is a mistake, as will afterwards appear. 
 '1527. And now, having made way through these things 
 that were previous to the first motion of the divorce, 
 The King my narration leads me next to the motion itself. The 
 hisduJrce King, resolving to put the matter home to the Pope, 
 at Home. sen t j) r Knight, secretary of state, to Rome, with 
 some instructions to prepare the Pope for it, and to 
 observe what might be the best method, and who the 
 fittest tools to work by. At that time, the family of 
 the Cassali, being three brothers, were entertained 
 by the King as his agents in Italy, both in Rome, 
 Venice, and other places. Sir Gregory Cassali was 
 then his ordinary ambassador at Rome : to him was 
 the first full dispatch about this business directed by 
 the Cardinal, the original whereof is yet extant, 
 dated the 5th of December, 1527, which the reader 
 will find in the Collection : but here I shall give the 
 heads of it. 
 The erst After great and high compliments, and assurances 
 
 dispatch f t> r ' . 
 
 oi rewards, to engage him to tollow the business very 
 vigorously, and with great diligence, he writes that 
 he had before opened the King's case to him, and that 
 partly by his own study, partly by the opinion of many 
 divines, and other learned men of all sorts, he found 
 that he could no longer with a good conscience con- 
 tinue in that marriage with the Queen ; having God 
 and the quiet and salvation of his soul chiefly before
 
 PART I. BOOK II. 73 
 
 his eyes. And that he had consulted both the most 
 learned divines and canonists, as well in his own do- 
 minions as elsewhere, to know whether the Pope's dis- 
 pensation could make it good, and that many of them 
 thought the Pope could not dispense in this case of the 
 first degree of affinity, which they esteemed forbidden 
 by a divine, moral, and natural law ; and all the rest 
 concluded, that the Pope could not do it, but upon 
 very weighty reasons, and they found not any such in 
 the bull. Then he lays out the reasons for annulling 
 the bull which were touched before, upon which they 
 all concluded the dispensation to be of no force ; that 
 the King looked upon the death of his sons as a curse 
 from God ; and to avoid further judgments, he now 
 desired help of the apostolic see, to consider his case, 
 to reflect on what he had merited by these services 
 he had done the papacy, and to find a way, that he, 
 being divorced from his Queen, may marry another 
 wife, of whom, by the blessing of God, he might hope 
 for issue male. Therefore the ambassador was to use 
 all means possible to be admitted to speak to the Pope 
 in private, and then to deliver him these letters of 
 credence, in which there was a most earnest clause 
 added with the King's own hand. He was also to 
 make a condolence of the miseries the Pope and car- 
 dinals were in, both in the King's name and the Car- 
 dinal's, and to assure the Pope they would use all 
 the most effectual means that were possible for set- 
 ting him at liberty, in which the Cardinal would em- 
 ploy as much industry, as if there were no other way 
 to come to the kingdom of heaven but by doing it. 
 Then he was to open the King's business to the Pope, 
 the scruples of his conscience, the great danger of 
 cruel wars upon so disputable a succession, the en- 
 treaties of all the nobility and the whole kingdom, 
 with many other urgent reasons to obtain what was 
 desired. He was also to lay before the Pope the pre- 
 sent condition of Christendom and of Italy, that he 
 might consider of what importance it was to his own 
 affairs, and to the apostolic see, to engage the King 
 so firmly to his interests as this would certainly do.
 
 74 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 And to move that the Pope without communicating 
 the matter to any person, would freely grant it, and 
 sign the commission which was therewith sent en- 
 grossed in due form, and ready to be signed, by which 
 the Cardinal was authorized with the assistance of such 
 as he should choose, to proceed in the matter, accord- 
 ing to some instructions which were also sent fairly 
 written out for the Pope to sign. A dispensation was 
 also sent in due form ; and if these were expeded, he 
 might assure the Pope that as the King had sent over 
 a vast sum to the French King, for paying his army 
 in Italy, so he would spare no travel nor treasure, but 
 make war upon the Emperor in Flanders, with his 
 whole strength, till he forced him to set the Pope at 
 liberty, and restore the state of the church to its for- 
 mer power and dignity. And if the Pope were al- 
 ready at liberty, and had made an agreement with the 
 Emperor, he was to represent to him how little cause 
 he had to trust much to the Emperor, who had so oft 
 broke his faith, and designed to do all he could towards 
 the depressing the ecclesiastical state. And the Pope 
 was to be remembered, that he had dispensed with 
 the Emperor's oath, for marrying the King's daughter, 
 without communicating the matter to the King. And 
 if he had done so much for one that had been his 
 enemy, how much more might the King expect the 
 like favour, who had always paid him a most filial 
 duty ? Or if the Pope would not grant the commis- 
 sion to the Cardinal to try the matter, as a person 
 that, being the King's chief minister, was not indif- 
 ferent enough to judge in any of the King's concerns ; 
 he was by all means to overcome that, and assure the 
 Pope that he would proceed in it as a judge ought 
 to do. But if the Pope stood upon it, and would by 
 no means be persuaded to sign the commission for 
 the Cardinal, then he was to propose Staphileus, 
 dean of the Rota, who was then in England ; and 
 was to except against all other foreigners, if the Pope 
 chanced to propose any other. He was also to re- 
 present to the Pope, that the King would look upon 
 a delay as a denial ; and if the Pope inclined to con-
 
 PART I. BOOK II. 75 
 
 suit with any of the cardinals about it, he was to di- 
 vert him from it all that was possible : but if the Pope 
 would needs do it, then he was to address himself to 
 them, and partly by informing them of the reasons of 
 the King's cause, partly by rewarding the good of- 
 fices they should do, he was to engage them for the 
 King. And with this dispatch, letters were sent to 
 Cardinal Pucci, Sanctorum Quatuor, and the other 
 cardinals, to be made use of as there should be occa- 
 sion for it. And because money was like to be the 
 most powerful argument, especially to men impo- 
 verished by captivity, ten thousand ducats were re- 
 mitted to Venice, to be distributed as the King's af- 
 fairs required ; and he was empowered to make far- 
 ther promises, as he saw cause for it, which the King 
 would faithfully make good ; and, in particular, they 
 were to be wanting in nothing, that might absolutely 
 engage the Cardinal Datary to favour the King's 
 business."" 
 
 The same things had been committed to the Secre- ne p P e 
 tary's care, and they were both to proceed by con- ITAe 
 cert, each of them doing all that was possible to pro- p r ^ 
 mote the business. . But before this reached Rome, Colle f- 
 
 n T->- i i t i-j ." u *" 
 
 Secretary Knight was come thither; and rinding it im- 
 possible to be admitted to the Pope's presence, he had, 
 by corrupting some of his guards, sent him the sum 
 of the King's demands. Upon which the Pope sent 
 him word, that the dispensation should be sent fully 
 expeded. So gracious was a Pope in captivity i But 
 at that time the General of the Observants in Spain 
 being at Rome, required a promise of the Pope not 
 to grant any thing that might prejudice the Queen's 
 cause, till it were first communicated to the impe- 
 rialists there. But when the Pope made his escape, Pope 
 the Secretary -and the Ambassador went to him to 
 Orvieto about the end of December, and first did, in 
 the King's and Cardinal's name, congratulate his free- 
 dom. Then the Secretary discoursed the business. 
 The Pope owned that he had received the message 
 which he had sent to him at Rome ; but in respect 
 of his promise, and that yet in a manner he was in
 
 76 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 captivity, he begged the King would have a little pa- 
 tience, and he should before long have not only that 
 dispensation, but any thing else that lay in his power. 
 But the Secretary not being satisfied with that excuse, 
 the Pope in the end said he should have it; but 
 with this condition, that he would beseech the King 
 not to proceed upon it, till the Pope were fully at 
 liberty, and the Germans and Spaniards were driven 
 out of Italy. And upon the King's promising this, 
 the dispensation was to be put in his hands. So the 
 Secretary, who had a great mind once to have the bull 
 in his possession, made no scruple to engage his pro- 
 mise for that. The Pope also told them, he was not 
 expert in those things, but he easily apprehended the 
 danger that might arise from any dispute about the 
 succession to the crown, and that therefore he would 
 communicate the business to the Cardinal Sanctorum 
 Quatuor ; upon which they resolved to prevent that 
 Cardinal's being with the Pope, and went and de- 
 livered the letters they had for him, and promised him 
 a good reward if he were favourable to their requests 
 in the King's behalf. Then they shewed him the com- 
 missions that were sent from England : but he, upon 
 the perusal of them, said they could not pass without 
 a perpetual dishonour on the Pope and the King too, 
 and excepted to several clauses that were in them. So 
 they desired him to draw one that might both be suf- 
 ficent for the King's purpose, and such as the Pope 
 might with honour grant: which being done, the Pope 
 told them, that though he apprehended great danger 
 to himself, if the Emperor should know what he had 
 done, yet he would rather expose himself to utter ruin, 
 than give the King or the Cardinal cause to think him 
 ingrate; butwith manysighs and tears, he begged that 
 the King would not precipitate things, or expose him 
 And being to be undone, by beginning any process upon the 
 
 at liberty ,,, ., i^ii? j*i J j j 
 
 gives a bull. And so he delivered the commission and dis- 
 buiiforit. p ensa ti OIlj signed, to Knight. But the means that the 
 
 Pope proposed for his publishing and owning what 
 The pope'* he now granted was, that Lautrech, with the French 
 
 army, should march, and, coming where the Pope was,
 
 PART I. BOOK II. 77 
 
 should require him to grant the commission : so that 
 the Pope should excuse himself to the Emperor, that 
 he had refused to grant it upon the desire of the Eng- 
 lish Ambassador, but that he could not deny the 
 General of the French army to do an act of public 
 justice : and by this means he would save his honour, 
 and not seem guilty of breach of promise ; and then 
 he would dispatch the commission about the time of 
 Lautrech's being near him, and therefore he entreated 
 
 O * 
 
 the King to accept of what was then granted for the 
 present. The commission and dispensation were given 
 to the Secretary ; and they promised to send the bull 
 after him, of the same form that was desired from 
 England: and the Pope engaged to reform it as should 
 be found needful. And it seems by these letters, that 
 a dispensation and commission had been signed by 
 the Pope when he was a prisoner ; but they thought 
 not fit to make any use of them, lest they should be 
 thought null, as being granted when the Pope was in 
 captivity. 
 
 Thus the Pope expressed all the readiness that And 
 could be expected from him, in the circumstances he *t 
 was then in ; being overawed by the imperialists, who ^ e 
 were harassing the country, and taking castles very 
 near the place where he was. Lautrech with the 
 French army lay still fast about Bononia, and as the 
 season of the year was not favourable, so he did not 
 express any inclinations to enter into action. The 
 Cardinal Sanctorum Quatuor got four thousand 
 crowns as the reward of his pains, and in earnest of 
 what he was to expect when the matter should be 
 brought to a final conclusion. In this whole matter, 
 the Pope carried himself as a wise and politic prince, 
 that considered his interest, and provided against dan- 
 gers with great foresight. But as for apostolical wis- 
 dom, and the simplicity of the gospel, that was not to 
 be expected from him. For now, though the high- 
 sounding names of Christ's Vicar, and St. Peter's 
 Successor, were still retained to keep up the Pope's 
 dignity and authority, yet they had for many ages 
 governed themselves as secular princes ; so that the
 
 78 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 maxims of that court were no more to keep a good 
 conscience, and to proceed according to the rules of 
 the gospel, and the practice of the primitive church, 
 committing the event to God, and submitting to his 
 will in all things : but the keeping a balance, the main- 
 taining their interest in the courts of princes, the se- 
 curing their dominions, and the raising their families, 
 being that which they chiefly looked at, it is not 
 to be wondered at, that the Pope governed himself 
 by these measures, though religion was to be made 
 use of to help him out of straits. All this I set down 
 the more particularly, both because I take my infor- 
 mation from original letters, and that it may clearly 
 appear how matters went at that time in the court of 
 Rome. 
 
 Secretary Knight, being infirm, could not travel 
 with that haste that was required in this business, and 
 therefore he sent the Proto-notary Gambara with the 
 commission and dispensation to England, and fol- 
 coiiect. lowed in easy journeys. The cardinals that had been 
 Numb. 5. consumed w ith, did all express great readiness in grant* 
 ing the King's desire. The Cardinal Datary had for- 
 saken the court, and betaken himself to serve God 
 and his cure ; and other cardinals were hostages : so 
 that now there were but five about the Pope Monte, 
 Sanctorum Quatuor, Ridolphi, Revennate, and Peru- 
 sino. But a motion being made of sending over a 
 legate, the Pope would by no means hearken to it, 
 for that would draw new troubles on him from the 
 Emperor. That had been desired from England by 
 a dispatch of the 27th of December, which pressed a 
 speedy conclusion of the business ; upon which the 
 Pope, on the 12th of January, did communicate the 
 matter under the seal of confession to the cardinals 
 Sanctorum Quatuor and Simoneta(whowas then come 
 to the court), and upon conference with them, he pro- 
 posed to Sir Gregory Cassali, that he thought the 
 The me- safer way was, " That either by virtue of the commis- 
 l^d P by sion that the Secretary had obtained, or by the legan- 
 cdteT' * me P ower t nat ^ as lodged with the Cardinal of York, 
 Numb. e. he should proceed in the business. And if the King
 
 PART I. BOOK II. 79 
 
 found the matter clear in his own conscience (in which 
 the Pope said, no doctor in the whole world could 
 resolve the matter better than the King himself), he 
 should without more noise make judgment be given ; 
 and presently marry another wife, and then send for 
 a legate to confirm the matter. And it would be easier 
 to ratify all when it was once done, than to go on in 
 a process from Rome. For the Queen would pro- 
 test, that both the place and the judges were sus- 
 pected and not free ; upon which, in the course of 
 law, the Pope must grant an inhibition for the King's 
 not marrying another, while the suit depended, and 
 must avocate the business to be heard in the court of 
 Rome ; which, with other prejudices, were unavoid- 
 able in a public process, by bulls from Rome. But 
 if the thing went on in England, and the King had 
 once married another wife, the Pope then would find 
 very good reasons to justify the confirming a thing 
 that was gone so far, and promised to send any car- 
 dinal whom they should name." This the Pope 
 desired the Ambassador would signify to the King, 
 as the advice of the two Cardinals, and take no notice 
 of him in it. But the dispatch shews he was a more 
 faithful minister than to do so. 
 
 The Ambassador found all the earnestness in the 
 Pope that was possible to comply with the King, arid 
 that he was jealous both of the Emperor and Francis, 
 and depended wholly on the King ; so that he found 
 if the terror of the imperial forces were over, the court 
 of England would dispose of the apostolical see as they 
 pleased. And indeed this advice, how little soever it 
 had of the simplicity of the gospel, was certainly pru- 
 dent and subtle, and that which of all things the Spa- 
 niards apprehended most. And therefore the Gene- 
 ral of the Observants moved Cardinal Campegius, 
 then at Rome, for an inhibition, lest the process should 
 be carried on and determined in England. But that 
 being signified to the Pope, he said, It could not be 
 granted, since there was no suit depending ; in which 
 case only an inhibition can be granted. 
 
 But now I must look over again to England, to open
 
 80 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 the counsels there. At that time Staphileus was there, 
 Ingi. ana " he, either to make his court the better, or that he 
 was so persuaded in opinion, seemed fully satisfied 
 about the justice of the King's cause. So they sent 
 him to Rome with instructions both public and secret. 
 His in- The public instructions related to the Pope's affairs, in 
 struct""", which all possible assistance was promised by the King. 
 But one proposition in them flowed from the Cardinal's 
 Cotton ambition, " That the kings of England and France 
 utK vitei. thought it would advance the Pope's interests, if he 
 Jan. s. should command the cardinals that were under no re- 
 straint, to meet in some secure place, to consider of the 
 Duplicates affairs of the church, that they might suffer no preju- 
 corrected ^ QQ ^ t | ie p O p e ' s ca ptivity ; and for that end, and to 
 cardinal's conserve the dignity of the apostolic see, that they 
 
 hand. 1111 1 i I 'i 
 
 should choose such a vicar or president, as partly by 
 his prudence and courage, partly by the assistance 
 of the two Kings, upon whom depended all their 
 hopes, might do such services to the apostolic see, as 
 were most necessary in that distracted time, by which 
 the Pope's liberty would be hastened." 
 
 It cannot be imagined but the Pope would be of- 
 fended with this proposition, and apprehend that the 
 Cardinal of York was not satisfied to be intriguing for 
 the popedom after his death, but was aspiring to it 
 while he was alive. For as it was plain he was the 
 person that must be chosen for that trust ; so if the 
 Pope were used hardly by the Emperor, and forced 
 to ill conditions, the vicar so chosen and his cardinals- 
 would disown those conditions, which might end in a 
 schism, or his deposition. But Staphileus's secret in- 
 structions related wholly to the King's business, which 
 were these ; " That the King had opened to him the 
 error of his marriage, and that the said Bishop, out of 
 his great learning, did now clearly perceive how in- 
 valid and insufficient it was : therefore the King re- 
 commended it to his care, that he would convince the 
 Pope and the cardinals with the arguments that had 
 been laid before him, and of which a breviate was 
 given him. He was also to represent the great mis- 
 chiefs that might follow, if princes got not justice and
 
 PART I. BOOK II. 81 
 
 ease from the apostolic see. Therefore, if the Pope 
 were yet in captivity, he was to propose a meeting of 
 the cardinals, for choosing the Cardinal of York to be 
 their head, during the Pope's imprisonment, or that a 
 full commission might be sent to him for the King's 
 matter. And in particular he was to take care that 
 the business might be tried in England. And for his 
 pains in promoting the King's concerns, the King pro- 
 mised to procure a bishoprick for him in France ; and 
 to help him to a cardinal's hat." By him the King 
 wrote to the Pope. The rude draught of it remains 
 under the Cardinal's hand, earnestly desiring a speedy 
 and favourable dispatch of his business with a credence 
 to the bearer. 
 
 The Cardinal also wrote to the Pope by him, and, " 
 after a long congratulating his liberty, with many le'tlL* 
 sharp reflections on the Emperor, he pressed a dis- by bim ' 
 patch of the King's business, in which he would not 
 use many words : " This only I will add," says he, 
 " that that which is desired is holy and just, and very 
 much for the safety and quiet of this kingdom, which is 
 most devoted to the apostolical see. He also wrote by 
 the same hand to the Ambassador, that theKingwould 
 have things so carried, that all occasion of discontent 
 or cavilling, whether at home or abroad, might be re- 
 moved ; and therefore desired that another cardinal 
 might be sent legate to England, and joined in com- 
 mission with himself for judging the matter. He 
 named either Campegius, Tranus, or Farnese. Or 
 if that could not be obtained, that a fuller commission 
 might be sent to himself, with all possible haste, since 
 delays might produce great inconveniences. If a 
 legate were named, then care must be taken that he 
 should be one who was learned, indifferent, and tract- 
 able ; and if Campegius could be the man, he was the 
 fittest person. And when one was named, he should 
 make him a decent present, and assure him that the 
 King would most liberally recompense all his labour 
 and expense. He also required him to press his 
 speedy dispatch, and that the commission should be 
 full to try and determine, without any reservation of 
 
 VOL. I. G
 
 82 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 the sentence to be given by the Pope." This dispatch 
 is interlined, and amended by the Cardinal's own hand. 
 A larger But, upon the arrival of the messenger whom the 
 sity Secretary had sent, with the commission and dispen- 
 the King, sation, and the other packets before-mentioned : it was 
 debated in the King's council, whether he should go 
 on in his process, or continue to solicit new bulls from 
 Rome. On the one hand, they saw how tedious, dan- 
 gerous, and expensive a process at Rome was like to 
 prove : and therefore it seemed the easiest and most 
 expedite way to proceed before the Cardinal in his le- 
 gantine court, who should ex officio and in the sum- 
 mary way of their court, bring it to a speedy conclu- 
 sion. But, on the other hand, if the Cardinal gave 
 sentence, and the King should marry, then they were 
 not sure, but before that time the Pope might either 
 change his mind, or his interest might turn him an- 
 other way. And the Pope's power was so absolute by 
 the canon law, that no general clauses in commissions 
 to legates could bind him to confirm their sentences : 
 and if, upon the King's marrying another wife, the 
 Pope should refuse to confirm it, then the King would 
 be in a worse case than he was now in, and his mar- 
 riage and issue by it should be still disputable : there- 
 fore they thought this was by no means to be adven- 
 tured on, but they should make new addresses to the 
 court of Rome. In the debate, some sharp words fell 
 either from the King, or some of his secular counsel- 
 lors; intimating, that if the Pope continued under such 
 fears, the King must find some other way to set him 
 Gardiner at ease. So it was resolved, that Stephen Gardiner, 
 "nt to x commonly called Doctor Stephens, the Cardinal's chief 
 Roineg secretary, and Edward Fox, the King's almoner, should 
 be sent to Rome ; the one being esteemed the ablest 
 canonist in England, the other, one of the best divines: 
 wuh let- they were dispatched the 10th of February. "By 
 tteKin. them the King wrote to the Pope, thanking him that 
 hehad expressed such forward and earnest willingness 
 to give him ease : and had so kindly promised to gra- 
 coiiect t*fy n * s desires, f which he expected now to see the 
 Numb.V. effects. He wrote also to the cardinals his thanks for
 
 PART I. BOOK II. 83 
 
 the cheerfulness with which they had in consistory 
 promised to promote his suit ; for which he assured 
 them, they should never have cause to repent." But 
 the Cardinal wrote in a strain that shews he was in And the 
 some fear that if he could not bring about the King's co[ie! ' 
 
 o o 
 
 desires, he was like to lose his favour. " He besought Nl 
 the Pope as lying at his feet, that if he thought him a 
 Christian, a good cardinal, and not unworthy of that 
 dignity, a useful member of the apostolical see, a pro- 
 moter of justice and equity, or thought him his faithful 
 creature, or that he desired his own eternal salvation, 
 that he would now so far consider his intercession, as 
 to grant kindly and speedily that which the King ear- 
 nestly desired ; which if he did not know to be holy, 
 right, and just, he would undergo any hazard or pu- 
 nishment whatsoever, rather than promote it ; but he 
 did apprehend, if the King found that the Pope was 
 so overawed by the Emperor, as not to grantthat which 
 all Christendom judged was grounded both on the 
 divine and human laws, both he and other Christian 
 princes would from thence take occasion to provide 
 themselves of other remedies, and lessen and despise 
 the authority of the apostolic see." In his letters to collect. 
 Cassali, he expressed a great sense of the services 
 which the Cardinal Sanctorum Quatuor had done the 
 King ; and bid him inquire what were the things in 
 which he delighted most, whether furniture, gold, 
 plate, or horses, that they might make him acceptable 
 presents ; and assure him, that the King would con- 
 tribute largely towards the carrying on the building 
 of St. Peter's in the Vatican. 
 
 The most important thing about which they were The sub- 
 employed, was to procure the expediting of a bull the U b U u 
 which was formed in England, with all the strongest b" 1 ^. 
 clauses that could be imagined. In the preamble of Collect - 
 
 i - i ill , 1 T ! P 1 111 Numb. 10. 
 
 which all the reasons against the validity ot the bull 
 of P. Julius the Second were recited ; and it was also 
 hinted, " that it was against the law of God ; but to 
 lessen that, it was added, At least where there was 
 not a sufficient dispensation obtained : therefore the 
 Pope, to reward the great services by which the King 
 
 G 2
 
 84 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 had obliged the apostolic see, and having regard to 
 the distractions that might follow on a disputable 
 title ; upon a full consultation with the cardinals, hav- 
 ing also heard the opinions of divines and canonists, 
 deputed for his legate to concur with the Cardinal 
 of York either together, or (the one being hindered 
 or unwilling) severally. And if they found those 
 things that were suggested against the bull of P. Ju- 
 lius, or any of them, well or sufficiently proved, then 
 to declare it void or null, as surreptitiously procured 
 upon false ground; and thereupon to annul the marriage 
 that had followed upon it : and to give both parties 
 full leave to marry again, notwithstanding any appel- 
 lation or protestation, the Pope making them his vicars 
 with full and absolute power and authority; empower- 
 ing them also to declare the issue begotten in the for 
 mer marriage good and legitimate, if they saw cause 
 for it. The Pope binding himself to confirm what- 
 ever they should do in that process, and never to re- 
 voke or repeal what they should pronounce. Declar- 
 ing also that this bull should remain in force till the 
 process were ended, and that by no renovation or in- 
 hibition it should be recalled ; and if any such were 
 obtained, these are all declared void and null, and 
 the legates were to proceed notwithstanding : and all 
 ended with a full non obstante." 
 
 This was judged the utmost force that could be in 
 a bull, though the civilians would scarce allow any 
 validity at all in these extravagant clauses ; but the 
 most material thing- in this bull is, that it seems the 
 King was not fully resolved to declare his daughter 
 illegitimate. Whether he pretended this to mitigate 
 the Queen's or the Emperor's opposition, or did really 
 intend it, is not clear. But what he did afterwards 
 in parliament, shews he had this deep in his thoughts, 
 though the Queen's carriage did soon after provoke 
 him to pursue his resentments against her daughter. 
 The French King did also join a most earnest letter 
 of his to the Pope, which they were also to deliver. 
 They had likewise a secret instruction by all means 
 to endeavour that Cardinal Campegio should be the
 
 PART I. BOOK II. 85 
 
 legate : he had the reputation of a learned canonist, 
 and they knew he was a tractable man ; and besides 
 that he was bishop of Salisbury, the King- had obliged ^ ot - Pat - 
 him by the grant of a palace which the King was L g n. 10! 
 building in Burgo at Rome for his ambassadors ; 
 which, before it was finished, he had, by a patent, 
 given to him and his heirs ; so they had better hopes 
 of him than of any other. 
 
 By these ambassadors the Cardinal wrote a long The cardu 
 and most earnest letter to John Cassali, the proto- LiL'Tin 
 notary, that was the ambassador's brother. In which S, a t tter> 
 all the arguments that a most anxious mind could in- n*.u. 
 vent or dictate, are laid together to persuade the Pope 
 to grant the King's desires. Among other things, he 
 tells him, " How he had engaged to the King that 
 the Pope would not deny it ; that the King, both out 
 of scruple of conscience, and because of some diseases 
 in the Queen that were incurable, had resolved never 
 to come near her more ; and that if the Pope conti- 
 nued, out of his partial respects to the Emperor, to 
 be inexorable, the King would proceed another way." 
 He offers to take all the blame of it upon his own 
 soul, if it were amiss ; with many other particulars, 
 in which he is so pressing, that I cannot imagine what 
 moved the Lord Herbert, who saw those letters, to 
 think that the Cardinal did not really intend the di- 
 vorce.* He (it seems) saw another paper of their 
 instructions, by which they were ordered to say to the 
 Pope, that the Cardinal was not the author of the 
 counsel. But all that was intended by that, was only 
 to excuse him so far, that he might not be thought 
 too partial, and an incompetent judge : for as he was 
 far from disowning the justice of the King's suit, so 
 he would not have trusted a secret of that importance 
 to paper; which, when it should be known to the 
 King, would have lost him his favour. But undoubt- 
 edly it was concerted between the King and him, to 
 
 * See below, p. 118. where the King absolves Wolsey from the charge of 
 having suggested or much promoted the divorce : he certainly, however, ap- 
 peared very earnest to hasten the process at Rome, when he found the King 
 himself in earnest ; and was only backward probably whenever things seemed 
 to be taking a turn contrary to his own plans. N.
 
 86 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 remove an exception which otherwise the cardinals 
 of the imperial faction would have made to his being 
 the judge in that matter. 
 
 collect. With those letters and instructions were Gardiner 
 and Fox sent to Rome, where both the Cassalis* and 
 Staphileus were promoting the King's business all 
 they could. And being strengthened with the acces- 
 sion of those other two, they made a greater progress ; 
 so that in April the Pope did, in consistory, declare 
 
 campegio Cardinal Campegio legate, to go to England, that he, 
 with the Cardinal of York, might try the validity of 
 mb! 13. tne King's marriage ; but that Cardinal made great 
 excuses : he was then legate at Rome, in which he 
 had such advantages, that he had no mind to enter 
 in a business which must for ever engage either the 
 Emperor or the King against him. He also pretended 
 an inability to travel so great a journey, being much 
 isey subject to the gout. But when this was known in 
 To England, the Cardinal wrote him a most earnest letter 
 y 7. ver ' to hasten over, and bring with him all such things as 
 were necessary for making their sentence firm and irre- 
 versible, so that it might never again be questioned. 
 But here I shall add a remark which, though it is 
 of no great importance, yet will be diverting to the 
 reader. The draught of the letter is in Woisey 's se- 
 cretary's hand, amended in some places by his own ; 
 and concluded thus : " I hope all things shall be 
 done according to the will of God, the desire of the 
 King, the quiet of the kingdom, and to our honour, 
 with a good conscience." But the Cardinal dashed 
 out this last word, " with a good conscience ;" perhaps 
 judging that it was a thing fit for meaner persons, 
 but that it was below the dignity of two cardinals to 
 consider it much. He wrote also to Cassali high com- 
 pliments for his diligence in the step that was made, 
 but desired him with all possible means to get the bull 
 granted and trusted to his keeping, with the deepest 
 protestations, that no use should be made of it, but 
 
 * S. Greg. Cassali was not then at Rome, but at Orvieto, where the Pope 
 was at that time. Staphileus was not yet come; and when he came, he did 
 not promote but hindered the King's business all he could. See Gardiner's 
 Letters.
 
 
 K Grav foitp
 
 PART I. BOOK II. 87 
 
 that the King only should see it ; by which his mind 
 would be at ease, and he, being put in good hopes, 
 would employ his power in the service of the Pope 
 and apostolic see ; but the Pope was not a man to 
 be cozened so easily. 
 
 When the Cardinal heard, by the next dispatch, MV 23, 
 what excuses and delays Campegio made, he wrote 15 
 to him again, and pressed his coming over in haste : 
 " For his being legate of Rome, he desired him to 
 name a vice-legate. For his want of money and 
 horses, Gardiner would furnish him as he desired, and 
 he should find an equipage ready for him in France ; 
 and he might certainly expect great rewards from the 
 King. But if he did not make more haste, the King 
 would incline to believe an advertisement that was 
 sent him, of his turning over to the Emperor's party. 
 Therefore, if he either valued the King's kindness, or 
 were grateful for the favours he had received from him ; 
 if he valued the Cardinal's friendship or safety, or if 
 he would hinder the diminution of the authority of the 
 Roman church, all excuses set aside, he must make 
 what haste in his journey was possible." Yet the 
 Legate made no great haste, for till October following 
 he came not into England. The bull that was de- 
 sired could not be obtained, but another was granted, 
 which perhaps was of more force, because it had not 
 those extraordinary clauses in it. There, is the copy 
 of a bull to this purpose in the Cottonian library, 
 which has been printed more than once by some that 
 have taken it for a copy of the same bull that was sent 
 by Campegio ; but I take it to be rather a copy of 
 that bull which the Pope signed at Rome, while he The p op e 
 was there a prisoner, and probably afterwards at Or- Jj^J 
 vieto he might give it the date that it bears, 1527, bul1 : 
 December 17.* But that there was a decretal bull, te.*L 
 sent by Campegio, will appear evidently in the sequel H( 
 of this relation. About this time I meet with the 
 first evidence of the progress of the King's love to 
 
 * This was the third commission sent from the Pope. The first was sect 
 from Rome, by Gambara, and die second from Orvieto, brought OTer by Fox ; 
 but both were disliked ; so this was now obtained.
 
 88 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 Anne Boleyn, in two original letters of her's to the 
 Cardinal, from which it appears, not only that the 
 King had then resolved to marry her, but that the 
 Cardinal was privy to it. They bear no date, but the 
 matter of them shews they were written after the end 
 of May, when the sweating-sickness began, and about 
 the time that the Legate was expected. They give 
 such a light to the history, that I shall not cast them 
 over to the collection at the end, but set them down 
 here. 
 
 " MY LORD, 
 
 TWO utters J n m y most humblest wise that my heart can 
 Lien's think, I desire you to pardon me that I am so bold 
 to woisey. j. Q troupe y OU w ^ n m y s i m ple and rude writing, es- 
 teeming it to proceed from her, that is much desirous 
 to know that your Grace does well, as I perceive by 
 this bearer that you do. The which I pray God long 
 to continue, as I am most bound to pray ; for I do 
 know the great pains and troubles that you have taken 
 for me both day and night, is never like to be recom- 
 pensed on my part, but alonely in loving you next 
 unto the King's Grace, above all creatures living. 
 And I do not doubt that the daily proofs of my deeds 
 shall manifestly declare and affirm my writing to be 
 true, and I do trust you do think the same. My Lord, 
 I do assure you I do long to hear from you news of 
 the Legate : for I do hope and they come from you 
 they shall be very good ; and I am sure you desire 
 it as much as I, and more, and it were possible, as I 
 know it is not : and thus remaining in a steadfast 
 hope, I make an end of my letter, written with the 
 hand of her that is most bound to be. 
 A post-^ " The writer of this letter would not cease till she 
 the King's had caused me likewise to set to my hand ; desiring 
 tohim * you, though it be short, to take it in good part. I 
 ensure you there is neither of us but that greatly de- 
 sireth to see you, and much more joyous to hear that 
 you have scaped this plague so well, trusting the fury 
 thereof to be passed, specially with them that keepeth 
 good diet, as I trust you do. The not hearing of the 
 Legate's arrival in France, causeth us somewhat to
 
 PART I. BOOK II. 89 
 
 inuse ; notwithstanding, we trust, by your diligence 
 and vigilancy (with the assistance of Almighty God) 
 shortly to be eased out of that trouble. No more to 
 you at this time; but that I pray God send you as good 
 health and prosperity as the writer would. By your 
 Loving sovereign and friend, 
 
 HENRY K. 
 Your humble servant, 
 
 ANNE BOLEYN." 
 
 " MY LORD, 
 
 " In my most humble wise that my poor heart can 
 think, I do thank your Grace for your kind letter, and 
 for your rich and goodly present, the which I shall 
 never be able to deserve without your help : of the 
 which I have hitherto had so great plenty, that all the 
 days of my life I am most bound of all creatures, next 
 the King's Grace, to love and serve your Grace : of 
 the which I beseech you never to doubt that ever I 
 shall vary from this thought as long as any breath is 
 in my body. And as touching your Grace's trouble 
 with the sweat, I tjiank our Lord that them that I de- 
 sired and prayed for, are escaped, and that is the King 
 and you ; not doubting but that God has preserved 
 you both for great causes, known alonely of his high 
 wisdom. And as for the coming of the Legate, I de- 
 sire that much, and if it be God's pleasure, I pray 
 him to send this matter shortly to a good end, and 
 then I trust, my Lord, to recompense part of your 
 great pains. In the which I must require you in the 
 mean time to accept my good will, in the stead of the 
 power, the which must proceed partly from you, as 
 our Lord knoweth ; to whom I beseech to send you 
 long life, with continuance in honour. Written with 
 the hand of her that is most bound to be, 
 
 Your humble and obedient servant, 
 
 ANNE BOLEYN." 
 
 The Cardinal, hearing that Campegius had thecoiie. 
 decretal bull committed to his trust, to be shewed only Nl 
 to the King and himself, wrote to the Ambassador 
 that it was necessary it should be also shewed to
 
 90 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 some of the King's council ; not to make any use of 
 it, but that thereby they might understand how to 
 manage the process better by it. This he begged 
 might be trusted to his care and fidelity, and he un- 
 dertook to manage it so, that no kind of danger could 
 arise out of it. 
 
 The car. At this time the Cardinal, having finished his foun- 
 ctue'ges dations at Oxford and Ipswich, and finding they were 
 finished. vei y acceptable, both to the King and to the clergy, 
 resolved to go on and suppress more monasteries, and 
 erect new bishopricks, turning some abbeys to cathe- 
 drals. This was proposed in the consistory, and 
 Oct. so. granted, as appears by a dispatch of Cassali's. He 
 also spoke to the Pope about a general visitation of 
 all monasteries : and, on the 4th of November, the 
 bull for suppressing some was expected ; a copy 
 whereof is yet extant, but written in such a hand, 
 that I could not read three words together in any 
 place of it ; and though I tried others that were good 
 at reading all hands, yet they could not do it. But 
 I find by the dispatch, that the Pope did it with some 
 aversion ; and when Gardiner told him plainly, It 
 was necessary, and it must be done, he paused a little, 
 and seemed unwilling to give any further offence to 
 religious orders : but since he found it so uneasy to 
 gratify the King in so great a point, as the matter of 
 his divorce, he judged it the more necessary to mol- 
 More mo. \[fy hj m by a compliance in all other things. So 
 were to there was a power given to the two Legates to exa- 
 preed. mine the state of the monasteries, and to suppress 
 such as they thought fit, and convert them into bi- 
 shopricks and cathedrals. 
 The Em- While matters went thus between Rome and Eng- 
 
 peror op- . _ . ill 
 
 poses the land, the Queen was as active as she could be, to en- 
 " a g e ner two nephews, the Emperor and his brother, 
 to appear for her. She complained to them much of 
 the King, but more of the Cardinal ; she also gave 
 them notice of all the exceptions that were made to 
 the bull, and desired both their advice and assistance. 
 They, having a mind to perplex the King's affairs, 
 advised her by no means to yield, nor to be induced
 
 PART I. BOOK II. 91 
 
 to enter into a religious life ; and gave her assurance, 
 that by their interest at Rome, they would support 
 her, and maintain her daughter's title, if it went to 
 extremities. And as they employed all their agents at 
 Rome to serve her concerns, so they consulted with the 
 canonists about the force of the exceptions to the bull. 
 The issue to which was, that a breve was found out or A >ve 
 forged, that supplied some of the most material defects t a***, 
 in the bull. For whereas in the bull, the preamble SSHbl'w. 
 bore, that the King and Queen had desired the Pope's 
 dispensation to marry, that the peace might continue 
 between the two crowns, without any other cause 
 given : in the preamble of this breve, mention is made 
 of their desire to marry, " because otherwise it was 
 not likely that the peace would be continued between 
 the two crowns : and for that, and divers other rea- 
 sons, they asked the dispensation." Which in the 
 body of the breve is granted, bearing date the 26th 
 of December, 1503. Upon this they pretended that 
 the dispensation was granted upon good reasons ; 
 since by this petition it appeared, that there were 
 fears of a breach between the crowns, and that there 
 were also other reasons made use of, though they 
 were not named. But there was one fatal thing in 
 it. In the bull it is only said, that the Queen's pe- 
 tition bore, " That perhaps she had consummated her 
 marriage with Prince Arthur, by the carnalis copula''' 
 But in this perhaps is left out, and it is plainly said, 
 That they had consummated their marriage. This 
 the King's council, who suspected that the breve was 
 forged, made great use of when the question was 
 argued, whether Prince Arthur knew her or not? 
 Though at this time it was said, the Spaniards did 
 put it in on design, knowing it was like to be proved 
 that the former marriage was consummated ; which 
 they intended to throw out of the debate, since by 
 this it appeared, that the Pope did certainly know 
 that, and yet granted the breve ; and that therefore 
 there was to be no more inquiry to be made into that, 
 which was already confessed : so that all that was 
 now to be debated was the Pope's power of granting
 
 92 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 such a dispensation, in which they had good reason to 
 expect a favourable decision at Rome. 
 
 But there appeared great grounds to reject this 
 breve as a forged writing. It was neither in the re- 
 cor( j s Q f E n gi an d nor Spain, but said to be found 
 among the papers of D. de Puebla, that had been the 
 Spanish ambassador in England at the time of con- 
 cluding the match. So that if he only had it, it must 
 have been cassated, otherwise the parties concerned 
 would have got it into their hands; or else it was 
 forged since. Many of the names were written false, 
 which was a presumption that it was lately made by 
 some Spaniards, who knew not how to write the names 
 true. For Sigismund, who was secretary, when it 
 was pretended to have been signed, was an exact man, 
 and no such errors were found in breves at that time. 
 But that which shewed it a manifest forgery, was, that 
 it bore date the 26th of December, anno 1503, on the 
 same day that the bull was granted. It was not to 
 be imagined, that in the same day, a bull and a breve 
 should have been expedited in the same business, with 
 such material differences in them. And the style of 
 the court of Rome had this singularity in it; that in 
 all their breves, they reckon the beginning of the year 
 from Christmas-day ; which being the nativity of our 
 Lord, they count the year to begin then. But in their 
 bulls they reckon the year to begin at the Feast of the 
 Annunciation. So that a breve dated the 26th of 
 December, 1503, was, in the vulgar account, in the 
 year 1 502 : therefore it must be false ;* for neither was 
 Julius the Second, who granted it, then pope, nor was 
 the treaty of the marriage so far advanced at that time, 
 as to admit of a breve so soon. But allowing the breve 
 to be true, they had many of the same exceptions to 
 it that they had to the bull, since it bore that the King 
 desired the marriage, to avoid a breach between the 
 crowns ; which was false. It likewise bore, that the 
 
 * Dr. Lingard in his History of England, endeavours still to support the 
 genuineness of this breve, and asserts it to have been usual, in cases where 
 two dispensations were required, to employ in the last instrument the original 
 date, but he does not mention his authority for this, and seems at last to re- 
 solve the question, into a supposed blunder on the part of the Clerk. N.
 
 comes into 
 
 PART I. BOOK II. 93 
 
 marriage had been consummated between the Queen 
 and Prince Arthur, which the Queen denied was ever 
 done ; so that the suggestion in her name being-, as 
 
 i 
 
 she said, false, it could have no force, though it were 
 granted to be a true breve : and they said, it was plain 
 the Imperialists were convinced the bull was of no 
 force, since they betook themselves to such arts to 
 fortify their cause. 
 
 When Cardinal Campegio came to England, he 
 
 . , -ii 11- i i me n 
 
 was received with the public solemnities ordinary in England. 
 such a case ; and in his speech at his first audience, 
 he called the King " The deliverer of the Pope, and 
 of the city of Rome," with the highest compliments 
 that the occasion did require. But when he was ad- 
 mitted to a private conference with the King and the 
 Cardinal, he used many arguments to dissuade the 
 King from prosecuting the matter any further. This 
 the King took very ill, as if his errand had been rather 
 to confirm than annul his marriage ; and complained 
 that the Pope had broken his word to him. But the 
 Legate studied to qualify him, and shewed the decretal And she s 
 bull, by which he might see, that though the Pope the bu'u 8 
 wished rather that the business might come to a more 
 friendly conclusion, yet if the King could not be 
 brought to that, he was empowered to grant him all 
 that he desired. But he could not be brought to part K * refw s 
 with the decretal bull out of his hands, or to leave it MM to DM 
 for a minute, either with the King or the Cardinal, COUDcU> 
 saying, That it was demanded on these terms, that no 
 other person should see it ; and that Gardiner and the 
 Ambassador had only moved to have it expedited, and 
 sent by the Legate, to let the king see how well the 
 Pope was affected to him. With all this the King 
 was much dissatisfied ; but to encourage him again, 
 the Legate told him, he was to speak to the Queen in 
 the Pope's name, to induce her to enter into a reli- 
 gious life, and to make the vows. But when he pro- 
 posed that to her, she answered him modestly, that 
 she could not dispose of herself but by the advice of 
 her nephews. 
 
 Of all this the Cardinal of York advertised the Cas-
 
 94 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 wobey'a salis, and *ordered them to use all possible endea- 
 atRoZ 11 vours, that the bull might be shewn to some of the 
 mfhi'be Ding's council. Upon that (Sir Gregory being then 
 Zled. out of Rome) the Proto-notary went to the Pope, and 
 sISSs. complained that Campegio had dissuaded the divorce. 
 The Pope justified him in it, and said, he did as he 
 had ordered him. He next complained that the Legate 
 would not proceed to execute the legantine commis- 
 coiiect. s i on< The Pope denied that he had any order from 
 7 ' him to delay his proceedings, but that by virtue of his 
 commission they might go on and pass sentence. 
 Then the Proto-notary pressed him for leave to shew 
 the bull to some of the King's council, complaining 
 of Campegio's stiffness in refusing it, and that he 
 would not trust it to the Cardinal of York, who was 
 his equal in the commission. To this the Pope an- 
 swered in passion, that he could shew the Cardinal's 
 letter, in which he assures him, that the bull should 
 only be shewed to the King and himself; and that if 
 it were not granted, he was ruined ? therefore to pre- 
 serve him he had sent it, but had ordered it to be burnt 
 ,when it was once Shewed. He wished he had never 
 sent it, saying, he would gladly lose a finger to recover 
 it again, and expressed great grief for gran ting it: and 
 said, they had got him to send it, and now would have 
 it shewn, to which he would never consent, for then 
 he was undone for ever. Upon this, the Proto-notary 
 laid before him the danger of losing the King, and 
 the kingdom of England ; of ruining the Cardinal of 
 York, and of the undoing of their family, whose hopes 
 depended on the Cardinal; and that by these means, 
 heresy would prevail in England, which, if it once had 
 got footing there, would not be so easily rooted out; 
 that all persons judged the King's cause right, but 
 though it were not so, some things that were not good 
 must be borne with to avdid greater evils. And at 
 last he fell down at his feet, and in most passionate 
 expressions begged him to be more compliant to the 
 King's desires, and at least not to deny that small favour 
 But aii f shewing the decretal to some few counsellors, upon 
 m vain, the assurance of absolute secrecy. But the Pope in-
 
 PART I. BOOK II. 95 
 
 terruptedhim, and with great signs of an unusual griet 
 told him, these sad effects could not be charged on 
 him; he had kept his word, and done what he had 
 promised, but upon no consideration would he do any 
 thing that might wound his conscience, or blemish 
 his integrity: therefore let them proceed as they would 
 in England, he should be free of all blame, but should 
 confirm their sentence. And he protested he had 
 given Campegio no commands to make any delays, 
 but only to give him notice of their proceedings. If 
 the King, who had maintained the apostolic see, had 
 written for the faith, and was the defender of it, would 
 overturn it, it would end in his own disgrace. But at 
 last the secret came out : for the Pope confessed there 
 was a league in treaty between the Emperor and him- 
 self; but denied that he had bound himself up by it 
 as to the King's business. 
 
 The Pope consulted with the Cardinals Sanctorum 
 Quatuor and Simonetta (not mentioning the decretal 
 to them, which he had granted without communicat- 
 ing it to any body, or entering it in any register), and 
 they were of opinion that the process should be carried 
 on in England without demanding any thing further 
 from Rome. But the imperial Cardinals spake against 
 it, and were moving presently for an inhibition, and 
 an avocation of the cause to be tried at the court of 
 Rome. The Pope also took notice that the interces- 
 sion of England and France had not prevailed with 
 the Venetians to restore Cervia and Ravenna, which 
 they had taken from him ; and that he could not think 
 that republic durst do so, if these Kings were in 
 earnest. It had been promised that they should be 
 restored as soon as his Legate was sent to England ; 
 but it was not yet done. The Proto-notary told him, 
 it should most certainly be done. Thus ended that 
 conversation. But the more earnest the Cardinal was 
 to have the bull seen by some of the privy-council, the 
 Pope was the more confirmed in his resolutions never 
 to consent to it. For he could not imagine the desire 
 of seeing it was a bare curiosity, or only to direct the 
 King's counsellors ; since the King and the Cardinal
 
 93 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 could inform them of all the material clauses that were 
 in it. Therefore he judged the desire of seeing it 
 was only that they might have so many witnesses to 
 prove that it was once granted, whereby they had the 
 Pope in their power ; and this he judged too danger- 
 ous for him to submit to. 
 
 The Pope But the Pope finding the King and the Cardinal 
 cTmpana so ill satisfied with him, resolved to send Francisco 
 land" 8 Campana, one of his bed-chamber, to England, to re- 
 coiiect. move all mistakes, and to feed the King with fresh 
 ' hopes. In England, Campegio found still means by 
 new delays to put off the business, and amused the 
 King with new and subtle motions for ending the 
 New am. matter more dexterously. Upon which, in the begin- 
 seTuT 5 nm g f December, Sir Francis Brian and Peter Vannes, 
 Rome, the King's secretary for the Latin tongue, were sent 
 to Rome. They had it in commission to search all 
 the records there, for the breve that was now so much 
 talked of in Spain. They were to propose several 
 wuh other overtures : "Whether if the Queen vowed religion, 
 lres ' the Pope would not dispense with the King's second 
 marriage ? Or, if the Queen would not vow religion 
 unless the King also did it, whether in that case would 
 the Pope dispense with his vow ? Or whether, if the 
 Queen would hear of no such proposition, would not 
 the Pope dispense with the King's having two wives, 
 for which there were divers precedents vouched from 
 the Old Testament ?" They were to represent to the 
 Pope that the King had laid out much of his best 
 treasure in his service, and therefore he expected the 
 highest favours out of the deepest treasure of the 
 NulT'i cnurcn - And Peter Vannes was commanded to tell 
 the Pope as of himself, that if he did, for partial re- 
 spects and fears, refuse the King's desires, he per- 
 ceived it would not only alienate the King from him, 
 but that many other princes, his confederates, with 
 their realms, would withdraw their devotion and obe- 
 dience from the apostolic see. 
 
 two S thou. By a dispatch that followed them, the Cardinal 
 tried a new project, which was an offer of two thou- 
 Pope. sand men for a guard to the Pope, to be maintained
 
 PART I. BOOK II. 97 
 
 at the cost of the King and his confederates. And 
 also proposed an interview of the Pope, the Emperor, 
 the French King, and the ambassadors of other 
 princes, to be either at Nice, Avignon, or in Savoy, 
 and that himself would come thither from the King 
 of England. But the Pope resolved steadfastly to 
 keep his ground, and not to engage himself too much 
 to any prince ; therefore, the motion of a guard did 
 not at all work upon him. To have guards about him 
 upon another prince's pay, was to be their prisoner ; 
 and he was so weary of his late imprisonment, that he 
 would not put himself in hazard of it a second time. 
 Besides, such a guard would give the Emperor just 
 cause of jealousy, and yet not secure him against his 
 power. He had been also so unsuccessful in his con- 
 tests with the Emperor, that he had no mind to give 
 him any new provocation : and though the Kings of 
 England and France gave him good words, yet they 
 did nothing ; nor did the King make war upon the 
 Emperor ; so that his armies lying in Italy, he was still 
 under his power. Therefore the Pope resolved to The p op e 
 unite himself firmly to the Emperor ; and all the use ^'hL" 
 he made of the King's earnestness in his divorce, was ?? lf to the 
 
 o^ Emperor* 
 
 only to bring the Emperor to better terms. The 
 Lutherans in Germany were like to make great use 
 of any decision he might make against any of his pre- 
 decessor's bulls. The Cardinal Elector of Mentz had 
 written to him to consider well what he did in the 
 King's divorce ; for if it went on, nothing had ever 
 fallen out since the beginning of Luther's sect, that 
 would so much strengthen it as that sentence. He Being 
 was also threatened on the other side from Rome, that wi^ l d 
 the Emperor would have a general council called, and * re " s of 
 
 A. 1111 ., the I'pe- 
 
 whatsoever he did in this process, should be examined rial *<. 
 there, and be proceeded against accordingly. Nor 
 did they forget to put him in mind of his birth, that 
 he was a bastard, and so by the canon incapable of 
 that dignity, and that thereupon they would depose 
 him. He, having all these things in his prospect, and 
 being naturally of a fearful temper, which was at this 
 time more prevalent in him by reason of his late 
 
 VOL. I. H
 
 98 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 captivity, resolved not to run these hazards, which 
 seemed unavoidable if he proceeded farther in the 
 King's business. But his constant maxim being to 
 promise and swear deepest when he intended least, 
 he sent Campana to England with a letter of credence 
 to the Cardinal, the effects of which message will 
 appear afterwards. Arid thus ended this year, in 
 which it was believed, that if the King had employed 
 that money, which was spent in a fruitless negocia- 
 tion at Rome, on a war in Flanders, it had so dis- 
 tracted the Emperor's forces, and encouraged the 
 Pope, that he had sooner granted that, which in a 
 more fruitless way was sought of him. 
 j a n. 3, In the beginning of the next year, Cassali wrote to 
 1529 the Cardinal, that the Pope was much inclined to unite 
 himself with the Emperor, and proposed to go in person 
 to Spain, to solicit a general peace; but intended to go 
 privately, and desired the Cardinal would go with him 
 thither, as his friend and counsellor, and that they two 
 should go as legates. But C assail, by Salviati's means, 
 who was in great favour with the Pope, understood 
 that the Pope was never in greater fear of the Emperor 
 than at that time ; for his Ambassador had threatened 
 the Pope severely, if he would not recal the commis- 
 Reper , ts sion that he had sent to England ; so that the Pope 
 his gram. S p O ke oft to Salviati of the great repentance that he 
 
 ing the ii- n i l r t t 
 
 decretal, had inwardly in his heart, tor granting the decretal : 
 and said, He was undone for ever, if it came to the 
 Emperor's knowledge. He also resolved, that though 
 the Legates gave sentence in England, it should never 
 take effect, for he would not confirm it : of which Gre- 
 gory Cassali gave advertisement by an express mes- 
 King's senger, who as he passed through Paris, met Secretary 
 ^"J Knight and Doctor Bennet, whom the King had dis- 
 cardinai. patched to Rome, to assist his other ambassadors there, 
 arid gave them an account of his message : and that it 
 was the advice of the King's friends at Rome, that he 
 and his confederates should follow the war more vigo- 
 rously, and press the Emperor harder, without which 
 all their applications to the Pope would signify no- 
 thing. Of this they gave the Cardinal an account,
 
 PART I. BOOK II. 99 
 
 and went on but faintly in their journey, judging that 
 upon these advertisements they would be recalled, and 
 other counsels taken. 
 
 At the same time, the Pope was with his usual arts Jan. 9. 
 cajoling the King's agents in Italy : for when Sir Fran- 
 cis Brian and Peter Vannes came to Bononia, the pro- 
 tonotary Cassali was surprised to hear that the busi- 
 ness was not already ended in England; since, he said, 
 he knew there were sufficient powers sent about it, and 
 that the Pope assured him he would confirm their sen- 
 tence ; but that he made a great difference between 
 the confirming their judgment, by which he had the 
 Legates between him and the envy or odium of it, and 
 the granting a bull, by which the judgment should 
 arise immediately from himself. This his best friends 
 dissuaded ; and he seemed apprehensive, that in case 
 he should do it, a council would be called, and he 
 should be deposed for it. And any such distraction 
 in the papacy, considering the footing which heresy 
 had already gotten, would ruin the ecclesiastical state, 
 and the church : so dexterously did the Pope govern 
 himself between such contrary tides. But all this dis- 
 simulation was short of what he acted by Campana in 
 England, whose true errand thither was to order Cam- 
 pegio to destroy the bull ; but he did so persuade the 
 King and the Cardinal of the Pope's sincerity, that by 
 a dispatch to Sir Francis Brian, and Peter Vannes, and *> 
 Sir Gregory Cassali, he chid the two former for not 
 making more haste to Rome ; for he believed it might 
 have been a great advantage to the King's affairs, if 
 they had got thither before the General of the Obser- 
 vants (then Cardinal Angel). He ordered them to 
 settle the business of the guard about the Pope pre- 
 sently, and tells them that the Secretary was recalled, 
 and Dr. Stephens again sent to Rome : and in a letter 
 to Secretary Knight, who went no further than Lyons, 
 he writ to him, "That Campana had assured the King But fe 
 and -him in the Pope's name, that the Pope was ready 
 to do, not only all that of law, equity, or justice, could P romi 
 be desired of him, but whatever of the fulness of his 
 power he could do or devise, for giving the King con- 
 
 H 2
 
 100 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 tent: and that although there were three things which 
 the Pope had great reason to take care of; the calling 
 a general council, the Emperor's descent into Italy, 
 and the restitution of his towns, which were offered to 
 be put in his hands by the Emperor's means ; yet nei- 
 ther these, nor any other consideration, should divert 
 him from doing all that lay within his authority or 
 power for the King : and that he had so deep a sense 
 of the King's merits, and the obligations that he laid 
 on him, that if his resignation of the popedom might 
 do him any service, he would readily consent to it: 
 and therefore in the Pope ? s name he encouraged the 
 Legates to proceed and end the business." 
 
 Upon these assurances, the Cardinal ordered the 
 Secretary to haste forward to Rome, and to thank the 
 Pope for that kind message, to settle the guard about 
 him, and to tell him, that for a council, none could'be 
 called but by himself, with the consent of the Kings of 
 England and France. And for any pretended council, 
 or meeting of bishops, which the Emperor by the car- 
 dinals of his party might call, he needed not fear that : 
 for his towns, they should be most certainly restored. 
 Nor was the Emperor's offering to put them in his 
 hand to be much regarded ; for though he restored 
 them, if the Pope had not a better guarantee for them, 
 it would be easy for him to take them from him when 
 he pleased. He was also to propose a firmer league 
 between the Pope, England, and France; in order to 
 which, he was to move the Pope most earnestly to go 
 to Nice; and if the Pope proposed the King's taking 
 a second wife, with a legitimation of the issue which 
 she might have, so the Queen might be induced to 
 enter into a state of religion, to which the Pope inclined 
 most, he was not to accept of that ; both because the 
 thing would take up much time, and they found the 
 Queen resolved to do nothing, but as she was advised 
 by her nephews. Yet if the Pope offered a decretal 
 about it, he might take it, to be made use of as the oc- 
 casion might require. But by a postscript he is re- 
 called, and it is signified to him, that Gardiner was 
 sent to Rome to negociate these affairs, who had re-
 
 PART I. BOOK II. 101 
 
 turned to England with the Legate : and his being so 
 successful in his former message, made them think 
 him the fittest minister they could employ in that 
 court; and to send him with the greater advantage, 
 he was made a privy-counsellor. 
 
 But an unlooked-for accident put a stop to all pro- n p p 
 
 i < T-> TI T* i sickens. 
 
 ceedmgs in the court 01 Rome, ror on hpiphany- 
 day the Pope was taken extreme ill at mass, and a 
 great sickness followed, of which it was generally be- 
 lieved he could not recover; and though his distemper 
 did soon abate so much, that it was thought to be over, 
 yet it returned again upon him, insomuch that the phy- 
 sicians did suspect he was poisoned. Then followed 
 all the secret caballings and intrigues, which are ordi- 
 nary in that court upon such an occasion. The Co- 
 lonnas and the other Imperialists were very busy, but 
 the Cardinal of Mantua opposed them ; and Farnese, 
 who was then at his house in the country , came to Rome 
 and joined with Mantua ; and these of that faction re- 
 solved, that, if the Spanish army marched from Naples 
 to ward them, they would dispense with that bull which 
 provides that the succeeding Pope should be chosen in 
 the same place where the former died, and would re- 
 tire to some safe place. Some of the cardinals spoke 
 highly in favour of Cardinal Wolsey, whom (if the am- j an . ST. 
 bassadors did not flatter and lie grossly in their letters, 
 from which I draw these informations) they reverenced 
 as a deity. And the Cardinal of Mantua, it seems, 
 proposing him as a pattern, would needs have a par- 
 ticular account of his whole course of life, and ex- 
 pressed great esteem for him. When Gardiner was 
 come as far as Lyons, he wrote the Cardinal word, that 
 there went a prophecy that an angel should be the next 
 pope, but should die soon after. He also gave advice, 
 that if the Pope died, the commission for the Legates 
 must needs expire with him, unless they made some 
 step in their business by a citation of parties, which 
 would keep it alive; but whether this was done or not 
 I cannot find. The Cardinal's ambition was now fer- S^*i 
 menting strongly, and he resolved to lay his project j^ r 
 for the popedom better than he had done before. His 
 
 ;ues 
 the
 
 102 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 Feb. e. letter about it to Gardiner, and the King's instructions 
 to his ambassadors, are printed by Fox, and the ori- 
 ginals from which they are taken are yet extant. He 
 wrote also another letter to the ambassadors, which the 
 collect, reader will find in the Collection. But because the 
 ' instructions shew what were the methods in choosing 
 popes in those days, by which it may be easily ga- 
 thered how such an election must needs recommend 
 a man to infallibility, supremacy, and all the other ap- 
 pendages of Christ's Vicar on earth, I shall give a 
 short summary of them. 
 
 " By his letter to his confidant Gardiner, he com- 
 mits the thing chiefly to his care, and orders him to 
 employ all his parts to bring it to the desired issue, 
 sparing neither presents nor promises ; and that as he 
 saw men's inclinations or affections led them, whether 
 to public or private concerns, so he should govern him- 
 The King's self towards them accordingly. The instructions bear, 
 uon^for that the King thought the Cardinal the fittest person 
 the eiec- ^ succee( j to the papacy (they being advertised that 
 the Pope was dead) ; that the French King did also 
 of his own motion offer his assistance to him in it, and 
 that, both for public and private ends, the Cardinal 
 was the fittest. Therefore the ambassadors are re- 
 quired, with all possible earnestness and vigour, to 
 promote his election. A schedule of the cardinals' 
 names is sent them, with marks to every one, whether 
 he was like to be present or absent, favourable, in- 
 different, or opposite to them. It was reckoned there 
 could be but thirty-nine present, of which twenty-six 
 were necessary to choose the Pope. Of these the two 
 Kings thought themselves sure of twenty. So six was 
 all the number that the ambassadors were to gain, and 
 to that number they were first to offer them good rea- 
 sons, to convince them of the Cardinal's fitness for the 
 papacy. But because human frailty was such, that rea- 
 son did not always take place, they were to promise 
 promotions, and sums of money, with other good re- 
 wards, which the King gave them commission to offer, 
 and would certainly make them good : besides all the 
 great preferments which the Cardinal had, that should 
 
 tlOD.
 
 PART I. BOOK II. 103 
 
 be shared among those who did procure his election. 
 The cardinals of their party were first to enter into a 
 firm bond, to exclude all others. They were also to 
 have some creatures of their's to go into the conclave 
 to manage the business. Sir Gregory Cassali was 
 thought fittest for that service. And if they saw the 
 adverse party too strong in the conclave, so that they 
 could carry nothing, then Gardiner was to draw a pro- 
 testation, which should be made in the name of the 
 two crowns ; and that being made, all the cardinals 
 of their faction were to leave the conclave* And if 
 the fear of the Emperor's forces overawed them, the 
 ambassadors were to oifer a guard of two or three 
 thousand men to secure the cardinals ; and the French 
 King ordered his armies to move, if the Spanish troops 
 did move either from Naples or Milan. They were 
 also to assure them, that the Cardinal would presently 
 upon his election come and live at Rome, and were 
 to use all endeavours to gain the Cardinal de Medici 
 to their faction ; but at the same time to assure the 
 Florentines, that Wolsey would assist them to exclude 
 the Medici out of the government of their town and 
 state. They were also to have a strict eye upon the 
 motions of the French factions, lest, if the Cardinal 
 were excluded, they should consent to any other, and 
 refuse to make the protestation as it was desired. But 
 to oblige Campegio the more, it was added, that if 
 they found all hopes of raising the Cardinal of York 
 to vanish, then they should try if Campegio could be 
 elected ; and in that case the cardinals of their faction 
 were to make no protestation." 
 
 These were the apostolical methods then used for 
 choosing a successor to St. Peter ; for though a suc- 
 cessor had been chosen to Judas by lot, yet more cau- 
 tion was to be used in choosing one for the Prince of 
 the Apostles. But when the Cardinal heard that the 
 Pope was not dead, and that there was hope of his 
 recovery, he wrote another long letter to the ambas- 
 sadors (the original of which is yet extant), " to keep 
 all their instructions about a new pope very secret, to 
 be gaining as mahy cardinals as they could, and to
 
 104 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 take care that the cardinals should not go into the con- 
 clave, unless they were free and safe from any fears 
 Feb. 20. of the imperial forces. But if the Pope recovered, 
 po e s L P nT they were to press him to give such orders about the 
 ^ r ' c the King's business, that it might be speedily ended ; and 
 then the Cardinal would come and wait on the Pope 
 over to Spain, as he had proposed. And for the ap- 
 prehensions the Pope had of the Emperor's being 
 highly offended with him, if he granted the King's 
 desire, or of his coming into Italy, he needed not fear 
 him. They knew whatever the Emperor pretended 
 about his obligation to protect his aunt, it was only 
 for reason of state ; but if he were satisfied in other 
 things, that would be soon passed over. They knew 
 also that his design of going into Italy was laid aside 
 for that year, because he apprehended that France and 
 England would make war on him in other places. 
 There were also many precedents found, of dispensa- 
 tions granted by popes in like cases : and lately there 
 had been one granted by Pope Alexander the Sixth 
 to the King of Hungary, against the opinion of his 
 cardinals, which had never been questioned :" and 
 yet he could not pretend to such merits as the King 
 had. And all that had ever been said in the King's 
 cause was summed up in a short breviate by Cassali, 
 collect, and offered to the Pope ; a copy whereof, taken from 
 IT*"* 1 an original, under his own hand, the reader will find 
 in the Collection. 
 
 The King ordered his ambassadors to make as many 
 cardinals sure for his cause as they could, who might 
 bring the Pope to consent to it, if he were still averse. 
 But the Pope was at this time possessed with a new 
 jealousy, of which the French King was not free, as if 
 the King had been tampering with the Emperor, and 
 had made him great offers, so he would consent to the 
 divorce ; about which Francis wrote an anxious letter 
 to Rome, the original of which I have seen. The 
 Pope was also surprised at it, and questioned the am- 
 bassadors about it ; but they denied it, and said, the 
 union between England and France was inseparable, 
 and that these were only the practices of the Empe-
 
 PART I. BOOK II. 105 
 
 ror's agents to create distrust. The Pope seemed satis- 
 fied with what they said, and added, " That in the 
 present conjuncture a firm union between them was 
 necessary." Of all this Sir Francis Brian wrote a 
 long account in cipher. 
 
 But the Pope's relapse put a new stop to business; Th e pope> 
 of which the Cardinal being informed, as he ordered re 
 the King's agents to continue their care about his pro- 
 motion, so he charged them to see if it were " possible Ap r a 6. 
 to get access to the Pope, and though he were in the 
 very agony of death, to propose two things to him : 
 the one, that he would presently command all the Another 
 princes of Christendom to agree to a cessation of w^L. 
 arms, under pain of the censures of the church, as ^^ 29 . 
 Pope Leo and other popes had done ; and if he 
 should^ die, he could not do a thing that would be 
 more meritorious, and for the good of his soul, than to 
 make that the last act of his life. The other thing 
 was concerning the King's business, which he presseth 
 as a thing necessary to be done, for the clearing and 
 ease of the Pope's conscience towards God : and with- 
 al, he orders them to gain as many about the Pope, 
 and as many cardinals and officers in the Rota as 
 they could, to promote the King's desires, whether 
 in the Pope's sickness or health. The Bishop of Ve- 
 rona had a great interest with the Pope ; so by that, 
 and another dispatch of the same date (sent another 
 way), they were ordered to gain him. promising him 
 great rewards, pressing him to remain still about the 
 Pope's person, to balance the ill offices which Car- 
 dinal Angel and the Archbishop of Capua did, who 
 never stirred from the Pope : and to assure that 
 Bishop, that the King laid this matter more to heart 
 than any thing that ever befel him ; and that it would 
 trouble him as much to be overcome in this matter, 
 by these two friars, as to lose both his crowns : and 
 for my part (writes the Cardinal), I would expose any 
 thing to my life, yea life itself, rather than see the in- 
 conveniences that may ensue upon disappointing of 
 the King's desire." For promoting the business, the 
 French King sent the Bishop of Bayon to assist the
 
 106 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 English ambassadors, in his name, who was first sent 
 over to England, to be well instructed there. They 
 were either to procure a decretal for the King's divorce, 
 or a new commission to the two Legates, with ampler 
 clauses in it than the former had ; "To judge as if 
 the Pope were in person, and to emit compulsory let- 
 ters against any, whether emperor, king, or of what 
 degree soever, to produce all manner of evidences or 
 records, which might tend towards the clearing the 
 matter, and to bring them before them." This was 
 sought because the Emperor would not send over the 
 pretended original breve to England, and gave only 
 an attested copy of it to the King's ambassadors : lest, 
 therefore, from that breve a new suit might be after- 
 wards raised for annulling any sentence which the 
 Legates should give, they thought it needful to have 
 the original brought before them. In the penning 
 of that new commission, Dr. Gardiner was ordered 
 to have special care that it should be done by the best 
 advice he could get in Rome. It appears also from 
 this dispatch, that the Pope's pollicitation to confirm 
 the sentence which the Legates should give was then 
 in Gardiner's hands ; for he was ordered to take care 
 that there might be no disagreement between the date 
 of it and of the new commission. And when that was 
 obtained, Sir Francis Brian was commanded to bring 
 them with him to England. Or if neither a decretal 
 nor a new commission could be obtained, then, if any 
 other expedient were proposed, that upon good ad- 
 vice should be found sufficient and effectual, they were 
 to accept of it, and send it away with all possible 
 diligence. And the Cardinal conjured them, " By the 
 reverence of Almighty God, to bring them out of their 
 perplexity, that this virtuous Prince may have this 
 thing sped, which would be the most joyous thing that 
 could befal his heart upon earth. But if all things 
 should be denied, then they were to make their protes- 
 tations, not only to the Pope, but to the cardinals, of 
 the injustice that was done the King; and in the Car- 
 dinal's name to let them know, that not only the King 
 and his realm would be lost, but also the French King
 
 PART I. BOOK II. 107 
 
 and his realm, with their other confederates, would 
 also withdraw their obedience from the see of Rome, 
 which was more to be regarded than either the 
 Emperor's displeasure, or the recovery of two cities." 
 They were also to try what might be done in law 
 by the cardinals in a vacancy, and they were to take 
 good counsel upon some chapters of the canon law 
 which related to that, and govern themselves accord- 
 ingly, either to hinder an avocation or inhibition, or, 
 if it could be done, to obtain such things as they 
 could grant, towards the conclusion of the King's bu- 
 siness. At this time, also, the Cardinal's bulls for the The 
 bishoprick of Winchester were expedited ; they were " O a r l ' 
 rated high, at fifteen thousand ducats ; for though the 
 Cardinal pleaded his great merits, to bring the com- 
 position lower, yet the cardinals at Rome said the 
 apostolic chamber was very poor, and other bulls were 
 then coming from France, to which the favour they 
 should shew the Cardinal would be a precedent. But 
 the Cardinal sent word, that he would not give past 
 five or six thousand ducats, because he was ex- 
 changing Winchester for Duresme ; and by the other 
 they were to get a great composition. And if they 
 held his bulls so high he would not have them ; for 
 he needed them not, since he enjoyed already, by the 
 King's grant, the temporalities of Winchester ; which 
 it is very likely was all that he considered in a bishop- 
 rick. They were at last expedited, at what rates I 
 cannot tell ; but this I set down, to shew how severe 
 the exactions of the court of Rome were. 
 
 As the Pope recovered his health, so he inclined The p p* 
 more to join himself to the Emperor than ever, and jdnwuh" 
 was more alienated than formerly from the King and " O f 
 the Cardinal ; which perhaps was increased by the 
 distaste he took at the Cardinal's aspiring to the 
 popedom. The first thing that the Emperor did in 
 the King's cause, was to protest, in the Queen of w i> 
 England's name, that she refused to submit to the j^uhe 
 Legates. The one was the King's chief minister, and ^J 
 her mortal enemy ; the other was also justly suspected, sion - 
 since he had a bishoprick in England. The King's
 
 108 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 ambassador pressed the Pope much, not to admit the 
 protestation ; but it was pretended that it could not 
 be denied, either in law or justice. But that this 
 might not offend the King, Salviati, that was the 
 Pope's favourite, wrote to Campegio, that the protes- 
 tation could not be hindered, but that the Pope did 
 still most earnestly desire to satisfy the King, and that 
 the ambassadors were much mistaken, who were so 
 distrustful of the Pope's good mind to the King's 
 cause. But now good words could deceive the King 
 no longer, who clearly discovered the Pope's mind ; 
 and being out of all hopes of any thing more from 
 Rome, resolved to proceed in England before the Le- 
 gates : and therefore Gardiner was recalled, who was 
 thought the fittest person to manage the process in 
 England, being esteemed the greatest canonist they 
 had ; and was so valued by the King, that he would 
 collect, not begin the process till he came. Sir Francis Brian 
 imb ' 23 ' was also recalled ; and when they took leave of the 
 Pope, they were ordered to expostulate in the King's 
 name, " upon the partiality he expressed for the Em- 
 peror, notwithstanding the many assurances that both 
 the Legates had given the King, that the Pope would 
 do all he could toward his satisfaction ; which was 
 now so ill performed, that he expected no more jus- 
 tice from him. They were also to say as much as 
 they could devise in the Cardinal's name, to the same 
 purpose, upon which they were to try, if it were pos- 
 sible, to obtain any enlargement of the commission, 
 with fuller power to the Legates ;" for they saw it 
 was in vain to move for any new bulls or orders from 
 The Pope the Pope about it. And though Gardiner had ob- 
 notT e tained a pollicitation from the Pope, by which he 
 bmlo koth bound himself not to recall the cause from the 
 confirm u. Legates, and also to confirm their sentence, and had 
 sent it over ; they found it was so conceived, that the 
 Pope could go back from it when he pleased. So 
 there was a new draught of a pollicitation formed, 
 with more binding clauses in it, which Gardiner was 
 to try if he could obtain by the following pretence : 
 " He was to tell the Pope, that the courier to whom
 
 PART I. BOOK II. 109 
 
 he trusted it, had been so little careful of it, that it 
 was all wet and defaced, and of no more use ; so that 
 he durst not deliver it. And this might turn much to 
 Gardiner's prejudice, that a matter of such concern 
 was, through his neglect, spoiled : upon which he 
 was to see if the Pope would renew it. If that could 
 be obtained, he was to use all his industry to get as 
 many pregnant and material words added, as might 
 make it more binding. He was also to assure the 
 Pope, that though the Emperor was gone to Barce- 
 lona, to give reputation to his affairs in Italy, yet he 
 had neither army nor fleet ready ; so that they needed 
 not fear him. And he was to inform the Pope of the 
 arts he was using both in the English and French 
 courts to make a separated treaty ; but that all was 
 to no purpose, the two Kings being so firmly linked 
 together." But the Pope was so great a master in 
 all the arts of dissimulation and policy, that he was 
 not to be over-reached easily ; and when he under- 
 stood that his pollicitation was defaced, he was in his 
 heart glad at it, and could not be prevailed with to 
 renew it. So they returned to England, and Dr. The Le- 
 Bennet came in their place. He carried with him ^ to 
 one of the fullest and most important dispatches that the Poye - 
 I find in this whole matter, from the two Legates to 
 the Pope and the consistory, who wrote to them, collect. 
 " That they had in vain endeavoured to persuade Nl 
 either party to yield to the other ; that the breve being 
 shewed to them by the Queen, they found great and 
 evident presumptions of its being a mere forgery ; and 
 that they thought it was too much for them to sit and 
 try the validity or authenticalness of the Pope's bulls 
 or breves, or to hear his power of dispensing in such 
 cases disputed ; therefore, it was more expedient to 
 avocate the cause, to which the King would consent, 
 if the Pope obliged himself, under his hand, to pass 
 sentence speedily in his favour : but they rather ad- 
 vised the granting a decretal bull, which would put 
 an end to the whole matter ; in order to which, the 
 bearer was instructed to shew very 'good precedents. 
 But in the mean while, they advised the Pope to press
 
 110 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 the Queen most effectually to enter into a religious 
 life, as that which would compose all these differences 
 in the softest and easiest way. It pitied them to see 
 the rack and torments of conscience under which the 
 King had smarted so many years : and that the dis- 
 putes of divines, and the decrees of fathers, had so 
 disquieted him, that for clearing a matter thus per- 
 plexed, there was not only need of learning, but of a 
 more singular piety and illumination. To this were 
 to be added, the desire of issue, the settlement of the 
 kingdom, with many other pressing reasons : that as 
 the matter did admit of no further delays, so there 
 was not any thing in the opposite scale to balance 
 these considerations. There were false suggestions 
 surmised abroad, as if the hatred of the Queen, or 
 the desire of another wife (who was not perhaps yet 
 known, much less designed), were the true causes of 
 this suit. But though the Queen was of a rough 
 temper, and an unpleasant conversation, and was 
 passed all hopes of children ; yet who could imagine 
 that the King, who had spent his most youthful days 
 with her so kindly, would now, in the decline of his 
 age, be at all this trouble to be rid of her, if he had 
 no other motives? But they, by searching his sore, 
 found there was rooted in his heart, both an awe of 
 God, and a respect to law and order ; so that though 
 all his people pressed him to drive the matter to an 
 issue, yet he would still wait for the decision of the 
 apostolic see. Therefore, they most pressingly desire 
 the Pope to grant the cure which his distemper required, 
 and to consider that it was not fit to insist too much 
 on the rigour of the law : but, since the soul and life 
 of all the laws of the church was in the Pope's breast, 
 in doubtful cases, where there was great hazard, he 
 ought to mollify the severity of the laws ; which if 
 it were not done, other remedies would be found out, 
 to the vast prejudice of the ecclesiastical authority, 
 to which many about the King advised him : there 
 was reason to fear they should not only lose a King 
 of England, but a Defender of the Faith. The no- 
 bility and gentry were already enraged at the 'delay
 
 PART I. BOOK II. Ill 
 
 of a matter in which all their lives and interests were 
 so nearly concerned : and said many things against 
 the Pope's proceedings, which they could not relate 
 without horror. And they plainly complained, that 
 whereas popes had made no scruple to make and 
 change divine laws at their pleasure, yet one Pope 
 sticks so much at the repealing what his predecessor 
 did, as if that were more sacred, and not to be med- 
 dled with. The King betook himself to no ill arts, 
 neither to the charms of magicians, nor the forgeries 
 of impostors ; therefore they expected such an answer 
 as should put an end to the whole matter." 
 
 But all these things were to no purpose : the Pope cam 
 had taken his measures, and was not to be moved by {?* '' 
 all the reasons or remonstrances the Ambassador 
 could lay before him. The King had absolutely 
 gained Campegio to do all he could for him with- 
 out losing the Pope's favour. He led at this time 
 a very dissolute life in England, hunting and gam- 
 ing all the day long, and following whores all the 
 night : and brought a bastard* of his own over to 
 England with him, whom the King knighted : so 
 that if the King sought his pleasure, it was no 
 strange thing, since he had such a copy set him by 
 two Legates, who representing his Holiness so lively 
 in their manners, it was no unusual thing if a King 
 had a slight sense of such disorders. The King 
 wrote to his ambassadors, that he was satisfied ofApriio. 
 Campegio's love and affection to him, and if ever 
 he was gained by the Emperor's agents, he had said 
 something to him, which did totally change that 
 inclination. 
 
 The Imperialists, being alarmed at the recalling of e Em- 
 some of the English ambassadors, and being informed pTLs 
 by the Queen's means, that they were forming the 1^,,,, 
 process in England, put in a memorial for an avocation 
 
 * Campegio's son is, by Hall, none of his flatterers, said to have been born 
 in wedlock, i. e. before he took orders. This is also confirmed by Gauricus 
 Genitor. 24. who says, he had by his wife three sons and two daughters. [The 
 son who accompanied him to England was his second son, Ridolfo. The fact 
 of his having been married before he took orders, seems clearly established 
 see Dictwnnairc Historique, Art. Campegge (Laurent.) N.]
 
 112 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 of the cause to Rome. The ambassadors answered, 
 that there was no colour for asking it, since there was 
 nothing yet done by the Legates. For they had strict 
 orders to deny that there was any process forming in 
 England, even to the Pope himself in private, unless 
 he had a mind it should go on ; but were to use all 
 their endeavours to hinder an avocation, and plainly 
 in the King's name to tell the Pope, that if he granted 
 that, the King would look on it as a formal decision 
 which the against him. And it would also be an high affront 
 ZS," to the two Cardinals : and they were thereupon to 
 oppose protest, that the King would not obey, nor consider 
 the Pope any more, if he did an act of such high in- 
 justice, as, after he had granted a commission, upon 
 no complaint of any illegality, or unjust proceedings 
 of the Legates, but only upon surmises and suspicions 
 to take it out of their hands. But the Pope had not 
 yet brought the Emperor to his terms in other things ; 
 therefore, to draw him on the faster, he continued to 
 The pope's give the English Ambassador good words; and in 
 mufatl! discourse with Peter Vannes, did insinuate as if he 
 had found a means to bring the whole matter to a 
 good conclusion, and spoke it with an artificial smile, 
 adding, " In the name of the Father," &c. but would 
 not speak it out, and seemed to keep it up as a secret 
 collect, not yet ripe. But all this did afterwards appear to be 
 5 ' the deepest dissimulation that ever was practised. 
 And in the whole process, though the Cardinal 
 studied to make tricks pass upon him, yet he was 
 always too hard for them all at it ; and seemed as in- 
 fallible in his arts of juggling, as he pretended to 
 collect, be in his decisions. He wrote a cajoling letter to the 
 
 Cardinal ; but words went for nothing. 
 
 The rope Soon after this, the Pope complained much to Sir 
 
 o? the "HO*. Gregory Cassali, of the ill usage he received from 
 
 jST' tne French Ambassador, and that their confederates, 
 
 the Florentines, and the Duke of Ferrara, used him 
 
 so ill, that they would force him to throw himself into 
 
 the Emperor's hands : and he seemed inclined to grant 
 
 an avocation of the cause, and complained that there 
 
 was a treaty of peace going on at Cambray, in which
 
 PART I. BOOK II. 113 
 
 he had no share. But the Ambassador undertook that 
 nothing should be done to give him just offence ; yet 
 the Florentines continued to put great affronts on him 
 and his family ; and the Abbot of Farfa, their general, June is. 
 made excursions to the gates of Rome ; so that the 
 Pope, with great signs of fear, said, " That the Flo- 
 rentines would some day seize on him, and carry him 
 with his hands bound behind his back, in procession 
 to Florence : and that all this while, the Kings of 
 England and France did only entertain him with good 
 words, and did not so much as restrain the insolencies 
 of their confederates. And whereas they used to say, 
 that if he joined himself to the Emperor, he would 
 treat him as his chaplain ; he said with great commo- 
 tion, that he would not only choose rather to be his 
 chaplain, but his horse-groom, than suffer such injuries 
 from his own rebellious vassals and subjects." This 
 was perhaps set on by the Cardinal's arts, to let the 
 Pope feel the weight of offending the King, and to 
 oblige him to use him better : but it wrought a con- 
 trary effect, for the treaty between the Emperor and 
 him was the more advanced by it. And the Pope 
 reckoned that the Emperor being (as he was informed) 
 ashamed and grieved for the taking and sacking of 
 Rome, would study to repair that by better usage for 
 the future. 
 
 The motion for the avocation was still driven on, Grew 
 and pressed the more earnestly, because they heard ^"mlL 
 
 the Legates were proceeding in the cause. But the vocation 
 11 i ift June 83- 
 
 ambassadors were instructed by a dispatch from the collect. 
 
 King, to obviate that carefully ; for as it would reflect Nl 
 on the Legates, and defeat the commission, and be a 
 gross violation of the Pope's promise, which they had 
 in writing ; so it was more for the Pope's interest, to 
 leave it in the Legate's hands, than to bring it before 
 himself; for then, whatever sentence passed, the ill 
 effects of it would lie on the Pope without any inter- 
 position. And as the King had very just exceptions 
 to Rome, where the Emperor's forces lay so near, that 
 no safety could be expected there ; so they were to 
 tell the Pope that, by the laws of England, the pre- 
 
 VOL. 1. I
 
 114 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 rogative of the crown royal was such, that the Pope 
 could do nothing that was prejudical to it : to which 
 the citing the King to Rome, to have his cause decided 
 there, was contrary in a high degree. And if the 
 Pope went on, notwithstanding all the diligence they 
 could use to the contrary, they were, by another dis- 
 patch which Gardiner sent, ordered to protest and ap- 
 peal from the Pope as " not the true Vicar of Christ, 
 to a true Vicar." But the King upon second thoughts 
 judged it not fit to proceed to this extremity so soon. 
 They were also ordered to advertise the Pope, that all 
 the nobility had assured the King, they would adhere 
 to him, in case he were so ill used by the Pope, that 
 he were constrained to withdraw his obedience from 
 the apostolic see ; and that the Cardinal's ruin was 
 unavoidable, if the Pope granted the avocation. The 
 Emperor's agents had pretended they could not send 
 the original breve into England, and said their master 
 would send it to Rome, upon which the ambassadors 
 had solicited for letters compulsory, to require him to 
 send it to England ; yet, lest that might now be made 
 an argument by the Imperialists for an avocation, they 
 were ordered to speak no more of it, for the Legates 
 would proceed to sentence, upon the attested copy that 
 was sent from Spain. 
 
 The ambassadors had also orders to take the best 
 counsel in Rome about the legal ways of hindering an 
 avocation. But they found it was not fit to rely much 
 on the lawyers in that matter. For as, on the one 
 hand, there was no secrecy to be expected from any of 
 them, they having such expectations of preferments 
 from the Pope (which were beyond all the fees that 
 could be given them), that they discovered all secrets 
 to him ; so none of them would be earnest to hinder 
 an avocation, it being their interest to bring all matters 
 to Rome, by which they might hope for much greater 
 fees. And Salviati, whom the ambassadors had 
 gained, told them, that Campana brought word out of 
 England, that the process was then in a good forward- 
 ness. They with many oaths denied there was any 
 such thing, and Silvester Darius, who was sent express
 
 PART I. BOOK II. 115 
 
 to Rome for opposing the avocation, confirmed all that 
 they swore. But nothing was believed ; for, by a 
 secret conveyance, Campana had letters to the con- 
 trary. And when they objected to Salviati, what was 
 promised by Campana in the Pope's name, that he 
 would do every thing for the King " that he could do 
 out of the fulness of his power ;" he answered, " that 
 Campana swore he had never said any such thing." 
 So hard is the case of ministers in such ticklish nego- 
 tiations, that they must say and unsay, swear and for- 
 swear, as they are instructed, which goes of course as 
 a part of their business. 
 
 But now the Legates were proceeding in England : The Le- 
 of the steps in which they went, though a great deal be &,gi^d. w 
 already published, yet considerable things are passed 
 over. On the 31st of May, the King, by a warrant 
 under the great seal, gave the Legates leave to execute 
 their commission, upon which they sate, that same 
 day. The commission was presented by Lonerland, Ori e Jour - 
 
 i . \ * j . , 1-1 AJ ir> C 011 - Ub. 
 
 bishop ot Lincoln, which was given to the rroto- vitei. B. 
 notary of the court, and he read it publicly: then the 13 ' 
 Legates took it in their hands, and said, they were re- 
 solved to execute it : and first gave the usual oaths to 
 the clerks of the court, and ordered a peremptory cita- 
 tion of the King and Queen to appear on the 1 8th of 
 June, between nine and ten o'clock ; and so the court 
 adjourned. The next sessions was on the 18th of 
 June, where the citations being returned duly ex- 
 ecuted, Richard Sampson, dean of the chapel, and 
 Mr. John Bell, appeared as the King's proxies. But 
 the Queen appeared in person, and did protest against 
 the Legates as incompetent judges, alleging that the 
 cause was already avocated by the Pope, and desired 
 a competent time in which she might prove it. The 
 Legates assigned her the 2 1st, and so adjourned the 
 court till then. 
 
 About this time there was a severe complaint exhi- A Mvere 
 bited against the Queen in council, of which there is !!& 
 an account given in a paper, that has somewhat writ- Qae * n ' 
 ten at the conclusion of it with the Cardinal's own 
 hand. " The substance of it is, That they were in- 
 
 i 2
 
 116 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 formed some designed to kill the King or the Cardi- 
 nal ; in which, if she had any hand, she must not ex- 
 pect to be spared. That she had not shewed such 
 love to the King, neither in bed nor out of bed as she 
 ought. And now that the King was very pensive and 
 in much grief, she shewed great signs of joy, setting 
 on all people to dancings and other diversions. This 
 it seemed she did out of spite to the King, since it was 
 contrary to her temper and ordinary behaviour. And 
 whereas she ought rather to pray to God to bring this 
 matter to a good conclusion, she seemed not at all se- 
 rious ; and that she might corrupt the people's affec- 
 tions to the King;, she shewed herself much abroad, 
 
 O' ' 
 
 and by civilities, and gracious bowing her head, which 
 had not been her custom formerly, did study to work 
 upon the people; and that, having the pretended breve 
 in her hands, she would not shew it sooner. From all 
 which the King concluded that she hated him : there- 
 
 O 
 
 fore his council did not think it advisable for him to 
 
 be any more conversant with her, either in bed or at 
 
 board. They also in their consciences thought his life 
 
 was in such danger, that he ought to withdraw himself 
 
 from her company, and not suffer the Princess to be 
 
 with her. These things were to be told her, to induce 
 
 her to enter into a religious order, and to persuade her 
 
 to submit to the King." To which paper, the Car- 
 
 Quod dinal added in Latin, " That she played the fool, if she 
 
 fadt, S i contended with the King, that her children had not 
 
 c^lje, been blessed ; and somewhat of the evident suspicions 
 
 q wd male that were of the forgery of the breve." But she had 
 
 Mi sue- . 
 
 eessit in a constant mind, and was not to be threatened to any 
 f de'b^vi thing. On the 2 1st of June, the court sate ; the King 
 "cl^jai- an ^ Q ueen were present in person. Campegio made 
 titatis. a long speech of the errand they were come about :* 
 itdotlea " That it was a new, unheard of, vile, and intolerable 
 appear in thing, for the King and Queen to live in adultery, or 
 * mutt ra ther incest ;" which they must now try, and proceed 
 servant- as they saw just cause. And both the Legates made 
 
 deli sub- , J . _ , . , f i i 
 
 dito re- deep protestations ot the sincerity ot their minds, and 
 that they would proceed justly and fairly without any 
 favour or partiality.
 
 PART I. BOOK II. 117 
 
 As for the formal speeches which the King and 
 Queen made, Hall, who never failed in trifles, sets them 
 down, which I incline to believe they really spoke ; for 
 with the journals of the court I find those speeches 
 written down, though not as a part of the journal. 
 
 But here the Lord Herbert's usual diligence fails 
 him ; for he fancies the Queen never appeared after 
 the 1 8th, upon which, because the journal of the next 
 sessions are lost, he infers, against all the histories of 
 that time, that the King and the Queen were not in 
 court together. And he seems to conclude, that the 
 25th of June was the next session after the .1 8th, but 
 in that he was mistaken : for, by an original letter of collect, 
 the King's to his ambassadors, it is plain that both the Nl 
 King and Queen came in person into the court; where 
 they bothsate, with their counsel standing about them; 
 the Bishops of Rochester and St. Asaph, and Doctor 
 Ridley being the Queen's counsel. When the King 
 and Queen were called on, the King answered, 
 " Here ;" but the Queen left her seat, and went and 
 kneeled down before him, and made a speech, that had 
 all the insinuations in it to raise pity and compassion 
 in the court. She said, " She was a poor woman, and The 
 a stranger in his dominions, where she could neither 
 expect good counsel, nor indifferent judges ; she had 
 been long his wife, and desired to know wherein she 
 had offended him : she had been his wife twenty years 
 and more, and had borne him several children, and 
 had ever studied to please him ; and protested he had 
 found her a true maid, about which she appealed to 
 his own conscience. If she had done any thing amiss, 
 she was willing to be put away with shame. Their 
 parents were esteemed very wise princes, and no doubt 
 had good counsellors and learned men about them 
 when the match was agreed : therefore, she would not 
 submit to the court, nor durst her lawyers, who were 
 his subjects, and assigned by him, speak freely for 
 her. So she desired to be excused till she heard from 
 Spain." That said, she rose up, and made the 
 King a low reverence, and went out of the court. 
 And though they called after her, she made no an-
 
 118 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 swer, but went away, and would never again appeal- 
 in court. 
 
 The King She being gone, the King did publicly declare, what 
 ^oLtof a true and obedient wife she had always been, and 
 pu, 5 """ commended her much for her excellent qualities. 
 Then the Cardinal of York desired the King would 
 witness, whether he had been the first or chief mover 
 of that matter to him, since he was suspected to have 
 done it. In which the King did vindicate him, and 
 said, That he had always rather opposed it,* and pro- 
 tested it arose merely out of a scruple in his conscience, 
 which was occasioned by the discourse of the French 
 Ambassador ; who, during the treaty of a match be- 
 tween his daughter and the Duke of Orleans, did ex- 
 cept to her being legitimate, as begotten in an unlaw- 
 ful marriage : upon which he resolved to try the law- 
 fulness of it, both for the quiet of his conscience, and 
 for clearing the succession of the crown : and if it were 
 found lawful, he was very well satisfied to live still 
 with the Queen. But upon that, he had first moved 
 it in confession to the Bishop of Lincoln ; then he had 
 desired the Archbishop of Canterbury to gather the 
 opinion of the bishops, who did all, under their hands 
 and seals, declare against the marriage. This the 
 Archbishop confirmed, but the Bishop of Rochester 
 denied his hand was at it. And the Archbishop pre- 
 tended he had his consent to make another write his 
 name to the judgment of the rest, which he positively 
 denied. 
 
 The court adjourned to the 25th, ordering letters 
 monitory to be issued out for citing the Queen to ap- 
 
 * See before, p. 85. the King himself did not probably see very clearly the 
 drift of Wolsey's measures ; some of which, indeed, appear to have been studi- 
 ously concealed from him. See Strype's Memorials, and Turner's Modern History 
 of England, anno 1527. In Granger's corrections of Bumet, usually printed at the 
 end of the History of the Reformation, as having been submitted to Burnet him- 
 self, the King's declaration is judged to be a decided vindication of Wolsey, and 
 ' sufficient ground for Lord Herbert's suspicion, that the Cardinal did not really 
 intend the divorce, which occasioned some surprise to Burnet, as expressed p. 85. 
 The truth probably is, as Mr. Turner observes, that the Cardinal's " plan was to 
 have the credit and merit of pronouncing and producing the divorce himself ;" 
 p. 438. Whenever this plan was interrupted/his measures and conduct became 
 equivocal. Letters of the Cardinal, only recently brought to light, tend to shew 
 that he was the chief agent from the very beginning of things. See Turner's xxtb 
 chapter, B. 1.
 
 PART I. BOOK II. 119 
 
 pear, under pain of contumacy. But on the 25th was The 
 brought in her appeal to the Pope, the original of ^^ 
 which is extant, every page being both subscribed and 
 superscribed by her. She excepted both to the place, 
 to the judges, and to her counsel, in whom she could 
 not confide; and therefore appealed, and desired her 
 cause might be heard by the Pope, with many things 
 out of the canon law, on which she grounded it. This 
 being read, and she not appearing, was declared con- 
 tumax. Then the Legates being to proceed ex officio, 
 drew up twelve articles, upon which they were to ex- Article. 
 amine witnesses. The substance of them was, " That j' 
 Prince Arthur and the King were brothers ; that 
 Prince Arthur did marry the Queen, and consummated 
 the marriage; that upon his death, the King, by virtue 
 of a dispensation, had married her ; that this marrying 
 his brother's wife was forbidden both by human and 
 divine law ; and that upon the complaints which the 
 Pope had received, he had sent them now to try and 
 judge in it." The King's counsel insisted most on 
 Prince Arthur's having consummated the marriage, 
 and that led them to say many things that seemed in- 
 decent ; of which the Bishop of Rochester complained, 
 and said they were things detestable to be heard : but 
 Cardinal Wolsey checked him, and there passed some 
 sharp words between them. 
 
 The Legates proceeded to the examination of wit- upon 
 nesses, of which I shall say little, the substance of Te^^ 
 their depositions being fully set down, with all their examin - d - 
 names, by the Lord Herbert. The sum of what was 
 most material in them, was, that many violent presump- 
 tions appeared by their testimonies, that Prince Arthur 
 did carnally know the Queen. And it cannot be ima- 
 gined how greater proofs could be made twenty-seven 
 years after their marriage. Thus the court went on 
 several days examining witnesses; but as the matter 
 was going on to a conclusion, there came an avocation 
 from Rome : of which I shall now give an account. 
 
 The Queen wrote most earnestly to her nephews to dbg~ 
 procure an avocation ; protesting she would suffer any ^ t 
 thing, and even death itself, rather than depart from
 
 120 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 her marriage ; that she expected no justice from the 
 
 Legates, and therefore looked for their assistance, that 
 
 her appeal being admitted by the Pope, the cause 
 
 AII this might be taken out of the Legates' hands. Campegio 
 
 from^e did also give the Pope an account of their progress, 
 
 original an( ] by a u means advised an avocation ; for by this, he 
 
 letters, . J . . . . ITT" ITI 
 
 June 28 thought to excuse himselt to the King, to oblige the 
 My' Emperor much, and to have the reputation of a man 
 and 9. o f conscience. 
 
 The Emperor and his brother Ferdinand sent their 
 ambassadors at Rome orders, to give the Pope no rest 
 till it were procured ; and the Emperor said, He would 
 look on a sentence against his aunt as a dishonour to 
 his family, and would lose all his kingdoms sooner than 
 endure it. And they plied the Pope so warmly, that 
 between them and the English ambassadors, he had 
 for some days very little rest. To the one he was kind, 
 and to the other he resolved to be civil. The English 
 ambassadors met often with Salviati, and studied to per- 
 suade him, that the process went not on in England ; 
 but he told them their intelligence was so good, that 
 whatever they said would not be believed. They next 
 suggested, that it was visible Campegio's advising an 
 avocation was only done to preserve himself from the 
 envy of the sentence, and to throw it wholly on the 
 Pope : for were the matter once called to Rome, the 
 Pope must give sentence one way or another, and so 
 bear the whole burden of it. There were also secret 
 surmises of deposing the Pope, if he went so far ; for 
 seeing that the Emperor prevailed so much by the ter- 
 rors of that, the Cardinal resolved to try what opera- 
 tion such threatenings in the King's name might have. 
 But they had no armies near the Pope, so that big 
 v/ords did only provoke and alienate him the more. 
 
 The matter was such, that by the canon law it could 
 not be denied. For to grant an avocation of a cause 
 upon good reason, from the delegated to the supreme 
 court, was a thing which by the course of law was 
 very usual : and it was no less apparent that the rea- 
 sons of the Queen's appeal were just and good. But 
 the secret and most convincing motives, that wrought
 
 PART I. BOOK II. 121 
 
 more on the Pope than all other things, were, that The Pope 
 the treaty between him and the Emperor was now^["^ e 
 concerted : therefore this being to be published very ^P*- 
 speedily, the Pope thought it necessary to avocate 
 the matter to Rome, before the publication for the 
 peace ; lest, if he did it after, it should be thought 
 that it had been one of the secret articles of the treaty, 
 which would have cast a foul blot upon him. Yet, 
 on the other hand, he was not a little perplexed with 
 the fears he had of losing the King of England ; he 
 knew he was a man of a high spirit, and would resent 
 what he did severely. " And the Cardinal now again collect. 
 ordered Dr. Bennet, in his name, and as with tears in Nl 
 his eyes, lying at the Pope's feet, to assure him, that 
 the King and kingdom of England were certainly lost, 
 if the cause were avocated : therefore, he besought 
 him to leave it still in their hands, and assured him, 
 that for himself, he should rather be torn in pieces, 
 joint by joint, than do any thing in that matter con- 
 trary to his conscience or to justice." These things Yetisin 
 had been oft said, and the Pope did apprehend that 
 ill effects would follow ; for if the King fell from his 
 obedience to the apostolic see, no doubt all the Luthe- 
 ran princes who were already bandying against the Em- 
 peror, would join themselves with him ; and the inte- 
 rests of France would most certainly engage that King 
 also into the union, which would distract the church, 
 give encouragement to heresy, and end in the utter 
 ruin of the popedom. But in all this the crafty Pope 
 comforted himself, that many times threatenings are 
 not intended to be made good, but are used to terrify ; 
 and that the King, who had written for the faith against 
 Luther, and had been so ill used by him, would never 
 do a thing that would sound so ill, as, because he could 
 not obtain what he had a mind to. therefore to turn 
 heretic : he also resolved to caress the French King 
 much, and was in hopes of making peace between the 
 Emperor and him. 
 
 But that which went nearest the Pope's heart, of all 
 other things, was the setting up of his family at Flo- 
 rence: and the Emperor having given him assurance
 
 122 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 of that, it weighed down all other considerations. 
 Therefore, he resolved he would please the Emperor, 
 but do all he could not to lose the King: so on the 9th 
 of July, he sent for the King's ambassadors, and told 
 them, the process was now so far set on in England, 
 and the avocation so earnestly pressed, that he could 
 deny it no longer; for all the lawyers in Rome had told 
 him, the thing could not be denied in the common 
 course of justice. Upon this the ambassadors told him 
 what they had in commission to say against it, both 
 from the King and the Cardinal, and pressed it with 
 great vehemence : so that the Pope, by many sighs 
 and tears, shewed how deep an impression that which 
 they said made upon him ; he wished himself dead, 
 that he might be delivered out of that martyrdom : and 
 added these words, which, because of their savouring 
 so much of an apostolical spirit, I set down : " Woe 
 is me, nobody apprehends all those evils better than I 
 do. But I am so between the hammer and the forge, 
 that when I would comply with the King's desires, 
 the whole storm then must fall on my head ; and, 
 which is worse, on the church of Christ." They did 
 object the many promises he had made them, both by 
 word of mouth, and under his hand. He answered, 
 " He desired to do more for the King than he had pro- 
 mised ; but it was impossible to refuse what the Em- 
 peror now demanded, whose forces did so surround 
 him, that he could not only force him to grant him jus- 
 tice, but could dispose of him and all his concerns at 
 his pleasure." 
 
 The ambassadors, seeing the Pope was resolved to 
 grant the avocation, pressed against it no further, but 
 studied to put it off for some time : and therefore pro- 
 posed, that the Pope would himself write about it to 
 the King, and not grant it till he received his answer. 
 Of all this they gave advertisement to the King, and 
 wrote to him, that he must either drive the matter to 
 a sentence in great haste, or, to prevent the affront of 
 an avocation, suspend the process for some time. They 
 also advised the searching all the packets that, went 
 or came by way of Flanders ; and to keep up all Cam-
 
 PART I. BOOK II. 123 
 
 pegio's letters, and to take care that no bull might 
 come to England ; for they did very much apprehend 
 that the avocation would be granted within very few 
 days. Their next dispatch bore, that the Pope had July 26. 
 sent for them, to let them know that he had signed the 
 avocation the day before. But they understood an- The avo- 
 other way, that the treaty between the Emperor and 
 him was finished, and the peace was to be proclaimed 
 on the 1 8th of July ; and that the Pope did not only 
 fear the Emperor more than all other princes, but that 
 he also trusted him more now. On the 19th of July, collect. 
 the Pope sent a messenger with the avocation to Eng- Nl 
 land, with a letter to the Cardinal. To the King he 
 wrote afterwards. 
 
 All this while Campegio, as he had orders from the The P io- 
 Pope to draw out the matter by delays, so he did it IT&"** 
 very dexterously : and in this he pretended a fair ex- **&** 
 cuse. that it would not be for the King's honour to 
 precipitate the matter too much, lest great advantages 
 might be taken from that by the Queen's party. That, 
 therefore, it was fit to proceed slowly, that the world 
 might see with what moderation as well as justice the 
 matter was handled. From the 25th of June, the court 
 adjourned to the 28th, ordering a second citation for 
 the Queen, under the pains of contumacy, and of their 
 proceeding to examine witnesses. N And on the 28th, 
 they declared the Queen contumacious the second 
 time; and examined several witnesses upon the arti- 
 cles, and adjourned to the 5th of July : on that day 
 the bull and breve were read in court, and the King's 
 counsel argued long against the validity of the one, 
 and the truth of the other, upon the grounds that have 
 been already mentioned ; in which Campegio was 
 much disgusted to hear them argue against the Pope's 
 power, of granting such a dispensation in a matter 
 that was against a divine precept, alleging that his 
 power did not extend so far. This the Legates over- 
 ruled, and said, That that was too high a point for 
 them to judge in, or so much as to hear argued ; and 
 that the Pope himself was the only proper judge in 
 that : " and it was odds but he would judge favour-
 
 124 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 ably for himself." The court adjourned to the 12th, 
 and from that to the 14th. On these days the depo- 
 sitions of the rest of the witnesses were taken, and some 
 that were ancient persons were examined by a com- 
 mission from the Legates ; and all the depositions 
 were published on the 17th ; other instruments re- 
 lating to the process, were also read and verified in 
 court. On the 21st, the court sate to conclude the 
 matter, as was expected, and the instrument that the 
 King had signed when he came of age, protesting that 
 he would not stand to the contract made when he was 
 under age, was then read and verified. Upon which 
 the King's counsel (of whom Gardiner was the chief) 
 closed their evidence, and summed up all that had 
 AH things been brought ; and, in the King's name, desired sen- 
 forTs^ tence might be given. But Campegio, pretending 
 tence - that it was fit some interval should be between that 
 and the sentence, put it off till the 23d, being Friday ; 
 and in the whole process he presided, both being the 
 ancienter cardinal,* and chiefly to shew great equity ; 
 since exceptions might have been taken, if the other 
 had appeared much in it ; so that he only sate by him 
 for form : but all the orders of the court were still 
 directed by Campegio. On Friday there was a great 
 appearance, and a general expectation ; but, by a 
 strange surprise, Campegio adjourned the court to 
 tne 1 st of October, for which he pretended that they 
 sate there as a part of the consistory of Rome, and 
 therefore must follow the rules of that court, which, 
 from that time till October, was in a vacation, and 
 heard no causes : and this he averred to be true on 
 the word of a true prelate. 
 
 The King was in a chamber very near, where he 
 heard what passed, and was inexpressibly surprised 
 at it. The Dukes of Norfolk and Suffolk were in 
 court, and complained much of this delay ; and 
 pressed the Legates to give sentence. Campegio 
 
 * Campegio might take upon him to direct the process, as being sent ex- 
 press from Rome, or to avoid the imputation that might have been cast on the 
 proceedings, if Wolsey had done it ; but he was not the ancienter cardinal, 
 for Wolsey was made alone Sept. 7, lalo ; and Campegio, with many more, 
 was advanced July 1, 1517.
 
 PART I. BOOK II. 125 
 
 answered, that what they might then pronounce 
 would be of no force, as being in vacation-time ; but 
 gave great hopes of a favourable sentence in the be- 
 ginning of October. Upon which the lords spake 
 very high. And the Duke of Suffolk, with great com- 
 motion, swore " by the mass, that he saw it was true 
 which had been commonly said, That never cardinal 
 yet did good in England ;" and so all the temporal 
 lords went away in a fury, leaving the Legates (Wolsey wwch 
 especially) in no small perplexity. Wolsey knew it IST 
 would be suspected that he understood this beforehand, 
 and that it would be to no purpose for him, either to 
 say he did not know, or could not help it ; all apolo- 
 gies being ill heard by an enraged Prince. Campegio 
 had not much to lose in England but his bishoprick of 
 Salisbury, and the reward he expected from the King, 
 which he knew the Emperor and the Pope would plen- 
 tifully make up to him. But his colleague was in a 
 worse condition ; he had much to fear because he had 
 much to lose : for as the King had severely chid him woisey' 
 for the delays of the business, so he was now to expect danser " 
 a heavy storm from him ; and, after so long an admi- 
 nistration of affairs by so insolent a favourite, it was 
 not to be doubted, but as many of his enemies were 
 joining against him, so matter must needs be found to 
 work his ruin with a Prince that was alienated from 
 him : therefore, he was under all the disorders which 
 a fear that was heightened by ambition and covetous- 
 ness could produce. 
 
 But the King governed himself upon this occasion, 
 with more temper than could have been expected from 
 a man of his humour : therefore, as he made no 
 great show of disturbance, so, to divert his uneasy 
 thoughts, he went his progress. Soon after, he re- 
 ceived his agent's letter from Rome, and made Gar- 
 diner (who was then secretary of state) write to the 
 Cardinal, to put Campegio to his oath, whether he 
 had revealed the King's secrets to the Pope or not ? 
 And if he swore he had not done it, to make him 
 swear he should never do it. A little after that, the 
 messenger came from Rome with a breve to the Le-
 
 J26 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 gates, requiring them to proceed no further, and with 
 An g . *. an avocation of the cause to Rome ; together with 
 letters citatory to the King and Queen to appear there 
 in person, or by their proxies. Of which when the 
 King was advertised, Gardiner wrote to the Cardinal 
 by his order, That the King would not have the letters 
 citatory executed, or the commission discharged by 
 virtue of them ; but that upon the Pope's breve to 
 them, they should declare their commission void : for 
 he would not suffer a thing so much to the prejudice 
 of his crown, as a citation be made to appear in an- 
 other court, nor would he let his subjects imagine 
 that he was to be cited out of his kingdom. This 
 was the first step that he made for the lessening of 
 the Pope's power : upon which, the two Cardinals 
 (for they were legates no longer) went to the King at 
 Grafton. It was generally expected that Wolsey 
 should have been disgraced then, for not only the 
 King was offended with him, but he received new in- 
 formations of his having juggled in the business, and 
 that he secretly advised the Pope to do what was 
 done. This was set about by some of the Queen's 
 agents, as if there was certain knowledge had of it 
 at Rome ; and it was said, that some letters of his to 
 the Pope were by a trick found and brought over to 
 England. The Emperor looked on the Cardinal as 
 his inveterate enemy, and designed to ruin him if it 
 was possible ; nor was it hard to persuade the Queen 
 to concur with him to pull him down. But all this 
 seems an artifice of their's only to destroy him. For 
 the earnestness the Cardinal expressed in this matter 
 was such, that either he was sincere in it, or he was 
 the best at dissembling that ever was. But these 
 suggestions were easily infused in the King's angry 
 mind : so strangely are men turned by their affections, 
 that sometimes they will believe nothing, and at other 
 times they believe every thing. Yet when the Car- 
 dinal with his colleague came to court, they were re- 
 ceived by the King with very hearty expressions of 
 kindness ; and Wolsey was often in private with him, 
 sometimes in presence of the council, and sometimes
 
 PART I. BOOK II. 127 
 
 alone : once he was many hours with the King alone, 
 and when they took leave he sent them away very 
 obligingly. But that which gave Cardinal Wolsey sept. 23, 
 the most assurance was, that all those who were ad- ^^ r 
 mitted to the King's privacies, did carry themselves j^ 1 ' 
 towards him as they were wont to do ; both the Duke ^y 
 of Suffolk, Sir Thomas Boleyn, then made viscount 
 of Rochford, Sir Brian Tuke, and Gardiner ; conclud- 
 ing, that from the motions of such weathercocks the 
 air of the Prince's affections was best gathered. 
 
 Anne Boleyn was now brought to -the court again, Anne 
 out of which she had been dismissed for some time, for f e ^ 
 silencing the noise that her being at court during the to court - 
 process would have occasioned. It is said, that she 
 took her dismission so ill, that she resolved never 
 again to return ; and that she was very hardly brought 
 to it afterwards, not without threatenings from her 
 father. But of that nothing appears to me ; only this 
 I find, that all her former kindness to the Cardinal 
 was now turned to enmity, so that she was not want- 
 ing in her endeavours to pull him down. 
 
 But the King being reconciled to her, and, as it is 
 ordinary after some intermission and disorder between 
 lovers, his affection increasing, he was casting about 
 for overtures how to compass what he so earnestly 
 desired. Sometimes he thought of procuring a new 
 commission : but that was not advisable, for after a 
 long dependance it might end as the former had done. 
 Then he thought of breaking off with the Pope ; but 
 there was great danger in that, for besides that in his 
 own persuasion, he adhered to all the most important 
 parts of the Roman religion, his subjects were so ad- 
 dicted to it, that any such a change could not but 
 seem full of hazard. Sometime he inclined to con- 
 federate himself with the Pope and Emperor, for now 
 there was no dividing of them, till he should thereby 
 bring the Emperor to yield to his desires. But that 
 was against the interests of his kingdom, and the 
 Emperor had already proceeded so far in his opposi- 
 tion, that he could not be easily brought about. 
 
 While his thoughts were thus divided, a new pro-
 
 divorce. 
 
 128 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 cranmer-s position was made to him, that seemed the most rea- 
 uTabout sonable and feasible of them all. There was one 
 the King's j) r Cranmer, who had been a Fellow of Jesus College 
 in Cambridge ; but having married, forfeited his fel- 
 lowship ; yet continued his studies, and was a reader 
 of divinity in Buckingham College. His wife dying, 
 he was again chosen Fellow of Jesus College ; and 
 was much esteemed in the university for his learning, 
 which appeared very eminently on all public occasions. 
 But he was a man that neither courted preferment, nor 
 did willingly accept of it when offered. And there- 
 fore, though he was invited to be a reader of divinity 
 in the Cardinal's College, at Oxford, he declined it. 
 He was at this time forced to fly out of Cambridge 
 from a plague that was there, and having the sons of 
 one Mr. Cressy, of Waltham Cross, committed to his 
 charge, he went with his pupils to their father's house 
 at Waltham. There he was when the King returned 
 from his progress, who took Waltham in his way, and 
 lay a night there. The harbingers having appointed 
 Gardiner and Fox, the King's secretary and almoner, 
 to lie at Mr. Cressy 's house, it so happened that 
 Cranmer was with them at supper. The whole dis- 
 course of England being then about the divorce, these 
 two courtiers, knowing Cranmer's learning and solid 
 judgment, entertained him with it, and desired to hear 
 his opinion concerning it. He modestly declined it; 
 but told them, that he judged it would be a shorter 
 and safer way once to clear it well, if the marriage 
 was unlawful in itself, by virtue of any divine precept : 
 for if that were proved, then it was certain, that the 
 Pope's dispensation could be of no force to make that 
 lawful, which God had declared to be unlawful. 
 Therefore he thought that, instead of a long fruitless 
 negotiation at Rome, it were better to consult all the 
 learned men, and the universities of Christendom; for 
 if they once declared it in the King's favour, then the 
 Pope must needs give judgment ; or otherwise, the 
 bull being of itself null and void, the marriage would 
 be found sinful, notwithstanding the Pope's dispensa- 
 tion. This seemed a very good motion, which they
 
 C, Fiiccm [>
 
 PART I. BOOK II. 129 
 
 resolved to offer to the King ; so next night, when he 
 came to Greenwich, they proposed it to him ; but with 
 this difference, that Gardiner had a mind to make it 
 pass for their own contrivance ; but Fox, who was of 
 a more ingenuous nature told the King from whom 
 they had it. He was much affected with it, so soon Approved 
 as he heard it, and said, had he known it sooner, it ^4* 
 would have saved him a vast expense and much 
 trouble ; and would needs have Cranmer sent for to 
 court, saying, in his coarse way of speaking, " That 
 he had the sow by the right ear." So he was sent 
 for to court, and being brought before the King, he 
 carried himself so, that the King conceived a high 
 opinion of his judgment and candour, which he pre- 
 served to his death, and still paid a respect to him, 
 beyond all the other churchmen that were about him : 
 and though he made more use of Gardiner in his 
 business, whom he found a man of great dexterity 
 and cunning ; yet he never had any respect for him : 
 but for Cranmer, though the King knew that in many 
 things he differed from him, yet, for all his being so 
 impatient of contradiction, he always reverenced him. 
 
 He was soon looked on as a rising churchman, and And he 
 the rather because the Cardinal was now declining; for ^ eme ,\ 
 in the following Michaelmas term, the King sent for by kim< 
 the great seal, which the Cardinal at first was not will- 
 ing to part with. But the next day the King wrote to The c ar 
 him, and he presently delivered it to the Dukes of j^'" 
 Norfolk and Suffolk. It was offered back again to 
 Warham, archbishop of Canterbury ; but he being 
 very old, and foreseeing great difficulties in the keep- 
 ing of it, excused himself. So it was given to Sir 
 Thomas More, who was not only eminent in his own 
 profession, but in all other learning ; and was much 
 esteemed for the strictness of his life, and his contempt 
 of money. He was also the more fit to be made use 
 of, having been in ill terms with the Cardinal. Soon 
 after, Hales, the attorney-general, put in an informa- 
 tion against the Cardinal in the King's Bench ; bear- 
 ing, " that notwithstanding the statute of Richard II. 
 against the procuring bulls from Rome, under the 
 
 VOL. r. K
 
 130 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 pains of premunire, yet he had procured bulls for his 
 legantine power, which he had for many years exe- 
 cuted ; and some particulars, for form, were named 
 out of a great many more." To this he put in his an- 
 swer, by his attorney, and confessed the indictment, 
 but pleaded his ignorance of the statute, and submitted 
 himself to the King's mercy. Upon this it was de- 
 clared, that he was out of the King's protection, and 
 that he had forfeited his goods and chattels to the 
 King, and that his person might be seized on. Then 
 was his rich palace of York House (now Whitehall), 
 with all that vast wealth and royal furniture that he 
 had heaped together (which was beyond any thing 
 that had ever been seen in England before), seized on 
 for the King.* But it seems the King had not a mind 
 to destroy him outright, but only to bring him lower, 
 and to try if the terror of that would have any influ- 
 Roi. Pat. ence on fl^ p pe : therefore, on the 21st of Novem- 
 vices. ber, the King granted him first his protection, and 
 Regni. then his pardon, and restored him to the archbishop- 
 Feb.ia. r j c k o f York, and the bishoprick of Winchester, and 
 gave him back in money, goods, and plate, that which 
 amounted to 6374/. 3s. 7d. and many kind messages 
 were sent him, both by the King and Anne Boleyn. 
 
 The mean. B u j- as ne h a( j carried his greatness with most extra- 
 ness of his . . . ill 
 
 temper, vagant pride, so he was no less basely cast down with 
 his misfortune ; and having no ballast within himself, 
 but being wholly guided by things without him, he 
 was lifted up, or cast down, as the scales of fortune 
 turned : yet his enemies had gone too far, ever to suifer 
 a man of his parts or temper to return to favour. And 
 therefore they so ordered it, that a high charge of many 
 articles was brought against him, into the House of 
 Lords, in the parliament that sate in November follow- 
 ing; and it passed there, where he had but few friends, 
 and many and great enemies. But when the charge 
 was sent down to the House of Commons, it was so 
 managed by the industry of Cromwell, who had been 
 
 * The house of his see could not be forfeited, or seized; it was conveyed 
 over by him to the King (the conveyance confirmed by the dean and chapter 
 of York). See his Life by Cavendish, chap. 18.
 
 PART I. BOOK II. 131 
 
 his servant, that it came to nothing. The heads of 
 it have been oft printed, therefore I shall not repeat 
 them ; they related chiefly to his legantine power, con- 
 trary to law, to his insolence and ambition, his lewd 
 life, and other things that were brought to defame as 
 well as destroy him. 
 
 All these things did so sink his proud mind, that 
 a deep melancholy overcame his spirits. The King The Km : 
 sent him frequent assurances of his favour, which he *"" r ^~ 
 received with extravagant transports of joy, falling ^m. 
 down on his knees in the dirt before the messenger 
 that brought one of them, and holding up his hands 
 for joy, which shewed how mean a soul he had, and 
 that, as himself afterwards acknowledged, " He pre- 
 ferred the King's favour to God Almighty's." But 
 the King found they took little notice of him at 
 Rome ; the Emperor hated him, and the Pope did 
 not love him, looking on him as one that was almost 
 equal to himself in power : and though they did not 
 love the precedent to have a cardinal so used, yet 
 they were not much troubled at Rome to see it fall 
 on him. So in Easter week, he was ordered to go 
 north, though he had a great mind to have stayed at 
 Richmond. But that was too near the court, and his 
 enemies had a mind to send him further from it. 
 Accordingly he went to Cawood in Yorkshire, in 
 which journey it appears, that the ruins of his state 
 were considerable, for he travelled thither with one 
 hundred and sixty horse in his train, and seventy-two 
 carts following him, with his household stuff. 
 
 To conclude his story all at once, he was, in No- n e .-, 
 vember the next year, seized on by the Earl of Nor- *['! 
 thumberland, who attached him for high treason, and for | rea - 
 committed him to the keeping of the Lieutenant of 
 the Tower, who was ordered to bring him up to Lon- 
 don. And even then he had gracious messages from 
 the King ; but these did not work much on him, for 
 whether it was that he knew himself guilty of some 
 ' secret practices with the Pope, or with the Emperor, 
 which yet he denied to the last; or, whether he could 
 no longer stand under the King's displeasure, and 
 
 K2 
 
 afterwards 
 ached
 
 132 BURNET'S REFORMATION 
 
 that change of condition ; he was so cast down, that, 
 on his way to London, he sickened at Sheffield Park, 
 in the Earl of Shrewsbury's house, from whence, by 
 slow journeys, he went as far as Leicester, where after 
 some days' languishing he died; and at the last, made 
 great " protestations of his having served the King 
 faithfully, and that he had little regarded the service 
 of God, to do him pleasure ; but if he had served God 
 as he had done him, he would not have given mm 
 over so, as he did in his gray hairs. And he desired 
 the King to reflect on all his past services, and in 
 particular, in his weighty matter (for by that phrase, 
 they usually spoke of the King's divorce), and then 
 he would find in his conscience whether he had of- 
 
 Anddies. fended him or not." He died the 29th of Novemoer, 
 1 530, and was the greatest instance that several ages 
 had shewn of the variety and inconstancy of human 
 things, both in his rise and fall ; and by his temper 
 in both, it appears he was unworthy of his greatness, 
 and deserved what he suffered. But to conclude all 
 that is to be said of him, I shall add what the writer 
 
 iiischa- of his life ends it with : " Here is the end and fall of 
 pride and arrogance, for I assure you, in his time, he 
 was the haughtiest man in all his proceedings alive, 
 having more respect to the honour of his person, than 
 he had to his spiritual profession, wherein should be 
 shewed all meekness and charity." 
 
 Ham^' ^ U * now W ^ *^ e c h an g e f thi- s great minister, 
 caiTed! there followed a change of counsels, and therefore the 
 King resolved to hold a parliament, that he might 
 meet his people, and establish such a good under- 
 standing between himself and them, that he might 
 have all secured at home ; and he then resolved to 
 proceed more confidently abroad. There had been 
 no parliament for seven years, but the blame of 
 that, and of every other miscarriage, falling natu- 
 rally on the disgraced minister, he did not doubt, that 
 he should be able to give his people full satisfaction 
 in that, and in every thing else. So a parliament was ' 
 summoned to meet the 3d of November. And there, 
 among several other laws that were made for the pub-
 
 PART I. BOOK II. 133 
 
 lie good of the kingdom, there were bills sent up by 
 the House of Commons, against some of the most ex- 
 orbitant abuses of the clergy : one was against the ex- 
 actions for the probates of wills ; another was for the 
 regulating of mortuaries ; a third was about the plu- 
 rality of benefices, and non-residence, and churchmen's 
 being farmers of lands. In the passing of these bills, 
 there were severe reflections made on the vices and 
 corruptions of the clergy of that time, which were be- 
 lieved to flow from men that favoured Luther's doc- 
 trine in their hearts. 
 
 When these bills were brought up to the House of 
 Lords, the Bishop of Rochester speaking to them, did aii. 
 reflect on the House of Commons : saying, That they 
 were resolved to bring down the church, and he de- 
 sired they would consider the miserable state of the 
 kingdom of Bohemia, to which it was reduced by he- 
 resy, and ended, " That all this was for lack of faith." 
 But this being afterwards known to the House ofTheiio 
 Commons, they sent their speaker, Sir Thomas Audley, monsTo 
 with thirty of their members, to complain to the King jjjf 
 of the Bishop of Rochester, for saying that their acts f * 
 flowed from the want of faith, which was a high im- c 
 putation on the whole nation, when the represen- 
 tative of the Commons was so charged, as if they had 
 been infidels and heathens. This was set on by the 
 court to mortify that Bishop, who was unacceptable 
 to them, for his adhering so firmly to the Queen's 
 cause. The King sent for the Archbishop of Can- 
 terbury and six other bishops, and before them told 
 the complaint of the Commons. But the Bishop of 
 Rochester excused himself, and said, he only meant 
 of the kingdom of Bohemia, when he said " all flowed 
 from the want of faith," and did not at all intend the 
 House of Commons. This explanation the King sent 
 by the treasurer of his household, Sir William Fitz- 
 Williams. But though the matter was passed over, yet 
 they were not at all satisfied with it; so that they went 
 on, laying open the abuses of the clergy. 
 
 In the House of Peers great opposition was made 
 to the bills, and the clergy both within and without
 
 134 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 some bills doors did defame them, and said, these were the or- 
 
 reTrm'iog dinary beginnings of heresy, to complain of abuses, 
 
 o^the 115 " an( ^ P rete nd reformation, on purpose to disgrace the 
 
 clergy, clergy, from which heresy took its chief strength. 
 
 And the spiritual lords did generally oppose them, 
 
 the temporal lords being no less earnest to have them 
 
 passed. The Cardinal was admitted to sit in the 
 
 House, where he shewed himself as submissive in his 
 
 fawning, as he had formerly done in his scorn and 
 
 contempt of all who durst oppose him. But the King 
 
 set the bills forward, and in the end they were agreed 
 
 to by the lords, and had the royal assent. 
 
 The King intended by this to let the Pope see what 
 he could do if he went on to offend him, and how 
 willingly his parliament would concur with him, if 
 he went to extremities. He did also endear himself 
 much to the people, by relieving them from the op- 
 pressions of the clergy. But the clergy lost much by 
 this means, for these acts did not only lessen their pre- 
 sent profits, but did open the way for other things 
 that were more to their detriment afterwards. Their 
 opposing of this, and all other motions for reforma- 
 tion, did very much increase the prejudices that were 
 conceived against them : whereas, if such motions 
 had either risen from themselves, or had at least been 
 cherished by them, their adversaries had not perhaps 
 been so favourably heard : so fatally did they mistake 
 their true interest, when they thought they were con- 
 cerned to link with it all abuses and corruptions. 
 one a But there passed another bill in this parliament, 
 togth?" which was not printed with the other statutes, but 
 his'debL which will be found in tlie Collection of Instruments 
 collect, at the end. The bill bore in a preamble the highest 
 ' flattery that could be put in paper, of the great things 
 the King had done for the church and nation, in which 
 he had been at vast charges ; and that divers of the 
 subjects had lent great sums of money, which had 
 been all well employed in the public service ; and 
 whereas, they had security for their payment, the par- 
 liament did offer all these sums so lent to the King, 
 and discharged him of all the obligations or assigna-
 
 PART L BOOK II. 135 
 
 tions made for their payment, and of all suits that 
 might arise thereupon. 
 
 This was brought into the House by the King's ser- 
 vants, who enlarged much on the wealth and peace of 
 the nation, notwithstanding the wars, the King always 
 making his enemies' country the scene of them; and 
 shewed that, for fourteen years, the King had but one 
 subsidy from his people ; that now he asked nothing 
 for any other purpose, but only to be discharged of a 
 debt contracted for the public, the accounts whereof 
 were shewn, by which they might see to what uses the 
 money so raised had been applied. But there were 
 several ends in passing this bill : those of the court 
 did not only intend to deliver the King from a charge 
 by it, but also to ruin all the Cardinal's friends and 
 creatures, whom he had caused every where to ad- 
 vance great sums, for an example to others. Others 
 in the House, that were convinced that the'act was un- 
 just in itself, yet did easily give way to it, that they 
 might effectually for the future discredit that way of 
 raising money by loans, as judging it to be the public 
 interest of the kingdom, that no sums of money should 
 be raised but by parliament. So this act passed, and 
 occasioned great murmuring among all them that suf- 
 fered by it. But to qualify the general discontent, the 
 King gave a free pardon to his subjects for all offences, 
 some capital ones only excepted, as is usual in such 
 cases; and, to keep the clergy under the lash, all trans- 
 gressions against the statutes of provisors and premu- 
 nire were excepted, in which they were all involved, 
 as will afterwards appear. There are two other excep- 
 tions in this pardon, not fit to be omitted : the one is, 
 of the pulling or digging down crosses on the high- 
 ways, which shews what a spirit was then stirring 
 among the people ; the other is, of the forfeitures that 
 accrued to the King by the prosecution against Car- 
 dinal Wolsey,that is, the Cardinal's college in Oxford, 
 with the lands belonging to it, which are excepted, 
 upon which the dean and canons resigned their lands 
 to the King, the original of which is yet extant : but 
 the King founded the college anew soon after. All
 
 136 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 this was done both to keep the clergy quiet, and to en- 
 gage them to use what interest they had in the court of 
 Rome, to dispose the Pope to use the King better in his 
 great suit. After those acts were passed, on the 1 7th 
 of December the parliament was prorogued till April 
 following ; yet it did not sit till January after that 
 being continued by several prorogations. 
 
 There had been great industry used in carry ing elec- 
 tions for the parliament, and they were so successful, 
 that the Kingwas resolved tocontinueit forsome time. 
 This great business being happily over, the King's 
 thoughts turned next to affairs beyond sea. The whole 
 The pope world was now at peace. The Pope and the Empe- 
 fouperor ror (as was said before) had made an alliance, on terms 
 united of such advantage to the Pope, that as the Emperor 
 jane 20. did" fully repair all past injuries, so he laid new and 
 great obligations on him : for he engaged that he would 
 assist him in the recovery of his towns, and that he 
 would restore his family to the government of Florence, 
 and invest his nephew in it with the title of duke, to 
 whose son he would marry his own natural daughter; 
 and that he would hold the kingdom of Naples of the 
 papacy. These were the motives that directed the 
 Pope's conscience so infallibly in the King's business. 
 The Not long after that, in August, another peace was made 
 pelTe 8 ." 8 in Cambray, between the Emperor and the French 
 Aug. s. King, and Lady Margaret, the Emperor's aunt and 
 regent of Flanders : where the King first found the 
 hollowness of the French friendship and alliance ; for 
 he was not so much considered in it as he expected, 
 and he clearly perceived that Francis would not em- 
 broil his own affairs to carry on his divorce. 
 The Em- The Emperor went over into Italy, and met the 
 Pope at Bononia, where he was crowned with great 
 magnificence. The Pope and he lodged together in the 
 same palace, and there appeared such signs of a fami- 
 liar friendship between them, that the King's ambas- 
 sadors did now clearly perceive that they were firmly 
 united. The Emperor did also, by a rare mixture of 
 generosity and prudence, restore the duchy of Milan 
 to Francis Sforza. By this he settled the peace of Italy, 
 
 peror s 
 coronation 
 at Bo- 
 nonia.
 
 PART I. BOOK II. 137 
 
 nothing holding out but Florence, which he knew 
 would be soon reduced, when there was no hope of 
 succour from France ; and, accordingly, after eleven Florenc 
 months' siege, it was taken, and within a year after, Jjj^ 
 Alexander de Medici was made duke of it. About p h ^' s m 
 the time that the Emperor came to Bononia, news was ** o"f 
 brought that the Turk was forced to raise the siege of JS. 17 
 Vienna ; so that all things concurred to raise his glory ^ e .f a { 
 very high. At Bononia he would needs receive the "ised, 
 two crowns of the Roman empire, that of Milan, and Jag. 13 ' 
 that of Rome, which was done with all the magnificence f r ^ r e d 
 possible, the Pope himself saying mass, both in Latin Kin g 
 
 J _? 1 rpiT *ll. 4.' J-omar 
 
 and Greek. I here is one ceremony 01 the coronation rb. 22, 
 fit to be taken notice of in this work that the Empe- R O ; 
 ror was first put in the habit of a canon of Sancta Erap - 
 
 Feb. 24. 
 
 Maria de la Torre in Rome, and after that in the ha- 
 bit of a deacon, to make him be looked on as an ec- 
 clesiastical person. This had risen out of an extrava- 
 gant vanity of the court of Rome, who devised such 
 rites to raise their reputation so high, that on the great- 
 est solemnity, the Emperor should appear in the habit 
 of the lowest of the sacred orders, by which he must 
 know that priests and bishops are above him. When 
 the Pope and he first met, the ceremony of kissing the 
 Pope's foot was much looked for, and the Emperor 
 very gently kneeled to pay that submission ; but the 
 Pope (whether it was that he thought it was no more 
 seasonable to expect such compliments, or more sig- 
 nally to oblige the Emperor) did humble himself so far 
 as to draw in his foot, and kiss his cheek. 
 
 But now the divorce was to be managed in another The King 
 method ; and therefore Cranmer, after he had dis- j^" 
 coursed with the King about that proposition which l"*^" a 
 was formerly mentioned, was commanded by him to divorce. 
 write a book for his opinion, and confirm it with as 
 much authority as he could ; and was recommended 
 to the care of the Earl of Wiltshire and Ormond (to 
 which honour the King had advanced Sir Thomas Bo- 
 leyn, in the right of his mother), and in the beginning 
 of the next year, he published his book about it. 
 Richard Crooke (who was tutor to the Duke of Rich-
 
 138 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 mond) was sent into Italy, and others were sent to 
 France and Germany, to consult the divines, canonists, 
 and other learned men in the universities, about the 
 King's business. How the rest managed the matter, 
 I have not yet been able to discover ; but from a great 
 number of original letters of Dr. Crooke's, I shall give 
 a full account of his negotiation. It was thought best 
 to begin at home ; and therefore the King wrote to the 
 two Universities in England, to send him their conclu- 
 T.o,dHer- sicns about it. The matters went at Oxford thus : 
 hereout rj, he g^^p O f Lincoln being sent thither, with the 
 record. King's letters for their resolution, it was by the major 
 1530. ' vote of the convocation of all the doctors and masters, 
 as well regents as non-regents, committed to thirty- 
 three doctors and bachelors of divinity (who were 
 named by their own faculty), or to the greater number 
 of them, to determine the questions that were sent with 
 the King's letters, and to set the common seal of the 
 University to their conclusions : and by virtue of that 
 warrant, they did, on the 8th of April, put the common 
 seal of the University to an instrument, declaring the 
 marriage of the brother's wife to be both contrary to 
 via. wood, the laws of God and nature. The Collector of the An- 
 P .8. C57. tiq u iti es O f Oxford* informs us of the uneasiness that 
 was in the University in this matter, and of the several 
 messages the King sent, before that instrument could 
 be procured ; so that from the 12th of February to the 
 8th of April, the matter was in agitation, the masters 
 of arts generally opposing it, though the doctors and 
 Lib * heads were, for the greatest part, for it. But after he 
 
 P- 225. . .. , . to i 
 
 has set down the instrument, he gives some reasons 
 (upon what design I cannot easily imagine) to shew 
 that this was extorted by force ; and being done with- 
 out the consent of the masters of arts, was of itself void, 
 and of no force : and, as if it had been an ill thing, he 
 
 * See in Vol. iii. Part ii. Appendix No. 1, Wood's vindication of himself, 
 with Burnet's remarks ; all relating to what is said in this page and the follow- 
 ing. Burnet, in reply to one part of Wood's charges, inferring that the consent 
 of the Oxford doctors was obtained by measures of intimidation, observes, " I do 
 not find there was any frightening threatenings. None appear in the King's 
 letters." In this, however, Wood has been judged to be most right. See Her- 
 bert's Life, Collier, and Hallam's Constitutional History of England; and indeed 
 it would be difficult to prove Henry's three letters, to be seen among the records 
 of the third vol. No. 17, to be so mild and inoffensive as Burnet pretends. N.
 
 PART I. BOOK II. 139 
 
 takes pains to purge the University of it, and lays it 
 upon the fears and corruptions of some aspiring men 
 ofthe University: and, without any proof, gives credit 
 to a lying story, set down by Sanders, of an assembly 
 called in the night, in which the seal of the University 
 was set to the determination. But it appears that he 
 had never seen or considered the other instrument to 
 which the University set their seal, that was agreed 
 on in a convocation of all the doctors and masters, as 
 well regents as non-regents ; giving power to these 
 doctors and bachelors of divinity to determine the 
 matter, and to set the seal of the University to their 
 conclusion: the original whereof the Lord Herbert saw, 
 upon which the persons so deputed, had full autho- 
 rity to set the University seal to that conclusion with- 
 out a new convocation. Perhaps that instrument 
 was not so carefully preserved among their records, 
 or was in Queen Mary's days taken away, which 
 might occasion these mistakes in their historian. 
 
 There seems to be also another mistake in the re- 
 lation he gives : for he says, those of Paris had de- 
 termined in this matter before it was agreed to at 
 Oxford. The printed decision of the Sorbonne con- 
 tradicts this : for it bears date the 2d of July, 1 530, 
 whereas this was done the 8th of April, 1530. Butcoiiect. 
 what passed at Cambridge I shall set down more Nl 
 fully, from an original letter, written by Gardiner 
 and Fox, to the King, in February (but the day is 
 not marked). When they came to Cambridge, they 
 spake to the Vice-Chancellor, whom they found very 
 ready to serve the King ; so was also Dr. Edmonds,* And at 
 and several others ; but there was a contrary party, iS** 1 ** 
 that met together, and resolved to oppose them. A 
 meeting of the doctors, bachelors of divinity, and 
 masters of arts, in all about two hundred, was held. 
 There the King's letters were read, and the Vice- 
 Chancellor, calling upon several of them, to deliver 
 
 * According to Collier, Dr. Edmonds was then the Vice-Chancellor and 
 Master of Peter House: Burnet, however, seems to be right, from the letter 
 placed among the records, No. 32 ; in which Gardiner and Fox, writing 
 from Cambridge, plainly speak of the Vice-Chancellor a?i<i Dr. Ednunids, as 
 distinct persons. Dr. Buckmaster indeed appears to have been Vice-Chan- 
 cellor at this time. N.
 
 140 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 their opinions about it, they answered as their affec- 
 tions led them, and were in some disorder. But it 
 being proposed, that the answering the King's letter, 
 and the questions in it, should be referred to some 
 indifferent men ; great exceptions were made to Dr. 
 Salcot, Dr. Reps, and Crome, and all others who had 
 approved Dr. Cranmer's book, as having already de- 
 clared themselves partial. But to that it was answered, 
 that after a thing was so much discoursed of, as the 
 King's matter had been, it could not be imagined that 
 any number of men could be found, who had not 
 declared their judgment about it one way or another. 
 Much time was spent in the debate ; but when it 
 grew late, the Vice-Chancellor commanded every 
 man to take his place, and to give his voice, whether 
 they would agree to the motion of referring it to a 
 select body of men : but that night they would not 
 agree to it. 
 
 The congregation being adjourned till next day, 
 the Vice-Chancellor offered a grace (or order) to refer 
 the matter to twenty-nine persons (himself, ten doc- 
 tors, and sixteen bachelors, and the two proctors), 
 That (the questions being publicly disputed) what 
 two parts of three agreed to, should be read in a con- 
 gregation, and without any further debate the com- 
 mon seal of the University should be set to it. Yet 
 it was at first denied ; then being put to the vote, it 
 was carried equally on both sides. But being a third 
 time proposed, it was carried for the divorce. Of 
 which an account was presently sent to the King, 
 with a schedule of their names to whom it was com- 
 mitted, and what was to be expected from them ; so 
 that it was at length determined, though not without 
 opposition, That the King's marriage was against 
 the law of God. 
 
 It is thought strange, that the King, who was other- 
 wise so absolute in England, should have met with 
 more difficulty in this matter at home than he did 
 abroad. But the most reasonable account I can give 
 of it is, that at this time there were many in the Uni- 
 versities (particularly at Cambridge) who were ad-
 
 PART I. BOOK II. 141 
 
 dieted to Luther's doctrine. And of those Cranmer 
 was looked on as the most learned : so that Crome, 
 Shaxton, Latimer, and others of that society, favoured 
 the King's cause ; besides that, Anne Boleyn had, in 
 the Duchess of Alanson's court (who inclined to the 
 Reformation), received such impressions as madethem 
 fear, that her greatness and Granmer's preferment 
 would encourage heresy ; to which the Universities 
 were furiously averse ; and, therefore, they did resist 
 all conclusions that might promote the divorce. 
 
 But as for Crooke in Italy, he bein^ very learned Cro ke J 
 
 i /-( i r IT t em P lo y ed 
 
 in the (jreek tongue, was first sent to Venice, to search m Venice. 
 the Greek manuscripts that lay in the library of St. %%&.* 
 Mark, and to examine the decrees of the ancient coun- ion ' taken 
 
 , , .... , ' rom many 
 
 cils : he went incognito, without any character from ofhisongi- 
 the King ; only he had a letter recommending him to CMt*ur. 
 the care of John Cassali, then ambassador at Venice, ^ 3 iteL B> 
 to procure him an admittance into the libraries there. 
 But in all his letters he complained mightily of his 
 poverty, that he had scarce whereby to live and pay 
 the copiers whom he employed to transcribe passages 
 out of MSS. He stayed some time at Venice, from 
 whence he went to Padua, Bononia, and other towns, 
 where he only talked with divines and canonists about 
 these questions Whether the precepts in Leviticus, 
 of the degrees of marriage, do still oblige Christians ? 
 And whether the Pope's dispensation could have any 
 force against the law of God ? These he proposed 
 in discourse, without mentioning the King of Eng- 
 land, or giving the least intimation, that he was sent 
 by him, till he once discovered their opinions. But 
 finding them generally inclining to the King's cause, 
 he took more courage and went to Rome ; where he 
 sought to be made a penitentiary priest, that he might 
 have the freer access into libraries, and be looked on 
 as one of the Pope's servants. But at this time the 
 Earl of Wiltshire and Stokesley (who was made bishop 
 of London, Tonstall being translated to Duresme), 
 were sent by the King into Italy, ambassadors both 
 to the Pope and Emperor. Cranmer went with them 
 to justify his book in both these courts. Stokesley
 
 142 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 brought full instructions to Crooke to search the 
 writings of most of the Fathers on a great many pas- 
 sages of the Scripture ; and, in particular, to try, what 
 they wrote on that law in Deuteronomy, which pro- 
 vided, That when one died without children, his bro- 
 ther should marry his wife to raise up children to him. 
 This was most pressed against the King by all that 
 were for the Queen, as either an abrogation of the 
 other law in Leviticus, or at least a dispensation with 
 it in that particular case. He was also to consult 
 the Jews about it ; and was to copy out every thing 
 that he found in any manuscript of the Greek or Latin 
 fathers relating to the degrees of marriage. Of this 
 labour he complained heavily, and said, That though 
 he had a great task laid on him, yet his allowance 
 was so small, that he was often in great straits. This 
 I take notice of, because it is said by others, that all 
 the subscriptions that he procured were bought. At 
 this time there were great animosities between the 
 ministers whom the King employed in Italy ; the two 
 families of the Cassali and the Ghinucci hating one 
 another. Of the former family were the ambassadors 
 at Rome and at Venice : of the other, Hierome was 
 bishop of Worcester, and had been in several em- 
 bassies into Spain. His brother Peter was also em- 
 ployed in some of the little courts of Italy as the 
 King's agent. Whether the King out of policy kept 
 this hatred up to make them spies one on another, I 
 know not. To the Ghinucci was Crooke gained, so 
 that in all his letters he complained of the Cassali, 
 as men that betrayed the King's affairs ; and said that 
 John, then ambassador at Venice, not only gave him 
 no assistance, but used him ill : and publicly disco- 
 vered, that he was employed by the King; which 
 made many who had formerly spoken their minds 
 freely, be more reserved to him. But as he wrote 
 this to the King, he begged of him, that it might not 
 be known, otherwise he expected either to be killed 
 or poisoned by them : yet they had their correspon- 
 dents about the King, by whose means they under- 
 stood what Crooke had informed against them. But
 
 PART I. BOOK II. 143 
 
 they wrote to the King, that he was so morose and 
 ill-natured, that nothing could please him ; and to 
 lessen his credit, they did all they could to stop his 
 bills. All this is more fully set down than perhaps 
 was necessary, if it were not to shew that he was not 
 in a condition to corrupt so many divines, and whole 
 universities, as some have given out. He got into 
 the acquaintance of a friar at Venice, Franciscus 
 Georgius, who had lived forty-nine years in a reli- 
 gious order, and was esteemed the most learned man 
 in the republic, not only in the vulgar learning, but 
 in the Greek and Hebrew, and was so much ac- 
 counted of by the Pope, that he called him the ham- 
 mer of heretics. He was also of the senatorian qua- 
 lity, and his brother was governor of Padua, and paid 
 all the readers there. This friar had a great opinion 
 of the King : and having studied the case, wrote for Many 
 the King's cause, and endeavoured to satisfy all the wriufm 
 other divines of the republic, among whom he had ^^ 
 much credit. Thomas Omnibonus, a Dominican, 
 Philippus de Cremis, a doctor of the law, Valerius 
 of Bergamo, and some others, wrote for the King's 
 cause. Many of the Jewish Rabbins did give it under 
 their hands in Hebrew, " That the laws of Leviticus 
 and Deuteronomy were thus to be reconciled : That 
 law of marrying the brother's wife, when he died 
 without children, did only bind in the land of Judea, 
 to preserve families, and maintain their successions 
 in the land, as it had been divided by lot ; but that 
 in all other places of the world, the law of Leviticus, 
 of not marrying the brother's wife, was obligatory." 
 He also searched all the Greek MSS. of councils, and 
 Nazianzen's and Chrysostom's works. After that he 
 run over Macarius, Acarius, Apollinaris, Origen, Gre- 
 gory Nyssen, Cyril, Severian, and Gennadius ; and 
 copied out of them all that which was pertinent to his 
 purpose. He procured several hands to the conclu- 
 sions, before it was known that it was the King's bu- 
 siness in which he was employed. But the govern- 
 ment of Venice was so strict, that when it was known 
 whose agent he was, he found it not easy to procure
 
 144 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 subscriptions : therefore he advised the King to order 
 his minister to procure a licence from the senate, for 
 their divines to declare their opinions in that matter. 
 Which being proposed to* the senate, all the answer 
 he could obtain was, That they would be neutrals ; 
 Feb. is. an d when the ambassador pressed, as an evidence of 
 neutrality, that the senate would leave it free to their 
 divines, to declare of either side as their consciences 
 led them ; he could procure no other answer, the for- 
 mer being again repeated. Yet the senate making 
 no prohibition, many of their divines put their hands 
 to the conclusions. And Crooke had that success, 
 that he wrote to the King, he had never met with a 
 Though divine that did not favour his cause : but the conclu- 
 Md Em* sions touching the Pope's power, his agents did every 
 peror dis- wnere discourage, and threaten those who subscribed 
 
 couraced o * 
 
 them. them. And the Emperor's ambassador at Venice did 
 threaten Omnibonus for writing in prejudice of the 
 Pope's authority; and asserting conclusions, which 
 would make most of the princes of Europe bastards. 
 He answered, he did not consider things as a states- 
 man, but as a divine. Yet, to take off this fear, 
 Crooke suggested to the King, to order his minister 
 at the court of Rome to procure a breve, " That di- 
 vines or canonists might without fear or hazard de- 
 liver their opinions according to their consciences, 
 requiring them, under the pain of excommunication, 
 that they should write nothing for gain or partial af- 
 * fections, but say the pure and simple truth, without 
 any artifice, as they would answer to God in the great 
 day of judgment." This seemed so fair, that it might 
 have been expected the successor of St. Peter would 
 not deny it ; yet it was not easily obtained, though 
 
 Aug. 7. the King wrote a very earnest letter to the Bishop of 
 Verona, to assist his minister in procuring it. And 
 
 sept: 16. I find by another dispatch, that the breve was at length 
 gained, not without much opposition made to it by 
 the Emperor's ambassadors: for at Rome, though they 
 knew not well how to oppose this method, because it 
 seemed so very reasonable ; yet they had great appre- 
 hensions of it, because they thought it was designed
 
 nor bribes 
 lor 
 
 PART I. BOOK II. 145 
 
 to force the Pope to determine as the King pleased : 
 and they abhorred the precedent, that a company of 
 poor friars should dictate to them in matters of this 
 nature. Crooke reports out of a letter of Cranmer's juiy us. 
 to him from Rome, these words : " As for our suc- 
 cesses here, they be very little, nor dare we attempt 
 to know any man's mind, because of the Pope ; nor 
 is he content with what you have done ; and he says, 
 no friars shall discuss his power : and as for any fa- 
 vour in this court, I look for none, but to have the 
 Pope with all his cardinals declare against us." But Aug. 5, 
 Crooke, as he went up and down procuring hands, 15 
 told those he came to, " he desired they would write 
 their conclusions, according to learning and con- 
 science, without any respect or favour, as they would 
 answer it at the last day; and protested he never N * 
 gave nor promised any divine any thing, till he had 0?*. 
 first freely written his mind, and that what he then [" O b n s " ip " 
 gave, was rather an honourable present than a re- 
 ward.* And in another letter to the King he writes : 
 " Upon pain of my head, if the contrary be proved, I ^P* f- 
 never gave any man one halfpenny, before I had his 
 conclusion to your Highness, without former prayer 
 or promise of reward for the same." From whence 
 it appears, that he not only had no orders from the 
 King to corrupt divines, but that his orders were ex- 
 press to the contrary. 
 
 As for the money he gave, the reader will be best 
 able to judge by the following account, whether it 
 was such as could work much on any man. There Feb. u. 
 is an original bill of his accounts yet extant, audited 
 
 * That money was employed seems to admit of no doubt ; but how far ra- 
 ther as a subsequent remuneration, than a preliminary bribe, may in some de- 
 gree be questioned : but if Henry did have recourse to such means occasionally, 
 it might be only to counteract what was doing on the other side. In one of 
 Crooke's letters we find the following passage, which certainly looks like bri- 
 bery. " I doubt not but all Christian Universities, if they be well handled, will 
 earnestly conclude with your Highness ;" but then, in another place, he also 
 tells the King, " Caesar, by throats, prayers, money, and sacerdotal influences, 
 terrifies our friends and confirms bis own." From the letter cited by Collier, 
 ii. 58, to prove that bribes were offered, it would rather seem that some pro- 
 fessed to be on the King's side in hopes of a remuneration, and after having 
 inconsequence of such professions, received a gratuity, abandoned the cause, and 
 actually wrote against the King. See the case of Friar Thomas and Raphael, 
 in the place referred to. N. 
 
 VOL. I. L
 
 146 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 and signed by Peter a Ghinucciis, out of which I 
 only some have extracted these particulars : " Item, to a Servite 
 Smv- fri' dr when he subscribed, one crown. To a Jew, one 
 ledgments. C rown. To the doctors of the Servites, two crowns. 
 To the Observant friars, two crowns. To the Prior 
 of St. John and St. Paul's, who wrote for the King's 
 cause, fifteen crowns. To that convent, four crowns. 
 Item, given to John Maria for his expense of going 
 to Milan from Venice, and for rewarding the doctors 
 there, thirty crowns. Item, to John Marino, minister 
 of the Franciscans, who wrote a book for the King's 
 cause, twenty crowns." This shews that they must 
 have had very prostituted consciences, if they could 
 be hired so cheap. It is true, Crooke in many of his 
 FA. 22. letters says, " That if he had money enough, he did 
 not doubt but he should get the hands of all the di- 
 vines in Italy, for he found the greatest part of them 
 Feb - 9- all mercenary." But the Bishop of Worcester in his 
 letters to him, ordered him only to promise rewards 
 to those who expected them, and lived by them, that 
 is, to the canonists who did not use to give their opi- 
 nion without a fee. 
 
 sept. is. But at the same time, the Emperor did reward and 
 rewwdT fee divines at another rate ; for Crooke informed the 
 ti^Em y King, that one Friar Felix having written for the 
 peror. validity of the marriage against the King, there was 
 a benefice of five hundred ducats a year given him in 
 reward. And the Emperor's ambassador offered a 
 thousand ducats to the Provincial of the Gray-Friars 
 in Venice, if he would inhibit all within his province 
 sept. 29. to write or subscribe for the King's cause. But the Pro- 
 vincial refused it, and said, he neither could nor yet 
 would do it. And another that wrote for the Queen 
 had a benefice of six hundred crowns. So that it 
 was openly said at Ferrara, That they who wrote for 
 the King had but a few crowns a-piece, but they who 
 wrote on the other side had good benefices. They 
 also tried what could be done at Padua, both by 
 threatenings, entreaties, and rewards, to induce them 
 to reverse the determination they had made in the 
 matter ; but with no success. And though Francis
 
 PART I. BOOK II. 147 
 
 Georgius, the Venetian friar, did greatly promote the 
 King's cause, both by his writings and authority; yet 
 Crooke wrote, " that he could not prevail to make Feb. is. 
 either him or his nephew accept one farthing of him." 
 By such fair means it was that Crooke procured so 
 many subscriptions. 
 
 First, of particular divines, many Franciscans, Do- 
 minicans, and Servites, set their hands to the con- 
 clusions ; though even in that there was opposition 
 made by the Pope's agents. Campegio was now 
 engaged in the Emperor's faction ; and did every 
 where misrepresent the King's cause. Being at Ve- March 29. 
 nice, he so wrought on the minister of the Francis- 
 cans, that though he had declared for the King, and 
 engaged to bring the hands of twenty-four doctors 
 and learned men of his order for it, and had received 
 a small present of ten crowns ; yet, after he had kept 
 the money three weeks, he sent it back, and said, he 
 would not meddle more in it : but they procured 
 most of these hands without his help. At Milan, a May se. 
 suffragan bishop and sixteen divines subscribed. Nine 
 doctors subscribed at Vincenza ; but the Pope's Nun- 
 cio took the writing out of his hands that had it, and 
 suppressed it. At Padua, all the Franciscans, both June 27. 
 Observants and Conventuals, subscribed, and so did 
 the Dominicans, and all the canonists ; and though 
 the Pope's and Emperor's emissaries did threaten all 
 that subscribed, yet there were got eighty hands at 
 Padua. Next the Universities determined. 
 
 At Bononia, though it was the Pope's town, many They de- 
 subscribed. The Governor of the town did at first IT.^ 
 oppose the granting of any determination : but the King at 
 
 -f* 1-1 11-1 i i Bononia. 
 
 Pope s breve being brought thither, he, not without 
 great difficulty, gave way to it. So, on the 10th of Juneio. 
 June, the matter being publicly debated, and all 
 Cajetan's arguments being examined, who was of 
 opinion, " That the laws of marriage, in Leviticus, 
 did not bind the Christian church ; they determined, 
 That these laws are still in force, and that they bind 
 all, both Christians and infidels, being parts of the 
 law of nature, as well as of the law of God ; and that, 
 
 L2
 
 148 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 therefore, they judged marriages, in these degrees, 
 unlawful, and that the Pope had no authority to dis- 
 pense with them." 
 
 At Padua, The University of Padua, after some days' public 
 cict'. dispute, on the 1st of July, determined to the same 
 numb. 33. p ur p 0se . about which Crooke's letter will be found 
 
 among the Instruments at the end of this book. 
 And At Ferrara, the divines did also confirm the same 
 
 5*2* conclusion, and set their seal to it : but it was taken 
 away violently by some of the other faction : yet the 
 Duke made it be restored. The profession of the 
 canon law was then in great credit there, and in a 
 congregation of seventy-two of that profession it was 
 determined for the King ; but they asked one hun- 
 dred and fifty crowns for setting the seal to it, and 
 Crooke would not give more than a hundred : the 
 next day he came and offered the money ; but then 
 it was told him they would not meddle in it, and he 
 could not afterwards obtain it. 
 
 In all, Crooke sent over by Stokesley a hundred 
 several books, papers, and subscriptions, and there 
 were many hands subscribed to many of those papers. 
 But I hope the reader will forgive my insisting so 
 much on this negotiation ; for it seemed necessary to 
 give full and convincing evidences of the sincerity 
 of the King's proceedings in it, since it is so con- 
 fidently given out that these were but mercenary 
 subscriptions. 
 
 What difficulties or opposition those who were 
 
 employed in France found, does not yet appear to 
 
 me ; but the seals of the chief universities there were 
 
 And in procured. The University of Orleans determined it 
 
 A^T?.' on the 7th of April. The faculty of the canon law, 
 
 ot'the at Paris* did also conclude that the Pope had no 
 
 Ma D 25 S ' P ower to dispense in that case, on the 25th of May. 
 
 or the But the great and celebrated faculty of the Sorbonne 
 
 jiyT e> (whose conclusions had been looked on for some ages 
 
 as little inferior to the decrees of councils) made their 
 
 decision with all possible solemnity and decency. 
 
 They first met at the church of St. Mathurin, where 
 
 there was a mass of the Holy Ghost, and every one
 
 PART I. BOOK II. 149 
 
 took an oath to study the question, and resolve it 
 according to his conscience ; and from the 8th of 
 June to the 2d of July, they continued searching the 
 matter with all possible diligence, both out of the 
 Scriptures, the fathers, and the councils ; and had 
 many disputes about it. After which, the greater 
 part of the faculty did determine, " That the King of 
 England's marriage was unlawful, and that the Pope 
 had no power to dispense in it ;" and they set their 
 common seal to it, at St. Mathurin's, the 2d of July, 
 1530. To the same purpose did both the faculties of At An 
 law, civil and canon, at Angiers, determine the 7th of lily'?. 
 May. On the 10th of June, the faculty of divinity AC 
 at Bourges, came to the same determination. And j^lTo*! 
 on the 1 st of October, the whole University of Tholose And 
 did all, with one consent, give their judgment, agree- o* { .T' 
 ing with the former conclusions. More of the deci- coiien. 
 sions of universities were not printed, though many Nttmb - ** 
 more were obtained to the same effect. In Germany, 
 Spain, and Flanders, the Emperor's authority was so 
 great, that much could not be expected, except from 
 the Lutherans, with whom Cranmer conversed, and 
 chiefly with Osiander, whose niece he then married. 
 Osiander upon that wrote a book about incestuous Jan.ss. 
 marriages, which was published ; but was called in "Tilw. 
 by a prohibition printed at Augsburg, because it de- otho^c*' 1 
 termined in the King's cause and on his side. 10 - 
 
 But now I find the King did likewise deal among 
 
 O O 
 
 those in Switzerland that had set up the reformation. 
 The Duke of Suffolk did most set him on to this (so 
 one who was employed in that time writes), for he 
 often asked him, " How he could so humble himself, < e 
 as to submit his cause to such a vile, vicious, stranger- 
 priest, as Campegio was ?" To which the King an- 
 swered, " He could give no other reason but that it 
 seemed to him, spiritual men should judge spiritual 
 things ; yet (he said) he would search the matter fur- 
 ther ; but he had no great mind to seem more curious 
 than other princes." But the Duke desired him to 
 discuss the matter secretly amongst learned men, to 
 which he consented ; and wrote to some foreign
 
 150 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 writers that were then in great estimation. Erasmus 
 
 was much in his favour, but he would not appear in 
 
 it : he had no mind to provoke the Emperor, and 
 
 Grineus live uneasily in his own country. But Simon Gri- 
 
 amt ed neus was sent for, whom the King esteemed much 
 
 for e m 7d in &* ^ s learning. The King informed him about his 
 
 switzer- process, and sent him back to Basil, to try what his 
 
 wL'se let- friends in Germany and Switzerland thought of it. 
 
 l e Ms ar in in He wrote about it to Bucer, (Ecolampadius, Zuing- 
 
 R smith's ii us an( j Paulus Phrygion. 
 
 Library. *1 . </ . c> 7 , . 
 
 The opi- CEcolampadiu3, as it appears by three letters, one 
 *< m . dated the 10th of August, 1531, another the last of 
 padius. the same month, another to Bucer the 10th of Sep- 
 tember, was positively of opinion, " That the law in 
 Leviticus did bind all mankind ;" and says, " That 
 law of a brother's marrying his sister-in-law was a 
 dispensation given by God to his own law, which be- 
 longed only to the Jews ; and, therefore, he thought 
 that the King might without any scruple, put away 
 Bucer. the Queen." But Bucer was of another mind, and 
 thought the law in Leviticus did not bind, and could 
 not be moral, because God had dispensed with it in 
 one case, of raising up seed to his brother : therefore 
 he thought these laws belonged only to that dispen- 
 sation, and did no more bind Christians than the 
 other ceremonial or judiciary precepts ; and that to 
 marry in some of these degrees was no more a sin, 
 than it was a sin in the disciples to pluck ears of 
 corn on the sabbath-day. There are none of Bucer's 
 letters remaining on this head ; but by the answers 
 that Grineus wrote to him, one on the 29th of August, 
 another on the 10th of September, I gather his opi- 
 nion, and the reasons for it. But they all agreed, 
 that the Pope's dispensation was of no force to alter 
 ion. the nature of the thing. Paulus Phrygion was of 
 opinion, that the laws in Leviticus did bind all na- 
 tions, because it is said in the text, " That the Ca- 
 naanites were punished for doing contrary to them, 
 which did not consist with the justice of God, if those 
 prohibitions had not been parts of the law of nature." 
 Dated Basil, the 10th of September. In Grineus's
 
 PART I. BOOK II. 151 
 
 letter to Bucer, he tells him that the King had said 
 to him, " That now for several years he had perpe- 
 tual trouble upon him about this marriage." Zuin- zuingiiM. 
 glius's letter is very full. First, he largely proves, 
 that neither the Pope nor any other power could dis- 
 pense with the law of God : then, that the apostles 
 had made no new laws about marriage, but had left 
 it as they found it : that the marrying within near 
 degrees was hated by the Greeks, and other heathen 
 nations. But whereas Grineus seemed to be of opi- 
 nion that though the marriage was ill made, yet it 
 ought not to be dissolved, and inclined rather to ad- 
 vise that the King should take another wife, keeping 
 the Queen still ; Zuinglius confutes that, and says, 
 if the marriage be against the law of God, it ought 
 to be dissolved ; but concludes the Queen should be 
 put away honourably, and still used as a Queen ; and 
 the marriage should only be dissolved for the future, 
 without illegitimating the issue begotten in it, since 
 it had gone on in a public way, upon a received 
 error : but advises, that the King should proceed in 
 a judiciary way, and not establish so ill a precedent 
 as to put away his Queen, and take another, without 
 due form of law. Dated Basil, 17th of August. 
 There is a second letter of his to the same purpose 
 from Zurich, the 1st of September. There is also 
 with these letters a long paper of Osiander's, in the 
 form of a direction how the process should be ma- 
 naged. 
 
 There is also an epistle of Calvin's, published And Calvin 
 among the rest of his. Neither the date nor the per- 
 son to whom it was directed are named. Yet I fancy 
 it was written to Grineus upon this occasion : Calvin 
 was clear in his judgment that the marriage was null, 
 and that the King ought to put away the Queen 
 upon the law of Leviticus. And whereas it was ob- 
 jected, that the law is only meant of marrying the bro- 
 ther's wife while he is yet alive ; he shews that could 
 not be admitted, for all the prohibited degrees being 
 forbidden in the same style, they were all to be un- 
 derstood in one sense : therefore, since it is confessed,
 
 152 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 that it is unlawful to marry in the other degrees, after 
 the death of the father, son, uncle, or nephew, so it 
 must be also a sin to marry the brother's wife after 
 his death. And for the law in Deuteronomy of marry- 
 ing the brother's wife to raise up seed to him ; he 
 thought, that by brother there is to be understood a 
 near kinsman, according to the usual phrase of the 
 Hebrew tongue : and by that he reconciles the two 
 laws which otherwise seem to differ, illustrating his 
 exposition by the history of Ruth and Boaz. It 
 is given out that Melancthon advised the King's 
 taking another wife, justifying polygamy from the 
 Old Testament ; but I cannot believe it. It is true 
 the lawfulness of polygamy was much controverted at 
 this time. And as in all controversies newly started, 
 many crude things are said ; so some of the Helve- 
 tian and German divines seem not so fierce against 
 Lord Her. it ; though none of them went so far as the Pope did, 
 ^To'rig!" 11 wno did plainly offer to grant the King license to have 
 ! eM - two wives : and it was a motion the Imperialists con- 
 
 Sept. 18, 
 
 1530. sented to, and promoted, though upon what reason 
 the ambassador Cassali, who wrote the account of it 
 to the King, could not learn. The Pope forbade him 
 to write about it to the King, perhaps as whisperers 
 enjoin silence, as the most effectual way to make a 
 thing public. But for Melancthon's being of that 
 mind, great evidences appear to the contrary ; for 
 there is a letter of Osiander's to him, giving him 
 many reasons to persuade him to approve of the King's 
 putting away the Queen, and marrying another : the 
 letter also shews he was then of opinion, that the law 
 in Leviticus was dispensable. 
 
 The o P i- And after the thing 1 was done, when the Kingf de- 
 
 n '" '' J 1 T 1 T 1 
 
 the LU- sired the Lutheran divines to approve his second mar- 
 diviaes. riage, they begged his excuse in a writing, which 
 they sent over to him ; so that Melancthon, not al- 
 lowing the thing when it was done, cannot be ima- 
 gined to have advised polygamy beforehand.* And 
 
 * Though Burnet seems so anxious to acquit Melancthon and the Lutheran 
 Divines, of the charge of giving encouragement to polygamy, yet it is allowed 
 to be a fact well authenticated, that they had given express permission, under
 
 PART I. BOOK II. 153 
 
 to open at once all that may clear the sense of the instructions 
 
 _ . , J i f ent by 
 
 Protestants in the question, when, some years alter p r . Bams 
 this, Fox, being made bishop of Hereford, and much ^j^. 
 inclined to their doctrine, was sent over to get the g b ; 3 Vitel - 
 divines of Germany to approve of the divorce, and 
 the subsquent marriage of Anne Boleyn ; he found 
 that Melancthon, and others, had no mind to enter 
 much into the dispute about it, both for fear of the 
 Emperor, and because they judged the King was led 
 in it by dishonest affections ; they also thought the 
 laws in Leviticus were not moral, and did not oblige 
 Christians, and since there were no rules made about 
 the degrees of marriage in the gospel, they thought 
 princes and states might make what laws they pleased 
 about it : yet, after much disputing, they were in- 
 duced to change their minds, but could not be They con- 
 brought to think -that a marriage once made might tang-ffirst 
 be annulled ; and therefore demurred upon that, as u a t r ^ e> 
 will appear by the conclusion they passed upon it, against a 
 to be found at the end of this volume. All this I can**. 
 have set together here, to give a right representation * umb - 33- 
 of the judgments of the several parties of Christen- 
 dom about this matter. 
 
 It cannot be denied, that the Protestants did express 
 great sincerity in this matter ; such as became men 
 of conscience, who were acted by true principles, and 
 not by maxims of policy. For if these had governed 
 them, they had struck in more compliantly with so 
 great a Prince, who was then alienated from the Pope, 
 and in very ill terms with the Emperor : so that, 
 
 their own signatures, to the Landgrave of Hesse, to take a wife or concubine, 
 on account of the drunkenness, and disagreeable person of the Landgravine. 
 See Bossuet Hist, des Far. des Egtises Protestants. The Pope is still understood by 
 many to have proposed to Henry to take two wives. See Hallam's Constitutional 
 History of England, p. 73, note. But Collier disputes the authorities cited by 
 Mr. H. Perhaps a stronger proof of laxity on this point, on the part of the Lu- 
 theran divines, could scarcely be adduced than Cramner's letter to Osiander, 
 cited by Collier, vol. ii. 56. where may also be seen what he has to allege 
 against the evidence of Casw/i, as cited by Lord Herbert, in proof of the Pope's 
 offer of a .license to Henry to have two wives. Cassali's letter is to be seen 
 among the Records annexed to this volume, No. VI. It does certainly seem 
 strange, as Collier suggests, that if such an offer were seriously made by the 
 Pope, Henry should have neglected to take advantage of it; but Cassali, accord- 
 ing to Lord Herbert, intimated to the Pope that he did not think such an ex- 
 pedient would be likely to satisfy or exonerate the King's conscience. See 
 Turner's Henry VIII. 551, note 23. N.
 
 154 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 to have gained him by a full compliance to have pro- 
 tected them, was the wisest thing they could do ; 
 and their being so cold in the matter of his marriage, 
 in which he had engaged so deeply, was a thing 
 which would very much provoke him against them. 
 But such measures as these, though they very well 
 became the apostolic see, yet they were unworthy of 
 men, who designed to restore an apostolic religion. 
 FOX. The Earl of Wiltshire, with the other ambassadors, 
 when they had their audience of the Pope at Bono- 
 ma, refused to pay him the submission of kissing his 
 foot, though he graciously stretched it out to them ; 
 but went to their business, and expostulated in the 
 King's name, and in high words ; and in conclusion 
 told the Pope, that the prerogative of the crown of 
 England was such, that their master would not suffer 
 The King any citation to be made of him to any foreign court ; 
 ap^r It an d that therefore the King would not have his cause 
 K 00 ,e. tried at Rome. The Pope answered, that though the 
 Queen's solicitor had pressed him to proceed in the 
 citation ; both that her marriage, being further exa- 
 mined, might receive a new confirmation for silencing 
 the disputes about it, and because the King had with- 
 drawn himself from her : yet, if the King did not go 
 further, and did not innovate in religion, the Pope was 
 willing to let the matter rest. They went next to the 
 Emperor, to justify the King's proceedings in the suit 
 of the divorce. But he told them, he was bound in 
 honour and justice to support his aunt, and that he 
 cranmer would not abandon her. Cranmer offered to main- 
 
 oners to . 1111 1 i i i 
 
 maintain tain what he had written in his book ; but whether 
 Lust'" 83 they went so far as to make their divines enter into any 
 discourse with him about it, I do not know. This ap- 
 pears, that the Pope, to put a compliment on the King 
 declared Cranmer his penitentiary in England. He, 
 having stayed some months at Rome, after the ambas- 
 sadors were gone, went into Germany : where he be- 
 came acquainted with Cornelius Agrippa, a man very 
 famous for great and curious learning, and so satis- 
 fied him in the King's cause, that he gave it out, that 
 the thing was clear and indisputable, for which he was
 
 PART I. BOOK II. 156 
 
 afterwards hardly used by the Emperor, and died in 
 prison. 
 
 But when the King received the determinations The now. 
 and conclusions of the Universities, and other learned JSuS 
 men beyond sea, he resolved to do two things. First, mons of 
 to make a new attempt upon the Pope, and then to wriLTto 
 publish those conclusions to the world, with the argu- th 
 ments upon which they were grounded. But to make 
 his address to the Pope carry more terror with it, he 
 got a letter to be signed by a great many members of 
 parliament to the Pope. The Lord Herbert saith, it 
 was done by his parliament ; but in that he had not 
 applied his ordinary diligence : the letter bears date 
 the 13th of July. Now, by the records of Parliament, 
 it appears, there could be no session at that time, for 
 there was a prorogation from the 2 1st of June, till the 
 1st of October that year ; but the letter was sent about in the 
 to the chief members for their hands ; and Cavendish wdsey. 
 tells, how it was brought to the Cardinal, and with 
 what cheerfulness he set his hand to it. It was sub- 
 scribed by the Cardinal and the Archbishop of Can- 
 terbury, four bishops, two dukes, two marquisses, 
 thirteen earls, two viscounts, twenty- three barons, 
 twenty-two abbots, and eleven commoners, most of 
 these being the King's servants. 
 
 The contents of the letter were, " That their near Thisieiter 
 relation to the King, made them address thus to the MVWM 
 Pope. The King's cause was now, in the opinion of [ n ^ y 
 the learned men, and universities both in England, Herb 
 France, and Italy, found just, which ought to prevail 
 so far with the Pope, that though none moved in it, 
 and notwithstanding any contradiction, he ought to 
 confirm their judgment; especially it touching a King 
 and kingdom, to whom he was so much obliged. But 
 since neither the justice of the cause, nor the King's 
 most earnest desires, had prevailed with him, they 
 were all forced to complain of that strange usage of 
 their King ; who both by his authority, and with his 
 pen, had supported the apostolic see, and the catholic 
 faith, and yet was now denied justice. From which 
 they apprehended great mischief and civil wars, which
 
 156 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 could only be prevented by the King's marrying an- 
 other wife, of whom he might have issue. This could 
 not be done till his present marriage were annulled. 
 And if the Pope would still refuse to do this, they 
 must conclude that they were abandoned by him, and 
 so seek for other remedies. This they most earnestly 
 prayed him to prevent, since they did not desire to go 
 to extremities till there was no more to be hoped for 
 at his hands." 
 
 The pope's To this the Pope made answer the 27th of Septem- 
 answer. fogj. jj e ^ok notice of the vehemency of their letter, 
 which he forgave them, imputing it to their great af- 
 fection to their King : they had charged him with in- 
 gratitude and injustice; two grievous imputations. He 
 acknowledged all they wrote of the obligations he 
 owed to their King, which were far greater than they 
 called them, both on the apostolic see, and himself 
 in particular. But in the King's cause he had been so 
 far from denying justice, that he was oft charged as 
 having been too partial to him. He had granted a 
 commission to two legates to hear it, rather out of fa- 
 vour, than in rigour of law ; upon which the Queen 
 had appealed : he had delayed the admitting of it as 
 long as was possible; but when he saw it could not be 
 any longer denied to be heard, it was brought before 
 the consistory, where all the cardinals, with one con- 
 sent, found that the appeal, and an avocation of the 
 cause, must be granted. That since that time, the King 
 had never desired to put it to a trial, but, on the con- 
 trary, by his ambassadors, at Bononia, moved for a 
 delay ; and in that posture it was still ; nor could he 
 give sentence in a thing of such consequence, when it 
 was not so much as sought for. For the conclusions 
 of universities and learned men, he had seen none of 
 them from any of the King's ambassadors. It was true, 
 some of them had been brought to him another way ; 
 but in them there were no reasons given, but only bare 
 conclusions, and he had also seen very important 
 things for the other side ; and therefore he must not 
 precipitate a sentence in a cause of such high impor- 
 tance, till all things were fully heard and considered.
 
 PART I. BOOK II. 157 
 
 He wished their King might have male issue, but he 
 was not in God's stead to give it. And for their 
 threatenings of seeking other remedies, they were nei- 
 ther agreeable to their wisdom, nor to their religion. 
 Therefore he admonished them to abstain from such 
 counsels ; but minded them, that it is not the physi- 
 cian's fault if the patient will do himself hurt. He 
 knew the King would never like such courses ; and 
 though he had a just value for their intercession, yet 
 he considered the King much more, to whom, as he 
 had never denied any thing that he could grant with 
 his honour, so he was very desirous to examine this 
 matter, and to put it to a speedy issue, and would do 
 .every thing that he could without offending God." 
 
 But the King, either seeing the Pope resolved to 
 grant nothing, or apprehend ing that some bull might j' s a t 
 be brought into England in behalf of the Queen, or bulls frora 
 the disgraced Cardinal, did on the 19th of September i^rT' 
 put forth a proclamation against any " who purchased "' 
 any thing from Rome, or elsewhere, contrary to his 
 royal prerogative and authority, or should publish or 
 divulge any such thing, requiring them not to do it, 
 under the pains of incurring his indignation, imprison- 
 ment, and other punishments on their persons." This 
 was founded on the statutes of provisors and premu- 
 nires. But that being done, he resolved next to pub- 
 lish to the world, and to his subjects, the justice of his 
 cause : therefore, some learned men were appointed to Books 
 compare all that had been written on it, and out of all " rit ' en f ' 
 
 . ' the King's 
 
 the transcripts ot the manuscripts of fathers and coun- "Ce- 
 cils, to gather together whatsoever did strengthen it. 
 Several of these manuscripts I have seen ; one is in Mr. 
 Smith's Library, where are the quotations of the fa- 
 thers, councils, schoolmen, and canonists written out 
 at length. There are three other such MSS. in the 0*0. 
 Cotton Library, of which, one contains a large vindica- c> 
 tion of these authorities, from some exceptions made 
 to them ; another is an answer to the Bishop of Ro- iwdem. 
 Chester's book for the Queen's cause. A third digests v esp . B.S. 
 the matter into twelve articles, which the reader will ^'^'^ 
 find in my Appendix ; and these are there enlarged on
 
 158 BURNET'S REFORMATION 
 
 and proved. But all these, and many more, were 
 summed up in a short book, and printed first in Latin, 
 then in English, with the determinations of the Uni- 
 versities before it. These are of such weight and im- 
 portance, and give so great a light to the whole matter, 
 that I hope the reader will not be ill pleased to have a 
 short abstract of them laid before him. 
 
 An abstract of those things which were written 
 for the divorce. 
 
 The " The law of marriage was originally given by God 
 
 ofTin to Adam in the state of innocence, with this declara- 
 ut'tamem. tion, that man and wife were one flesh ; but being 
 afterwards corrupted by the incestuous commixtures of 
 those which were of kin in the nearest degrees, the pri- 
 Levu. mitive law was again revived by Moses. And he gives 
 xvm. 20. manv ru l es a nd prohibitions about the degrees of kin- 
 dred and affinity, which are not to be looked on as 
 new laws and judiciary precepts, but as a restoring of 
 the law of nature, originally given by God, but then 
 much corrupted. For as the preface which is so oft 
 Lev. xviu. repeated before these laws, ' I am the Lord,' insinuates 
 2.4,, 5,6, j. nat j. nev were con f orm to the Divine Nature ; so the 
 
 consequences of them shew, they were moral and na- 
 tural. For the breaches of them are called wicked- 
 ness and abomination, and are said to defile the land ; 
 and the violation of them is charged on the Canaan- 
 ites, by which the land was polluted, and for which it 
 did vomit out the inhabitants. From whence it must 
 be concluded, that these were not positive precepts, 
 which did only bind the Jews, but were parts of the 
 law of mankind and nature ; otherwise those nations 
 could contract no guilt by their violating them. 
 Among the forbidden degrees, one is, ' Thou shalt not 
 discover the nakedness of thy brother's wife, it is thy 
 brother's nakedness.' And it is again repeated, ' If a 
 man shall take his brother's wife, it is an unclean 
 thing ; he hath uncovered his brother's nakedness, 
 they shall be childless.' These are clear and express 
 laws of God, which therefore must needs oblige all 
 persons of what rank soever, without exception. 

 
 PART I. BOOK II. 159 
 
 " In the New Testament, St. John Baptist said to And in 
 Herod, ' It is not lawful for thee to take thy brother's M e a * e 
 wife,' which shews that these laws of Moses were still xiv - 4> 
 obligatory. St. Paul also, in his Epistle to the Corin- * Cor - 
 thians, condemns the incestuous person for having his v ' 
 father's wife, which is one of the degrees forbidden by 
 the law of Moses, and calls it a fornication, not so 
 much as named among the Gentiles. From whence 
 it is inferred, that these forbidden degrees are ex- 
 cluded by the law of nature, since the Gentiles did not 
 admit them. St. Paul also calling it by the common 
 name of fornication, within which, according to that 
 place, all undue commixtures of men and women are 
 included ; therefore those places in the New Testa- 
 ment, that condemn fornication, do also condemn mar- 
 riages in forbidden degrees : our Saviour did also 
 assert the foundation of affinity, by saying, ' that man 
 and wife are one flesh.' 
 
 " But in all controverted things, the sense of the 
 Scriptures must be taken from the tradition of the 
 church, which no good catholic can deny ; and that is 
 to be found in the decrees of popes and councils, and in 
 the writings of the fathers and doctors of the church : 
 against which, if any argue from their private under- 
 standing of the Scriptures, it is the way of heresy, and 
 savours of Lutheranism. The first of the fathers who ^ * 
 had occasion to write of this matter was Tertullian, * 
 who lived within an age after the apostles. He in ex- 
 press words says, that the law of not marrying the 
 brother's wife, did still oblige Christians. 
 
 " The first pope, whose decision was sought in this The 
 matter, was Gregory the Great, to whom Austin, the 
 apostle of England, wrote for his resolution of some 
 things, in which he desired direction ; and one of 
 these is ' Whether a man may marry his brother's 
 wife ?' (who in the language of that time was called 
 his kinswoman.) The Pope answered negatively, and 
 proved it by the law of Moses, and therefore defined, 
 ' that if any of the English nation, who had married 
 within that degree, were converted to the faith, he 
 must be admonished to abstain from his wife, and to 
 
 rities of 
 popes.
 
 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 look on such a marriage as a most grievous sin.' From 
 which it appears, that that good Pope did judge it a 
 thing, which by no means could be dispensed with, 
 otherwise he had not pressed it so much under such 
 circumstances : since in the first conversion of a na- 
 tion to the Christian faith, the insisting too much upon 
 it might have kept back many from receiving the 
 Christian religion, who were otherwise well inclined 
 . Ad to it. Calixtus, a Zacarias, b and Innocent the Third, 
 ca!L n ave plainly asserted the obligation of these precepts 
 epLopos. in the law of Moses, the last particularly, who treats 
 QuLt. about it with great vehemency : so that the apostolic 
 piunum. see has already judged the matter, 
 c De pres. Several provincial councils have also declared the 
 in^uveT obligation of the precepts, about the degrees of mar- 
 wtem. r iage in Leviticus, by the council at Neocaesarea ; ' If 
 councils, a woman had been married to two brothers, she was 
 cuapfv. to be cast out of the communion of the church till her 
 death, and the man that married his brother's wife, 
 was to be anathematized,' which was also confirmed 
 can. 61. in a council held by Pope Gregory the Second. In 
 the council of Agde, where the degrees that make a 
 marriage incestuous are reckoned, this of marrying 
 the brother's wife is one of them ; and there it was 
 decreed, ' That all marriages within these degrees 
 were null, and the parties so contracting, were to be 
 cast out of the communion of the church; and put 
 among the catechumens, till they separated themselves 
 chap. v. from one another.' And in the second council of 
 Toledo, the authority of the Mosaical prohibitions 
 about the degrees of marriage is acknowledged. It 
 was one of Wickliffe's errors, that the prohibition of 
 marriage, within such degrees, was without any foun- 
 dation in the law of God, for which, and other points, 
 he was condemned, first in a convocation at London, 
 then at Oxford ; and last of all,. at the general council 
 of Constance these condemnations were confirmed. 
 So formally had the church, in many provincial coun- 
 cils, and in one that was general, decided this matter. 
 " Next to these, the opinions of the fathers were 
 to be considered. In the Greek church Origen a first 
 
 Greek. In
 
 PART I. BOOK II. 161 
 
 had occasion to treat about it, writing on Leviticus ; 
 and Chrysostom b after him ; but most fully St. Basil b IIomi1 -. 
 the Great, who do expressly assert the obligations Mt?" 
 of these precepts. The last particularly, refuting at Sor."" 1 
 great length the opinion of some, who thought the 
 marrying two sisters was not unlawful, lays it down 
 as a foundation, That the laws in Leviticus about 
 marriage were still in force. Hesychius, also, writ- onLevit. 
 ing upon Leviticus, proves that these prohibitions 1U and 
 were universally obligatory, because both the Egyp- 
 tians and Canaanites are taxed for marrying within 
 these degrees ; from whence he infers, they are of 
 moral and eternal obligation. 
 
 " From the Greek they went to the Latin fathers, And the 
 and alleged, as was already observed, that Tertullian ^ l e a rs . 
 held the same opinion, and with him agreed the three 
 great doctors of the Latin church, Ambrose, 3 Je-Lib. vm. 
 rome, b and St. Austin, who do plainly deliver the bc' m.' 
 tradition of the church about the obligation o f c H ' lvidium - 
 
 o * L-ont. 
 
 those laws, and answer the objections that were made, Faust - 
 either from Abraham's marrying his sister, or from ^o! P 8 ' 9 
 Jacob's marrying two sisters, or the law in Deuter- u s v ';^ u 
 onomy for the brother's marrying his brother's wife, ^ O b ni ' ac - 
 if he died without children. chap.'. 
 
 " They observed, that the same doctrine was also '. De?' 
 taught by the fathers and doctors in the latter ages. oha f- l6 / 
 
 i Hi i i 111 1 /> And of the 
 
 Anselm held it, and pleads much tor marrying in re- modem 
 mote degrees, and answers the objection from the de- *""*. 
 cision in the case of the daughters of Zelophehad. F d ral p ^' 
 Hugo Cardinalis, 8 Radulphus Flaviacensis, and Ru- d On * 
 pertus Tuitiensis, do agree, that these precepts aree^V. e. 
 moral, and of perpetual obligation, as also Hugo de ^2*'"' 
 Sto. Victore. Hildebert/ bishop of Mans, being con- cha p- 4 - 
 suited in a case of the same nature with what is now fl jipui.*i 
 controverted, plainly determines, That a man may not tom^.lt 
 marry his brother's wife; and by many authorities Ep ' 5SiaB> 
 shews, That by no means it can be allowed. And Ivo 
 Carnotensis, g being desired to give his opinion in a * E P i$ t . 240. 
 case of the same circumstances, of a King marrying 
 his brother's wife, says, ' Such a marriage is null, as in- 
 consistent with the law of God, and that the King was 
 VOL. i. M
 
 162 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 not to be admitted to the communion of the church, 
 till he put away his wife, since there was no dispens- 
 ing with the law of God, and no sacrifice could be 
 offered for those that continued willingly in sin.' 
 Passages also to the same purpose, are in other places 
 of his Epistles. 
 
 n,e " From these doctors and fathers the inquiry de- 
 
 ^ n 1 " scended to the schoolmen, who had with more nice- 
 ness and subtilty examined things. They do all agree 
 in asserting the obligation of these Levitical prohibi- 
 sda.sceae, tions. Thomas Aquinas does it in many places, and 
 isTart. 9. confirms it with many arguments. Altisiodorensis 
 Q^sf*' savs > t ne y are mora -l laws, and part of the law of na- 
 art.s. in ture. Petrus de Palude is of the same mind, and 
 40-o.j. says, that a man's marrying his brother's wife was a 
 and4> dispensation granted by God, but could not be now 
 allowed, because it was contrary to the law of nature. 
 St. Antonine of Florence, Joannes de Turre Cremata, 
 Joannes de Tabia, Jacobus de Lausania, and Astex- 
 anus, were also cited for the same opinion. And those 
 a com. who wrote against Wickliffe, namely, Wydeford,* 
 ^g 1 ; Cotten, b and Waldensis, charged him with heresy, 
 bDeiicids for denying that those prohibitions did oblige Chris- 
 
 et illicitis . i ill 11 i i 
 
 conjugiis. tians ; and asserted that they were moral laws which 
 sat'rlm? obliged all mankind. And the books of Waldensis 
 were approved by Pope Martin the First. There 
 were also many quotations brought out of Petrus de 
 Tarentasia, Durandus, Stephanus Brulifer, Richardus 
 de Media Villa, Guido Briancon, Gerson, Paulus 
 Ritius, and many others, to confirm the same opinion, 
 who did all unanimously assert, That those laws in 
 Leviticus are parts of the law of nature, which oblige 
 all mankind, and that marriages contracted in these 
 And ca- degrees are null and void. All the canonists were 
 also of the same mind, Joannes Andreas, Joannes 
 de Imola, Abbas Panormitanus, Matthaeus Neru, 
 Vincentius, Innocentius, and Ostiensis, all concluded 
 that these laws were still in force, and could not be 
 dispensed with. 
 
 " There was also a great deal alleged to prove, that 
 a marriage is completed by the marriage contract, 
 
 DOIl tats.
 
 PART I. BOOK II. 1G3 
 
 though it be never consummated. Many authorities Marriage 
 were brought to prove that Adonijah could not marry 1*** 
 Abishag, because she was his father's wife, though 
 never known by him. And by the law of Moses, a 
 woman espoused to a man, if she admitted another to 
 her bed, was to be stoned as an adulteress ; from whence 
 it appears, that the validity of marriage is from the 
 mutual covenant. And though Joseph never knew the 
 blessed Virgin, yet he was so much her husband by the 
 espousals, that he could not put her away, but by a bill 
 of divorce : and v/as afterwards called her husband, 
 and Christ's father. Affinity had been also defined by 
 all writers, ' a relation arising out of marriage ;' and 
 since marriage was a sacrament of the church, its es- 
 sence could only consist in the contract : and therefore, 
 as a man in orders has the character, thougrh he never 
 
 * O 
 
 consecrated any sacrament ; so marriage is complete, 
 though its eifectnever follows. And it was shewed that 
 the canonists had only brought in the consummation 
 of marriage as essential to it by ecclesiastical law : but 
 that, as Adam and Eve were perfectly married before 
 they knew one another, so marriage was complete upon 
 the contract ; and what followed was only an effect 
 done in the right of the marriage. And there was a 
 great deal of filthy stuff brought together of the dif- 
 ferent opinions of the canonists concerning consum- 
 mation, to what degree it must go, to shew that it 
 could not be essential to the marriage contract, which 
 in modesty were suppressed. Both Hildebert of Mans, 
 Ivo Carnotensis, and Hugo de Sto. Victore, had de- 
 livered this opinion, and proved it out of St. Chrysos- 
 tom, Ambrose, Austin, and Isidore. Pope Nicholas, 
 and the council of Tribur, defined, that marriage was 
 completed by the consent, and the benediction : from 
 all which they concluded, that although it could not 
 be proved that Prince Arthur knew the Queen, yet 
 that she being once lawfully married to him, the King 
 could not afterwards marry her. 
 
 " It was also said, that violent presumptions were Violenl 
 sufficient, in the opinion of the canonists, to prove con- t^nsT/* 
 summation. Formal proofs could not be expected ; , n ,ioo 
 
 M 2
 
 164 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 of prince and for persons that were of age, and in good health, 
 Arthur's . j n k ec i too-ether, was in all trials about consum- 
 
 marriage. 
 
 mation all that the canonists sought for. And yet this 
 was not all in this case ; for it appeared that upon her 
 husband's death, she was kept with great care by some 
 ladies, who did think her with child ; and she never 
 said any thing against it. And in the petition offered 
 to the Pope, in her name (repeated in the bull that 
 was procured for the second marriage), it is said, she 
 was 'perhaps known by Prince Arthur ;' and in the 
 breve it is plainly said, she was known by Prince Ar- 
 thur ; and though the Queen offered to purge herself 
 by oath, that Prince Arthur never knew her, it was 
 proved by many authorities out of the canon law, That 
 a party's oath ought not to be taken, when there were 
 violent presumptions to the contrary. 
 
 The Pope's " As for the validity of the Pope's dispensation, it 
 uoToTno was said, That though the schoolmen and canonists 
 did generally raise the Pope's power very high, and 
 stretch it as far as it was possible ; yet they all agreed 
 that it could not reach the King's case ; upon this re- 
 ceived maxim, ' That only the laws of the church are 
 subject to the Pope, and maybe dispensed with by him; 
 but that laws of God are above him, arid that he cannot 
 in quod, dispense with them in any case.' This Aquinas de- 
 Lib. 4. livers in many places of his works. Petrus de Palude 
 says, The Pope cannot dispense with marriage in these 
 Degrees, because it is against nature. But Joannes de 
 Turre Cremata reports a singular case, which fell out 
 when he was a Cardinal. A king of France desired a 
 dispensation to marry his wife's sister. The matter 
 was long considered of, and debated in the Rota, him- 
 self being there, and bearing a share in the debate ; but 
 it was concluded, ' That if any Pope, either out of ig- 
 norance, or being corrupted, had ever granted such a 
 dispensation, that could be no precedent or warrant 
 for doing the like any more, since the church ought to 
 be governed by laws, and not by such examples.' An- 
 tonin, and Joannes de Tabia, held the same. And 
 one Bacon, an Englishman, who had taught the con- 
 trary, was censured for it even at Rome, and he did re- 
 
 e t rt i n 13
 
 PART I. BOOK II. 165 
 
 tract his opinion, and acknowledged, that the Pope 
 could not dispense with the degrees of marriage for- 
 bidden by the law of God. 
 
 " The canonists, agree also to this ; both Joannes s up . c ap . 
 Andreas, Joannes de Imola, and Abbas Panormitanus Res""* 1 
 assert it, saying, That the precepts in Leviticus oblige Spons - 
 for ever, and therefore cannot be dispensed with. And 
 Panormitan says, 'These things are to be observed c ap . ad 
 in practice, because great princes do often desire dis- s^Jwi'. 
 pensations from popes.' Pope Alexander the Third 
 would not suffer a citizen of Pavia to marry his 
 younger son to the widow of his eldest son, though 
 he had sworn to do it. For the Pope said, it was 
 against the law of God, therefore it might not be done, 
 
 O * 
 
 and he was to repent of his unlawful oath. 
 
 "And for the power of dispensing even with the 
 laws of the church by popes, it was brought in in the 
 latter ages. All the fathers with one consent believed, 
 That the laws of God could not be dispensed with by 
 the church, for which many places were cited out of 
 St. Cyprian, Basil, Ambrose, Isidore, Bernard, and 
 Urban ; Fabian, Marcellus, and Innocent, that were 
 popes; besides an infinite number of later writers. 
 And also the popes Zosimus, Damascus, Leo, and 
 HiLarius did freely acknowledge they could not 
 change the decrees of the church, nor go against the 
 opinions or practices of the fathers. And since the 
 apostles confessed ' they could do nothing against the 
 truth, but for the truth ;' the pope, being Christ's Vicar, 
 cannot be supposed to have so great a power as to 
 abrogate the law of God ; and though it is acknow- 
 ledged, that he is vested with a ' fulness of power,' 
 yet the phrase must be restrained to the matter of it, 
 which is the pastoral care of souls. And though there 
 was no court superior to the pope's, yet as St. Paul 
 had withstood St. Peter to his face, so in all ages, 
 upon several occasions, holy bishops have refused to . 
 comply with, or submit to orders sent from Rome, 
 when they thought the matter of them unlawful. 
 
 " Laurence, that succeeded Austin the monk in the s** 1 
 see of Canterbury, having excommunicated King Ed- f<LT
 
 
 166 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 u to the bald* for an incestuous marriage, would not absolve 
 e s c d ui. him, till he put away his wife; though the Pope plied 
 es- j^ earnes tly both by entreaties and threatenings, to 
 ' Jet it alone, and absolve him. Dunstan did the like to 
 Count Edwin for another incestuous marriage; nor did 
 all the Pope's interposition make him give over. They 
 found many other such instances, which occurred in 
 the ecclesiastical history, of bishops proceeding by 
 censures, and other methods, to stop the course of sin, 
 notwithstanding any encouragement the parties had 
 from popes. 
 
 "And it is certain, that every man, when he finds 
 himself engaged in any course which is clearly sinful, 
 ought presently to forsake it, according to the opinion 
 of all divines. And therefore the King, upon these 
 evidences of the unlawfulness of his marriage, ought 
 to abstain from the Queen ; and the Archbishop of 
 Canterbury, with the other bishops, ought to require 
 him to do it, otherwise they must proceed to church 
 censures. Many things were also brought from reason 
 (or at least the maxims of the school philosophy, which 
 passed for true reason in those days,) to prove mar- 
 riage in the degrees forbidden by Moses to be con- 
 trary to the law of nature ; and much was alleged out 
 of profane authors, to shew what an abhorrency some 
 heathen nations had of incestuous marriages. 
 autho. " And whereas the chief strength of the arguments 
 n. ra for the contrary opinion rested in this, That these 
 laws of Moses were not confirmed by Christ or his 
 apostles, in the New Testament : to that they an- 
 swered, That if the laws about marriage were moral, 
 as had been proved, then there was no need of a 
 particular confirmation, since those words of our 
 Saviour: ' I came not to destroy the law, but to fulfil 
 it,' do confirm the whole moral law. Christ had also 
 expressly asserted the relation of affinity, saying, 
 ' That man and wife are one flesh.' St. Paul also 
 condemned a match as incestuous for affinity. But 
 
 * He did not excommunicate Edbald, nor could he, Edbald being yet a hea- 
 then ; but, upon his conversion, he put -away his wife. Bed. Hist. lib. 2. 
 cap. 5, 6.
 
 PART I. BOOK II. 167 
 
 though it were not expressly set down in the gospel, 
 yet the traditions of the church are received with 
 equal authority to written verities. This the court 
 of Rome, and all the learned writers for the catholic 
 faith, lay down as a fundamental truth. And without 
 it, how could the seven sacraments (some of which 
 are not mentioned in the New Testament) with many 
 other articles of catholic belief, be maintained against 
 the heretics ? The tradition of the church being so 
 full and formal in this particular, must take place ; 
 and if any corruptions have been brought in by some 
 popes within an age or two, which have never had 
 any other authorities from the decrees of the church, 
 or the opinions of learned men, they are not to be 
 maintained in opposition to the evidence that is 
 brought on the other side." 
 
 Thus I have summed up in as short and compre- 
 hensive words as I could, being the substance of 
 what I gathered out of the printed books and manu- 
 scripts for the King's cause. But the fidelity of an 
 historian leads me next to open the arguments that 
 were brought against it, by those who wrote on the 
 other side for the Queen's cause, to prove the validity 
 of the marriage, and the pope's power of dispensing 
 with a marriage in that degree of affinity. 
 
 I could never, by all the search I have made, see 
 either MSS. or printed books that defended their 
 cause, except Cajetan's and Victoria's* books, that 
 are printed in their works. But from an answer that 
 was written to the Bishop of Rochester's book, and 
 from some other writings on the other side, I gather 
 the substance of their arguments to have been what 
 follows : The 
 
 " Cardinal Cajetan had by many arguments endea- ^nts for 
 voured to prove, that the prohibitions in Leviticus ri4 ar 
 
 * There was a book printed at Lunenburgh, anno 1532, dedicated to the 
 Emperor's ambassador in England, Eustathius Chapnysius, &c. It was 
 against the divorce ; and charged very indirect practices on the other side, 
 by monies and bribes, &c. Cochleus likewise wrote against the divorce, 
 ad i'linlum Tertium ; but whether his book was printed before the year 1535, 
 cannot be ascertained. [Cochleus was answered by Dr. Morrisin, to whom 
 again he made a reply, under the following title (in French), " Balai de Jean 
 Cochiee, pour secouer les araignees de Morysin." N.]
 
 168 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 were not parts of the moral law. They were not 
 observed before the law, no not by the holy seed. 
 Adam's children married one another, Abraham mar- 
 ried his sister, Jacob married two sisters, Judah gave 
 his two sons to Tamar, and promised to give her the 
 third for her husband. By the law of Moses, a dis- 
 pensation was granted in one case, for marrying the 
 brother's wife, which shews the law was not moral, 
 otherwise it could not be dispensed with ; and if 
 Moses dispensed with it, why might not the Pope as 
 well do it? nor was there any force in the places 
 cited from the New Testament. As for that of Herod, 
 both Josephus and Eusebius witness, that his bro- 
 ther Philip was alive when he took his wife, and so 
 his sin was adultery, and not incest. We must also 
 think that the incestuous person in Corinth took his 
 father's wife when he was yet living ; otherwise, if 
 he had been dead, St. Paul could not say it was a 
 ' fornication not named among the Gentiles :' for we 
 not only find, both among the Persians and other 
 nations, the marriage of step mothers allowed, but 
 even among the Jews, Adonijah desired Abishag in 
 marriage, who had been his father's concubine." 
 
 From all which they concluded, " That the laws 
 about the degrees of marriage were only judiciary 
 p'recepts, and so there was no other obligation on 
 Christians to obey them, than what flowed from the 
 laws of the church, with which the Pope might dis- 
 pense. They also said, that the law in Leviticus, 
 of not taking the brother's wife, must be understood 
 of not taking her while he was alive ; for after he 
 
 was dead, by another law, a man might marry his 
 i .1 , / 
 
 brother s wile. 
 
 " They also pleaded, that the Pope's power of dis- 
 pensing did reach further than the laws of the church, 
 even to the law of God ; for he daily dispensed with 
 the breaking of oaths and vows, though that was ex- 
 pressly contrary to the second commandment ; and 
 though the fifth command, * Thou shalt do no mur- 
 der,' be against killing, yet the Pope dispensed with 
 the putting thieves to death and in some cases, where
 
 PART I. BOOK II. 169 
 
 the reason of the commandment does not at all times 
 hold, he is the only judge, according to Summa An- 
 gelica. They concluded the Pope's power of dis- 
 
 u- r j- 
 
 pensmg was as necessary as his power 01 expounding 
 
 the Scriptures ; and since there was a question made 
 concerning the obligation of these Levitical prohibi- 
 tions, whether they were moral, and did oblige Chris- 
 tians, or not, the Pope must be the only judge. There 
 were also some late precedents found, one of P. 
 Martin, who in the case of a man's having married 
 his own sister,* who had lived long with her, upon a 
 consultation with divines and lawyers, confirmed it ; 
 to prevent the scandal which the dissolving of it 
 would have given. Upon which St. Antonin of Flo- 
 rence says, that since the thing was dispensed with, 
 it was to be referred to the judgment of God, and 
 not to be condemned. 
 
 " The Pope had granted this dispensation, upon a 
 very weighty consideration, to keep peace between 
 two great crowns : it had now stood above twenty 
 years : it would therefore raise a high scandal to 
 - bring it under debate ; besides that it would do 
 much hurt, and bring the titles to most crowns into 
 controversy. 
 
 " But they concluded, that whatever informalities 
 or nullities were pretended to be in the bulls or breves, 
 the pope was the only competent judge of it; and that 
 it was too high a presumption for inferior prelates, to 
 take upon them to examine or discuss it." 
 
 But to these arguments it was answered by the i 
 writers for the King's cause, " that it was strange to tothe 
 see men, who pretended to be such enemies to all 
 heretical novelties, yet be guilty of that, which ca- 
 tholic doctors hold to be the foundation of all heresy ; 
 which was, the setting up of private senses of Scrip- 
 ture, and reasonings from them, against the doctrine 
 and tradition of the church. It was fully made out, 
 that the fathers and doctors of the church did uni- 
 versally agree in this, that the Levitical prohibitions 
 
 Not bis own sister, but his wife's sister. Antonin. Flwr. 
 Part. 3. tit. 1. cap. 11.
 
 170 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 of the degrees of marriage are moral, and do oblige 
 all Christians. Against this authority, Cajetan was 
 the first that presumed to write, opposing his private 
 conceits to the tradition of the church : which is the 
 same thing for which Luther and his followers are so 
 severely condemned. May it not then be justly said 
 of such men, that they plead much for tradition when 
 it makes for them, but reject it when it is against 
 them ? Therefore all these exceptions are overthrown, 
 with this one maxim of catholic doctrine, * That they 
 are novelties against the constant tradition of the 
 Christian church in all ages.' But if the force of 
 them be also examined, they will be found as weak 
 as they are new. That before the law these degrees 
 were not observed, proves only, that they are not evi- 
 dently contrary to the common sense of all men ; but 
 as there are some moral precepts, which have that 
 natural evidence in them, that all men must discern 
 it, so there are others, that are drawn from public 
 inconvenience and dishonesty, which are also parts 
 of the law of nature. These prohibitions are not of 
 the first, but of the second sort, since the immorality 
 of them appears in this, that the familiarities and 
 freedoms among near relations are such, that if a hor- 
 ror were not struck in men at conjunctures in these 
 degrees, families would be much defiled. This is the 
 foundation of the prohibitions of marriages in these 
 degrees ; therefore it is not strange if men did not 
 apprehend it, before God made a law concerning it. 
 Therefore all examples before the law, shew only the 
 thing is not so evident, as to be easily collected by the 
 light of nature. And for the story of Judah and 
 Tamar, there is so much wickedness in all the parts of 
 it, that it will be very hard to make a precedent out 
 of any part of it. As for the provision about mar- 
 rying the brother's wife, that only proves, the ground 
 of the law is not of its own nature immutable, but 
 may be dispensed with by God in some cases. And 
 all these moral laws, that are founded on public 
 conveniency and honesty, are dispensable by God in 
 some cases ; but because Moses did it by divine
 
 PART I. BOOK II. 171 
 
 revelation, it does not follow, that the Pope can do 
 it by his ordinary authority. 
 
 " For that about Herod, it is not clear from Jose- 
 phus that Philip was alive when Herod married his 
 wife. For all that Josephus says is, that she sepa- 
 rated from her husband, when he was yet alive, and 
 divorced herself from him. But he does not say, that 
 he lived still after she married his brother. And by 
 the law of divorce marriage was at an end, and broken 
 by it as much as if the party had been dead ; so that 
 in that case she might have married any other : there- 
 fore Herod's sin in taking her was from the rela- 
 tion of having been his brother's wife. And for the naii. 
 incestuous person in Corinth, it is as certain that 
 though some few instances, of a king of Syria, and 
 some others, may be brought of sons marrying their 
 step-mothers, yet these things were generally ill 
 looked on, even where they were practised by some 
 princes, who made their pleasure their law. Nor 
 could the laws of Leviticus be understood of not mar- 
 rying the brother's wife when he was alive ; for it 
 was not lawful to take any man's wife from him living; 
 therefore that cannot be the meaning. And all those 
 prohibitions of marriage in other degrees, excluding 
 those marriages simply, whether during the life, or 
 after the death of the father, son, uncle, and other 
 such relations, there is no ground to disjoint this so 
 much from the rest, as to make it only extend to a 
 marriage before the husband's death. And for any 
 precedents that were brought, they were all in the 
 latter ages, and were never confirmed by any public 
 authority. Nor must the practices of latter popes be 
 laid in the balance against the decisions of former 
 popes, and the doctrine of the whole church ; and as 
 to the power that was ascribed to the pope, that began 
 now to be inquired into with great freedom, as shall 
 appear afterwards." 
 
 These reasons on both sides being thus opened, the 1531. 
 censures of them, it is like, will be as different now, sun f a ee 
 as they were then ; for they prevailed very little on tractable - 
 the Queen, who still persisted to justify her marriage,
 
 172 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 Haii. and to stand to her appeal. And though the King 
 carried it very kindly to her in all outward appear- 
 ance, and employed every body that had credit with 
 her, to bring her to submit to him, and to pass from 
 her appeal, remitting the decision of the matter to any 
 four prelates, and four secular men in England, she 
 was still unmoveable, and would hearken to no propo- 
 sition. In the judgments that people passed, the sexes 
 were divided ; the men generally approved the King's 
 A session cause, and the women favoured the Queen. But now 
 Lw. r la ~ the session of parliament came on the 16th of January, 
 and there the King first brought into the House of 
 Lords the determination of the Universities, and the 
 books that were written for his cause by foreigners. 
 More. After they were read and considered there, the Lord 
 Chancellor did on the 20th of March, with twelve 
 lords both of the spirituality and temporality, go down 
 to the House of Commons, and shewed them what the 
 Universities and learned men beyond sea had written 
 for the divorce, and produced twelve original papers, 
 with the seals of the Universities to them, which Sir 
 Brian Tuke took out of his hand, and read openly in 
 the House, translating the Latin into English. Then 
 about a hundred books written by foreign divines for 
 the divorce, were also shewed them ; none of which 
 were read, but put off to another time, it being late. 
 When that was done, the Lord Chancellor desired 
 they would report in their countries, " what they had 
 heard and seen, and then all men should clearly per- 
 ceive, that the King hath not attempted this matter of 
 will and pleasure, as strangers say, but only for the 
 discharge of his conscience, and the security of the 
 succession to the crown." Having said that, he left 
 convo. the House. The matter was also brought before the 
 convocation ; and they having weighed all that was 
 said on both sides, seemed satisfied that the marriage 
 was unlawful, and that the bull was of no force ; 
 more not being required at that time. 
 
 citr Wh S ued ^ ut ^ ls not stran g e > that this matter went so easily 
 in a P re- in the convocation, when another of far greater con- 
 
 O 
 
 sequence passed there, which will require a full and
 
 PART I. BOOK II. 173 
 
 distinct account. Cardinal Wolsey, by exercising 
 his legantine authority, had fallen into a premunire, 
 as hath been already shewn ; and now those who had 
 appeared in his courts, and had suits there, were found 
 to be likewise in the same guilt by the law ; and this 
 matter, being excepted out of the pardon that was 
 granted in the former parliament, was at this time set 
 on foot : therefore an indictment was brought into 
 the King's Bench, against all the clergy of England, 
 for breaking the statutes against provisions or pro- 
 visors. But to open this more clearly, 
 
 It is to be considered, that the kings of England The P rero- 
 having claimed in all ages a power in ecclesiastical Se'uogs 
 matters, equal to what the Roman emperors had in a f n ^ ^ 
 that empire, they exercised this authority both over clerical 
 the clergy and laity ; and did at first erect bishop- " 
 ricks, grant investitures in them, call synodsj make 
 laws, about sacred as well as civil concerns ; and, in 
 a word, they governed their whole kingdom. Yet 
 when the bishops of Rome did stretch their power 
 beyond either the limits of it in the primitive church, 
 or what was afterwards granted them by the Roman 
 emperors, and came to assume an authority in all the 
 churches of Europe ; as they found some resistance 
 every where, so they met with a great deal in this 
 kingdom ; and it was with much difficulty, that they 
 gained the power of giving investitures, receiving 
 appeals to Rome, and of sending legates to England, 
 with several other things, which were long contested, 
 but were delivered up at length, either by feeble 
 princes, or when kings were so engaged at home or 
 abroad, that it was not safe for them to offend the 
 clergy. For in the first contest between the kings 
 and the popes, the clergy were generally on the popes' 
 side, because of the immunity and protection they 
 enjoyed from that see ; but when popes became am- 
 bitious and warlike princes, then new projects and 
 taxes were every where set on foot, to raise a great 
 treasure. The pall, with many bulls and high com- The . 
 positions for them, annates, or first-fruits and tenths, ^^ 
 were the standing taxes of the clergy, besides many the ??**
 
 174 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 new ones upon emergent occasions. So that they, 
 finding themselves thus oppressed by the popes, fled 
 again back to the crown for protection, which their 
 predecessors had abandoned. 
 
 Man. From the days of Edward the First, many statutes 
 
 The'iaws were made to restrain the exactions of Rome. For then 
 ^alL the popes, not satisfied with their other oppressions, 
 them. (which a monk of that time lays open fully, and from 
 a deep sense of them) did by provisions, bulls, and 
 other arts of that see, dispose of bishopricks, abbeys, 
 and lesser benefices, to foreigners, cardinals, and 
 others that did not live in England. Upon which the 
 commonalty of the realm, did represent to the King 
 25 Edw. in parliament, " That the bishopricks, abbeys, and 
 edtoThe other benefices were founded by the kings and people 
 pSvuor ,! of England to inform the people of the law of God, 
 MI**, and to make hospitality, alms, and other works of 
 charity, for which end they were endowed by the 
 King and people of England ; and that the King, 
 and his other subjects who endowed them, had upon 
 voidances the presentment and collations of them, 
 which now the Pope had usurped and given to aliens, 
 by which the crown would be disinherited, and the 
 ends of their endowments destroyed, with other great 
 inconveniences." Therefore it was ordained, " that 
 these oppressions should not be suffered in any man- 
 ner." But, notwithstanding this, the abuse went on, 
 and there was no effectual way laid down in the act 
 to punish these transgressions. The court of Rome 
 was not so easily driven out of any thing that either 
 increased their power or their profits ; therefore, by 
 another act in his grandchild Edward the Third's 
 is Fxiw. time, the Commons complained, " that these abuses 
 tme of a did abound, and that the Pope did daily reserve to his 
 proviso!?, collation church preferments in England, and raised 
 the first-fruits, with other great profits, by which the 
 treasure of the realm was carried out of it, and many 
 clerks, advanced in the realm, were put out of their 
 benefices, by those provisors ; therefore the King, 
 being bound by oath to see the laws kept, did, with 
 the assent of all the great men and the commonalty of
 
 PART I. BOOK II. 175 
 
 the realm, ordain, That the free elections, present- 
 ments, and collations of benefices, should stand in the 
 right of the crown, or of any of his subjects, as they 
 had formerly enjoyed them, notwithstanding any pro- 
 visions from Rome. And if any did disturb the in- 
 cumbents by virtue of such provisions, those pro- 
 visors, or others employed by them, were to be put 
 in prison, till they made fine and ransom to the King 
 at his will ; or if they could not be apprehended, 
 writs were to be issued out to seize them, and all 
 benefices possessed by them were to fall into the 
 King's hands, except they were abbeys or priories, 
 that fell to the canons or colleges." By another act 27 Edw. 
 " the provisors, were put out of the King's protection, 
 and if any man offended against them, in person or 
 goods, he was excused, and was never to be impeached 
 for it." And two years after that, upon another com- 
 plaint of their suing the King's subjects mother courts, 
 or beyond sea, it was ordained, " that any who sued, 
 either beyond sea, or in any other court, for things 
 that had been sued, and about which judgment had 
 been given in former times, in the King's courts, were 
 to be cited to answer for it in the King's courts within 
 two months ; and if they came not, they were to be 
 put out of the King's protection, and to forfeit their 
 lands, goods, and chattels to the King, and to be 
 imprisoned and ransomed at the King's will." Both 
 these statutes received a new confirmation eleven 
 
 years after that. But those statutes proved ineffectual ; 
 and in the beginning of the reign of Richard the 3 Rich. 
 Second, the former acts were confirmed by another "' cap ' 3 ' 
 statute, and appointed to be executed : and not only 
 the provisors themselves, but all such as took procu- 
 ratories, letters of attorneys, or farms from them, were 
 involved in the same guilt. And in the seventh year 
 of that King, provisions were made against aliens 
 having benefices without the King's license, and the 
 King promised to abstain from granting them licenses: 
 for this was another artifice of the Roman court, to 
 get the King of their side, by accepting his license, 
 which by this act was restrained. This failing, they
 
 17t> BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 betook themselves to another course, which was, to 
 prevail with the incumbents that were presented in 
 England according to law, to take provisions for their 
 benefices from Rome, to confirm their titles. This 
 
 12 Rich, was also forbidden under the former pains. As for 
 ' cap ' 15 ' the rights of presentations, by the law they were tried 
 and judged in the King's courts ; and the bishops 
 were to give institution according to the title declared 
 in these judgments. This the popes had a mind to 
 draw to themselves, and to have all titles to advow- 
 sons tried in their courts ; and bishops were excom- 
 municated, who proceeded in this matter according 
 to the law. Of which great complaint was made in 
 
 16 Rich, the sixteenth year of the reign of Richard the Second. 
 
 u. cap. 5. And it was a dded to that, that the Pope intended to 
 make many translations of bishops, some to be within, 
 and some out of the realm, which, among other incon- 
 veniences reckoned in the statute, would produce this 
 effect, " That the crown of England, which had been 
 so free at all times, should be subjected to the Bishop 
 of Rome, and the laws and statutes of the realm by 
 him defeated and destroyed at his will. They also 
 found those things to be against the King's crown 
 and regality, used and approved in the time of his 
 progenitors. Therefore all the Commons resolved to 
 live and die with him and his crown ; and they re- 
 quired him by way of justice, to examine all the lords, 
 spiritual and temporal, what they thought of those 
 things, and whether they would be with the crown 
 to uphold the regality of it? To which all the temporal 
 lords answered, they would be with the crown. But 
 the spiritual lords being asked, said, they would 
 neither deny nor affirm that the Bishop of. Rome 
 might, or might not, excommunicate bishops, or make 
 translations of prelates : but upon that protestation, 
 (they said,) that if such things were done, they 
 thought it was against the crown, and said, they 
 would be with the King, as they were bound by their 
 legeance." Whereupon it was ordained, " that if any 
 did purchase translations, sentences of excommuni- 
 cations, bulls, or other instruments from the court of
 
 PART I. BOOK II. 177 
 
 Rome, against the King or his crown ; or whosoever 
 brought them to England, or did receive, or execute 
 them ; they were out of the King's protection, and 
 that they should forfeit their goods and chattels to the 
 King, and their persons should be imprisoned." And 
 because the proceedings were to be put upon a writ, 
 called from the most material words of it, prcemunire 
 fades, this was called the " statute of premunire." 
 
 When Henry the Fourth had treasonably usurped 
 the crown, all the bishops (Carlisle only excepted) 
 did assist him in it, and he did very gratefully oblige 
 them again in other things ; yet he kept up the force 
 of the former statutes. For the Cistercian order hav- 
 ing procured bulls, discharging them of paying tithes, 
 and forbidding them to let their farms to any, but to 
 possess them themselves : this was complained of in 
 parliament in the second year of his reign, " and those 2iienr y 
 bulls were declared to be of no force ; and if any did 
 put them in execution, or procured other such bulls, 
 they were to be proceeded against, upon the statutes 
 made in the thirteenth year of the former King's reign 
 against provisors." But all this while, though they 
 made laws for the future, yet they had not the cou- 
 rage to put them in execution. And this feebleness 
 in the government made them so much despised, and 
 so oft broken ; whereas the severe execution of one law 
 in one instance would more effectually have prevented 
 the mischief, than all these laws did without execu- 
 tion. In the sixth year of his rei^n, complaints beingr e Henry 
 
 j ,. , , r ~ . A . r f , & IV.cap.l. 
 
 made ot the excessive rates ot compositions tor arch- 
 bishopricks and bishopricks in the Pope's chamber, 
 which were raised to the treble of what had been for- 
 merly paid ; it was enacted, " that they should pay no 
 more than had been formerly wont to be paid." In 7 Henry 
 the seventh year of his reign, the statute made in the 
 second year was confirmed ; and by another act, " the 
 licenses which the King had granted for the executing 
 any of the Pope's bulls are declared of no force to pre- 
 judice any incumbent in his right." Yet the abuses 
 and encroachments of the court of Rome still increas- 
 ing, all former statutes against provisors were con- 
 VOL. i. N
 
 178 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 firmed again, and all elections declared free, and not 
 to be interrupted, either by the Pope or the King : but 
 at the same time, the King pardoned all the former 
 
 17 Henry transgressions against these statutes. By those par- 
 
 8 ' dons the court of Rome was more encouraged than 
 
 terrified by the laws ; therefore there was a necessity 
 
 v"c"p y 4. of making another law in the reign of Henry the Fifth, 
 against provisors, " that the incumbents lawfully in- 
 vested in their livings should not be molested by them, 
 though they had the King's pardon : and both bulls 
 and licenses were declared void and of no value ; and 
 those who did upon such grounds molest them, should 
 incur the pains of the statutes against provisors." 
 
 Our kings took the best opportunity that ever could 
 have been found to depress the papal power; for from 
 the beginning of Richard the Second's reign, till the 
 fourth year of Henry the Fifth, the popedom was 
 broken by a long and great schism; and the kingdoms 
 of Europe were divided in their obedience : some hold- 
 ing for those that sate at Rome, and others for the 
 popes of Avignon: England, in opposition to France, 
 that chiefly supported the Avignon popes, did adhere 
 to the Roman popes. The papacy being thus divided, 
 the popes were as much at the mercy of kings for their 
 protection, as kings had formerly been at their's ; so 
 that they durst not thunder as they were wont to do ; 
 otherwise this kingdom had certainly been put under 
 excommunications and interdicts for these statutes, as 
 had been done formerly upon less provocations. 
 
 But now that the schism was healed, Pope Martin 
 the Fifth began to reassume the spirit of his predeces- 
 sors, and sent over threatening messages to England, 
 in the beginning of Henry the Sixth's reign. None 
 of our books have taken any notice of this piece of our 
 
 KX MSS. history : the manuscript out of which I draw it has 
 et>t ' been written near that time, and contains many of the 
 letters that passed between Rome and England, upon 
 this occasion. 
 
 Reg. The first letter is to Henry Chichely, then arch- 
 
 foutsl! bishop of Canterbury, who had been promoted to that 
 see by the Pope, but had made no opposition to the
 
 PART 1. BOOK II. 179 
 
 statute against provisions in the fourth year of Henry 
 the Fifth ; and afterwards, in the eighth year of his 
 reign, when the Pope had granted a provision of the 
 archbishoprick of York to the Bishop of Lincoln, the 
 chapter of York rejected it, and, pursuant to the 
 former statute, made a canonical election. Henry the 
 Fifth being then the greatest king in Christendom, 
 the Pope durst not offend him : so the law took place, 
 without any further contradiction, till the sixth year 
 of his son's reign, that England was both under an in- 
 fant King, and had fallen from its former greatness : 
 therefore, the Pope, who waited for a good conjunc- 
 ture, laid hold on this, and first expostulated severely 
 with the Archbishop for his remissness, that he had not 
 stood up more for the right of St. Peter and the see of 
 Rome, that had bestowed on him the primacy of Eng- 
 land ; and then says many things against the statute 
 of premunire, and exhorts him to imitate the example 
 of his predecessor, St. Thomas of Canterbury, the 
 martyr, in asserting the rights of the church ; requiring 
 him, under the pain of excommunication, to declare 
 at the next parliament to both Houses, the unlawful- 
 ness of that statute, and that all were under excom- 
 munication who obeyed it. But to make sure work 
 among the people, he also commands him to give 
 orders, under the same pains, that all the clergy of 
 England should preach the same doctrine to the 
 people. This bears date the 5th day of December, collect. 
 1426, and will be found in the Collection of Papers. N 
 
 But it seems the Pope was not satisfied with his an- 
 swer; for the next letter in that MS. is yet more severe, 
 and in it his legantine power is suspended. It has no 
 date added to it, but the paper that follows, bearing 
 date the 6th of April, 1427, leads us pretty near the 
 date of it. It contains an appeal of the Archbishop's 
 from the Pope's sentence, to the next general council ; 
 or, if none met, to the tribunal of God ajid Jesus Christ. 
 
 There is also another letter, dated the 6th of May, 
 directed to the Archbishop, and makes mention of 
 letters written to the whole clergy to the same purpose, 
 requiring him to use all his endeavours for repealing 
 
 N 2
 
 180 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 the statute, and chides him severely because he had 
 said, " that the Pope's zeal in this matter was only, 
 that he might raise much money out of England ;" 
 which he resents as a high injury, and protests that 
 he designed only to maintain these rights that Christ 
 himself had granted to his see, which the holy fathers, 
 the councils, and the catholic church has always ac- 
 knowledged. If this does not look like teaching ex 
 cathedra, it is left to the reader's judgment. 
 
 But the next letter is of a higher strain. It is di- 
 rected to the two Archbishops only ; and, it seems, in 
 despite to Chichely, the Archbishop of York is named 
 before Canterbury. By it the Pope annuls the sta- 
 tutes made by Edward the Third and Richard the Se- 
 cond, and commands them to do no act in pursuance 
 of them : and declares, if they, or any other, gave obe- 
 dience to them, they were ipso facto excommunicated, 
 and not to be relaxed, unless at the point of death, by 
 any but the Pope. He charges them also to intimate 
 that his monitory letter to the whole nation, and cause 
 it to be affixed in the several places, where there might 
 be occasion for it. This is dated the 8th of December, 
 the tenth year of his popedom. Then follow letters 
 from the University of Oxford, the Archbishop of 
 York, the Bishops of London, Duresme, and Lincoln, 
 to the Pope; all to mitigate his displeasure against the 
 Archbishop of Canterbury, in which they gave him the 
 highest testimony possible, bearing date the 10th and 
 the 25th day of July. These the Archbishop sent by 
 an express to Rome, and wrote the humblest submis- 
 sion possible to the Pope; protesting that he had done, 
 and would do, all that was in his power for repealing 
 these statutes. One thing in this letter is remarkable : 
 he says, " He hears the Pope had proceeded to a sen- 
 tence against him, which had never been done from 
 the days of St. Austin to that time : but he knew that 
 only by report, for he had not opened, much less read, 
 the bulls in which it was contained ; being command- 
 ed by the King, to bring them with the seals entire, 
 and lay them up in the paper-office till the parliament 
 was brought together." 
 
 o o
 
 lament. 
 Collect, 
 umb. 38. 
 
 PART 1. BOOK II. 181 
 
 There are two other letters to the King, and one to And to u 
 the parliament, for the repeal of the statute. In those J^? ""' 
 to the King the Pope writes, that he had often pressed 
 both King and parliament to it; and that the King had 
 answered, that he could not repeal it without the par- 
 liament. But he excepts to that, as a delaying the 
 business, and shews it is of itself unlawful, and that 
 the King was under excommunication as long as he 
 kept it : therefore he expects that, at the furthest, in 
 the next parliament it should be repealed. It bears collect. 
 date the 13th of October, in the tenth year of his pope- N ' 
 dom. In his letter to the parliament he tells them, 
 that no man can be saved who is for the observation 
 of that statute; therefore he requires them, under pain 
 of damnation, to repeal it, and offers to secure them 
 from any abuses which might have crept in formerly 
 with these provisions. This is dated the 3d of Oc- 
 tober, decimo pontificat : but I believe it is an error of 
 the transcriber, and that its true date was the 13th of 
 October. 
 
 The parliament sate in January 1427, being the 6th 
 year of King Henry the Sixth ; during which, on the 
 30th of January, the Archbishop of Canterbury, ac- 
 companied by the Archbishop of York, the Bishops 
 of London, St. David's, Ely, and Norwich, and the 
 Abbots of Westminster and Reading, went from the 
 House of Lords to the place where the House of Com- 
 mons ordinarily sate, which was the refectory of the 
 abbey of Westminster, where the Archbishop made 
 a long speech, in the form of a sermon, upon that 
 text, " Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, 
 and to God the things that are God's." He began 
 with a protestation, that he and his brethren intended 
 not to say any thing that might derogate from the 
 King, the crown, or the people of England. Then 
 he alleged many things for the Pope's power in grant- 
 ing provisions, to prove it was of Divine right, and 
 admonished and required them to give the Pope. satis- 
 faction in it, otherwise he laid out to them with tears 
 what mischief might follow, if he proceeded to cen- 
 sures ; which will appear more fully from the instru-
 
 r.ut to no 
 
 182 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 merit that will be found in the Collection at the end. 
 But it seems the parliament would do nothing for all 
 cXcT. this ; for no act, neither of repeal nor explanation, 
 
 Nu-nb. 4o. was passe d. 
 
 Yet it appears the Pope was satisfied with the 
 Archbishop's carriage in this matter, for he soon after 
 restored him to the exercise of his legantine power, 
 as Godwin has it ; only he, by a mistake, says, he 
 was made legate anno 1428, whereas it was only a 
 restitution after a censure. 
 
 ri,e clergy Thus stood the law of England in that matter, 
 hem- e which was neither repealed nor well executed ; for 
 3tlves> the Pope's usurpations still increasing, those statutes 
 lay dead among the records, and several cardinals had 
 procured and executed a legantine power, which was 
 clearly contrary to them. And as Cardinal Wolsey 
 was already brought under the lash for it, so it was 
 now made use of, partly to give the court of Rome 
 apprehensions of what they were to expect from the 
 King, if they went on to use him ill ; and partly to 
 proceed severely against all those of the clergy who 
 adhered obstinately to the interests of that court, and 
 to make the rest compound the matter, both by a full 
 submission and a considerable subsidy. It was in 
 vain to pretend, it was a public and allowed error, 
 and that the King had not only connived at the Car- 
 dinal's proceedings, but had made him all that while 
 his chief minister : that, therefore, they were excusa- 
 ble in submitting to an authority to which the King 
 gave so great encouragement ; and that if they had 
 done otherwise they had been unavoidably ruined. 
 For to all this it was answered, that the laws were 
 still in force, and that their ignorance could not ex- 
 cuse them, since they ought to have known the law ; 
 yet since the violation of it was so public, though the 
 court proceeded to a sentence, that they were all out of 
 the King's protection, and were liable to the pains of 
 ^, et they the statutes : the King was willing, upon a reasonable 
 
 compound. .,. -, -, ,, . . . , - 
 
 composition, and a lull submission, to pardon them, 
 
 So, in the convocation of Canterbury, a petition was 
 
 brought in to be offered to the King. In the King's
 
 PART I. BOOK II. 183 
 
 title, he was called, "The protector and supreme head A D J ac - 
 of the church and the clergy of England." To this r? 
 some opposition was made, and it was put off to an- * up " m r e . 
 
 i 111- f /$ n head of the 
 
 other day ; but, by the interposition ot Cromwell, and church of 
 others of the King's council, who came to the convo- IT u^ttri. 
 cation and used arguments to persuade them to it, they 
 were prevailed with to pass it with that title, % at least 
 none speaking against it : for when Warham, arch- 
 bishop of Canterbury, said, " That silence was to be 
 taken for consent," one cried out, " they were then 
 all silent ;" yet it was moved by some to add these 
 words to the title, "in so far as is lawful by the 
 law of Christ." But Parker says, the King disliked Anti q .,it. 
 that clause, since it left his power still disputable ; j^" 5 * 
 therefore it was cast out, and the petition passed Waihan >- 
 simply as it was first brought in. Yet in that he 
 was certainly misinformed, for when the convoca- 
 tion of York demurred about the same petition, and 
 sent their reasons to the King, why they could not ac- 
 knowledge him supreme head, which (as appears by p r ; ute d 
 the King's answer to them) were chiefly founded on a ^ a 
 this, that the term head was improper, and did not 
 agree to any under Christ ; the King wrote a long and 
 sharp answer to them, and shewed them, that words 
 were not always to be understood in their strict sense, 
 but according to the common acceptation. And 
 among other things, he shewed what an explanation 
 was made in the convocation of Canterbury, that it 
 was " in so far as was agreeable to the law of Christ ;" 
 by which it appears, that at that time the King was 
 satisfied to have it pass any way, and so it was agreed 
 to by nine bishops (the Bishop of Rochester being 
 one) and sixty-two abbots and priors, and the major 
 part of the lower House of Convocation in the pro- 
 vince of Canterbury. Of which number it is very 
 probable Reginald Pool was, for in his book to 
 the King he says, he was then in England ; and 
 adds, that the King would not accept of the sum 
 the clergy offered, unless they acknowledged him 
 supreme head : he being then Dean of Exeter, was 
 of the lower House of Convocation ; and it is not
 
 184 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 likely the King would have continued the pensions 
 and other church preferments he had, if he had re- 
 fused to sign that petition and submission. By it 
 they prayed the King to accept 100,000/. in lieu 
 of all punishments which they had incurred by going 
 against the statutes of provisors, and did promise for 
 the future, neither to make nor execute any consti- 
 tution without the King's license ; upon which he 
 granted them a general pardon : and the convoca- 
 tion of the province of York offering 1 8,840/. with 
 another submission of the same nature afterwards, 
 though that met with more opposition, they were also 
 pardoned. 
 
 The com. When the King's pardon for the clergy was brought 
 
 she to be into the House of Commons, they were much troubled 
 
 in C the ded to find themselves not included within it; for by the 
 
 K j|^ statutes of provisors many of them were also liable, 
 
 Ila11 - and they apprehended that either they might be 
 
 brought in trouble, or at least it might be made use 
 
 of to draw a subsidy from them : so they sent their 
 
 Speaker, with some of their members, to represent to 
 
 the King, the great grief of his commons to find them- 
 
 selves out of his favour, which they concluded from 
 
 the pardon of the pains of premunire to his spiritual 
 
 subjects, in which they were not included ; and there- 
 
 fore prayed the King that they might be compre- 
 
 hended within it. But the King answered them, 
 
 that they must not restrain his mercy, nor yet force 
 
 it : it was free to him either to execute or mitigate 
 
 the severity of the law : that he mi^ht well grant his 
 
 pardon by his great seal without their assent, but he 
 
 would be well advised before he pardoned them, be- 
 
 cause he would not seem to be compelled to it. So 
 
 they went away, and the House was in some trouble : 
 
 many blamed Cromwell, who was growing in favour, 
 
 for this rough answer ; yet the King's pardon was 
 
 passed. 
 
 which But his other concerns made him iudge it very unfit 
 
 the King , l v T 
 
 afterwards to send away his parliament discontented ; and since 
 j^ was so eag y fo ^ nem as ^ o as ] c no su bsidy, he had 
 
 no mind to offend them ; and therefore, when the 
 
 grants,
 
 PART I. BOOK II. 185 
 
 thing was over, and they out of hopes of it, he, of his 
 own accord, sent another pardon to all his tempo- 
 ral subjects of their transgressions of the statutes of 
 provisors and premumre ; which they received with 
 great joy, and acknowledged there was a just tem- 
 perature of majesty and clemency in the King's pro- 
 ceedings. 
 
 During this session of parliament, an unheard-of ***- 
 crime was committed by one Richard Rouse, a cook, pTsomng 
 who, on the 16th of February, poisoned a vessel of 
 yeast, that was to be used in porridge in the Bishop 
 of Rochester's kitchen, with which seventeen persons 
 of his family were mortally infected, and one of the 
 gentlemen died of it; and some poor people, that 
 were charitably fed with the remainder of it, were 
 also infected, one woman dying. The person was ap- 
 prehended, and by act of parliament poisoning was - "en- 
 declared treason, and Rouse was attainted, and sen- A. ie. 
 tenced to be boiled to death, which was to be the punish- 
 ment of poisoning for all times to come, that the terror 
 of this unheard-of punishment might strike a horror 
 in all persons at such an unexampled crime. And the Hal1 - 
 sentence was executed in Smithfield soon after. 
 
 Of this I takenotice the rather because of Sanders's 
 malice, who says, this Rouse was set on by Anne Bo- 
 leyn, to make away the Bishop of Rochester, of which 
 there is nothing on record, nor does any writer of that 
 time so much as insinuate it. But persons that are 
 set on to commit such crimes are usually either con- 
 veyed out of the way, or secretly dispatched, that they 
 may not be brought to an open trial. And it is not to 
 be imagined, that a man that was employed by them 
 that might have preferred him, and found himself 
 given up and adjudged to such a death, would not 
 have published their names who set him on, to have 
 lessened his own guilt, by casting the load upon them 
 that had both employed and deserted him. But this 
 must pass among the many other vile calumnies of 
 which Sanders has been the inventor, or publisher, and 
 for which he has already answered to his Judge. 
 
 When the session of parliament was over, the King L - neibei
 
 J8G BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 continued to ply the Queen, with all the applications 
 he could think of, to depart from her appeal. He grew 
 very melancholy, and used no sort of diversion, but 
 was observed to be very pensive. Yet nothing could 
 prevail with the Queen. She answered the lords of 
 the council, when they pressed her much to it, " That 
 she prayed God to send the King a quiet conscience, 
 but that she was his lawful wife, and would abide 
 by it, till the court of Rome declared the contrary." 
 Upon which the King forbore to see her, or to receive 
 ,j any tokens from her, and sent her word, to choose 
 where she had a mind to live, in any of his manors. 
 She answered, that to which place soever she was re- 
 moved, " nothing could remove her from being his 
 The King wife." Upon this answer the King left her at Wind- 
 Qulen. the sor, the 14th of July, and never saw her more. She 
 removed first to Moor, then to Easthamstead, and at 
 last to Ampthill, where she stayed longer. 
 A disorder The clergy went now about the raising of the hun- 
 cir g "y It 6 dred thousand pounds, which they were to pay in five 
 ^outthe years ; and, to make it easier to themselves, the pre- 
 i"aii idy ' a * es ^ a d a great mind to draw in the inferior clergy 
 to bear a part of the burden. The Bishop of London 
 called a meeting of some priests about London, on the 
 1st of September, to the Chapter-house at St. Paul's. 
 He designed to have had at first only a small number, 
 among whom he hoped it would easily pass, and that 
 being done by a few, others would more willingly 
 follow. But the matter was not so secretly carried, 
 but that all the clergy about the city hearing of it, went 
 thither. They were not a little encouraged by many 
 of the laity, who thought it no unpleasant diversion to 
 see the clergy fall out among themselves. So when 
 they came to the Chapter-house on the day appointed, 
 the Bishop's officers would only admit some few to 
 enter ; but the rest forced the door and rushed in, and 
 the Bishop's servants were beaten and ill used. But 
 the Bishop, seeing the tumult was such that it could 
 not be easily quieted, told them all, " That as the 
 state of men in this life was frail, so the clergy, through 
 frailty and want of wisdom, had misdemeaned them-
 
 PART I. BOOK II. Ib7 
 
 selves towards the King, and had fallen in a premu- 
 nire, for which the King of his great clemency was 
 pleased to pardon them, and to accept of a little, in- 
 stead of the whole of their benefices, which by the 
 law, had fallen into his hand : therefore he desired 
 they would patiently bear their share in this burden." 
 But they answered, they had never meddled with any 
 of the Cardinal's faculties, and so had not fallen in the 
 premunire ; and that their livings were so small, that 
 they could hardly subsist by them. Therefore, since 
 the bishops and abbots were only guilty, and had good 
 preferments, they only ought to be punished and pay 
 the tax ; but that for themselves they needed not the 
 King's pardon, and so would pay nothing for it. Upon 
 which the Bishop's officers threatened them ; but they 
 on the other hand (being encouraged by some laymen 
 that came along with them) persisted in the denial to 
 pay any thing ; so that from high words the matter 
 came to blows, and several of the Bishop's servants 
 were ill handled by them. But he, to prevent a fur- 
 ther tumult, apprehending it might end upon himself, 
 gave them good words, and dismissed the meeting 
 with his blessing, and promised that nothing should 
 be brought in question that was then done. Yet he 
 was not so good as his word, for he complained of it 
 to the Lord Chancellor, who was always a great fa- 
 vourer of the clergy ; by whose order fifteen priests 
 and five laymen were committed to several prisons ; 
 but whether the inferior clergy paid their proportion 
 of the tax, or not, I have not been able to discover. 
 This year the state of affairs beyond sea changed The F v 
 
 J rpi r> J 1 Wlsoff 
 
 very considerably. 1 he rope expected not only to to the 
 recover Florence to his family, by the Emperor's 
 means, but also to wrest Modena and Reggio from the 
 Duke of Ferrara, to which he pretended, as being fiefs 
 of the papacy ; and the Emperor had engaged by the 
 former treaty to restore them to him. But now that 
 the Pope's pretensions were appointed to be examined 
 by some judges delegated by the Emperor, they de- 
 termined against the Pope, for the Duke of Ferrara ; 
 which so disgusted the Pope, that he fell totally from 
 
 French 
 
 faction.
 
 188 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 the Emperor, and did unite with the King of France, 
 a match being also projected between the Duke of 
 Orleans (afterwards Henry II.) and his niece Catha- 
 rine de Medici ; which did work much on the Pope's 
 ambition, to have his family allied to so mighty a 
 monarch. So that now he became wholly French. 
 
 A match The French King was also, on account of this mar- 
 projected 11 i -111 
 between Tiage, to resign all the pretensions he had to any terri- 
 
 n'iece'Tnd 1 tory in Italy to his younger son; which, as it would 
 the^Duke gj ve ] ess umbrage to the other princes of Italy, who 
 leans. liked rather to have a King's younger son among 
 them, than either the Emperor, or the French King : 
 so the Pope was wonderfully pleased to raise another 
 great prince in Italy out of his own family. On 
 these grounds was the match at this time designed, 
 which afterwards took effect; but with this difference, 
 that by the Dauphin's death the Duke of Orleans 
 became King of France, and his Queen made the 
 greatest figure that any Queen of France had done 
 for many ages. 
 
 This change in the Pope's mind might have pro- 
 duced another in the King's affairs, if he had not al- 
 ready gone so far, that he was less in fear of the Pope 
 than formerly. He found the credit of his clergy was 
 so low, that to preserve themselves from the contempt 
 and fury of the people, they were forced to depend 
 wholly on the crown. For Lutheranism was then 
 making a great progress in England, of which I shall 
 say nothing here, being resolved at the end of this 
 book to give an account of the whole course of it in 
 those years that fall within this time. But what by 
 the means of the new preachers, what by the scandals 
 cast on the clergy, they were all at the King's mercy; 
 so he did not fear much from them, especially in the 
 southern parts, which were the richest and best peo- 
 pled : therefore the King went on resolutely. The 
 Pope on the other hand was in great perplexity ; he 
 saw England ready to be lost, and knew not what to 
 do to rescue or preserve it. If he gave way to what 
 was lately done in the business of the premunire, he 
 must thereby lose the greatest ad vantages he drew from
 
 PART I. BOOK II. 189 
 
 that nation ; and it was not likely, that after the King 
 had Qfone so far, he would undo what was done. 
 
 O 7 
 
 The Emperor was more remiss in prosecuting the The E. 
 Queen's appeal at Rome ; for at that time the Turk, j^ged 
 with a most numerous and powerful army, was mak- ^ it * " h " 
 ing an impression on Hungary, (which to the great Turk. 
 scandal of the most Christian King was imputed to his 
 counsels and presents at the Porte,) and all the Em- 
 peror's thoughts were taken up with this. Therefore, 
 as he gave the Protestant princes of Germany some 
 present satisfaction in religion and other matters ; so 
 he sent over to England, and desired the King's assis- 
 tance against that vast army of three hundred thousand 
 men that was falling in upon Christendom. To this 
 the King made a general answer, that gave some hopes 
 of assisting him. But at the same time, the Protestant 
 princes, resolving to draw some advantage from that 
 conjuncture of affairs, and being courted by the French 
 King, entered into a league with him for the defence 
 of the rights of the empire. And to make this firmer, 
 the King was invited by the French King to join in it; 
 to which he consented, and sent over to France a sum 
 of money to be employed for the safety of the empire. 
 And this provoked the Emperor to renew his en- 
 deavours in the court of Rome for prosecuting the 
 Queen's appeal. 
 
 The French King encouraged the King to go on 
 with his divorce, that he might totally alienate him 
 from the Emperor. The French writers also add 
 another consideration, which seems unworthy of so 
 great a King, that he himself, being at that time so 
 public a courtier for ladies, was not ill pleased to set 
 forward a thing of that nature. " But though princes 
 allow themselves their pleasures, yet they seldom 
 govern their affairs by such maxims." 
 
 In the beginning of the next year a new session of 1532. 
 parliament was held, in which the House of Com- L P nT 
 mons went on to complain of many other grievances 7 h p e la j c ns 
 they lay under from the clergy, which they put in a ciesiasucai 
 writing, and presented it to the King. In it they c 
 complained of the proceedings in the spiritual courts,
 
 190 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 and especially their calling men before them, ex officw, 
 and laying articles to their charge without any ac- 
 cuser ; and then admitting no purgation, but causing 
 nan. the party accused, either to abjure, or to be burnt ; 
 which they found very grievous and intolerable. This 
 was occasioned by some violent proceedings against 
 some reputed heretics, of which an account shall be 
 given afterwards. But those complaints were stifled, 
 and great misunderstandings arose between the King 
 and the House of Commons upon this following oc- 
 casion. 
 
 Bat reject There was a common practice in England of men's 
 abil1 making such settlements of their estates by their 
 warL last wills, or other deeds, that the King and some 
 great lords were thereby defrauded of the advantages 
 they made by ivards, marriages, and primer seasin. 
 For regulating which, a bill was brought in to the 
 House of Peers, and assented to there ; but when it 
 was sent down to the House of Commons, it was re- 
 jected by them, and they would neither pass the bill, 
 nor any other qualification of that abuse. This gave 
 the King great offence ; and the House, when they ad- 
 dressed to him about the proceedings of the clergy, 
 ihecom- also prayed, "That he would consider what cost, 
 tmn 1S th P a e t" charge, and pains they had been at since the begin- 
 b^d.v* 7 nm o f tne parliament, and that it would please his 
 solved. Grace of his princely benignity to dissolve his court 
 of parliament, and that his subjects might return into 
 their countries." To which the King answered, 
 The King's That for their complaints of the clergy, he must 
 
 answer. - . i -i p i t i i 
 
 hear them also before he could give judgment, since 
 in justice he ought to hear both parties ; but that 
 their desiring the redress of all such abuses, was con- 
 trary to the other part of their petition ; for if the 
 parliament were dissolved, how could those things 
 they complained of be amended? And as they 
 complained of their long attendance, so the King 
 had stayed as long as they had done, and yet he 
 had still patience, and so they must have, otherwise 
 their grievances would be without redress. But 
 he did expostulate severely upon their rejecting
 
 PART I. BOOK II. 191 
 
 the bill about the deeds in prejudice of the rights of 
 the crown. He said, he had offered them a great mi- 
 tigation of what by the rigour of the law he might 
 pretend to ; and if they would not accept of it, he 
 would try the utmost severity that the law allowed, 
 and would not offer them such a favour again." Yet 
 all this did not prevail, for the act was rejected, and 
 their complaint against the clergy was also laid aside, 
 and the parliament was prorogued till April next. 
 
 In this parliament the foundation of the breach that 
 afterwards followed with Rome was laid, by an act 
 for restraining the payment of annates to that court ; 
 which, since it is not printed with the other statutes, 
 shall be found in the end of this volume. The sub- 
 stance of it is as follows : 
 
 " That great sums of money had been conveyed An act 
 out of the kingdom, under the title of annates, or first- j^"". 
 
 fruits to the court of Rome, which they extorted by Collect - 
 0111 11 i i -I Numl> ' 4 
 
 restraint ot bulls and other writs ; that it happened 
 
 often, by the frequent deaths of archbishops and 
 bishops, to turn to the utter undoing of their friends, 
 who had advanced those sums for them. These an- 
 nates were founded on no law : for they had no other 
 way of obliging the incumbents of sees to pay them, 
 but by restraining their bulls. The parliament, there- 
 fore, considering that these were first begun to be 
 paid to defend Christendom against infidels, but were 
 now turned to a duty claimed by that court against 
 all right and conscience, and that vast sums were 
 carried away upon that account, which, from the 
 second year of King Henry the Seventh to that pre- 
 sent time, amounted to eight hundred thousand du- 
 cats, besides many other heavy exactions of that 
 court, did declare that the King was bound by his 
 duty to almighty God, as a good Christian Prince to 
 hinder these oppressions. And that the rather, be- 
 cause many of the prelates were then very aged, and 
 like to die in a short time, whereby vast sums' of 
 money should be carried out of England, to the great 
 impoverishing of the kingdom. And therefore all 
 payments of first-fruits to the court of Rome were
 
 192 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 put down, and for ever restrained, under the pains of 
 the forfeiture of the lands, goods, and chattels of him 
 that should pay them any more, together with the 
 profits of his see during the time that he was vested 
 with it. And in case bulls were restrained in the 
 court of Rome, any person presented to a bishoprick, 
 should be, notwithstanding, consecrated by the arch- 
 bishop of the province ; or if he were presented to 
 an archbishoprick, by any two bishops in the king- 
 dom, whom the King should appoint for that end ; 
 and being so consecrated, they should be invested 
 and enjoy all the rights of their sees in full and am- 
 ple manner : yet, that the Pope and court of Rome 
 might have no just cause of complaint, the persons 
 presented to bishopricks are allowed to pay them five 
 lib. for the hundred, of the clear profits and revenues 
 of their several sees. But the parliament, not willing 
 to go to extremities, remitted the final ordering of 
 that act to the King, that if the Pope would either 
 charitably and reasonably put down the payment of 
 annates, or so moderate them that they might be a 
 tolerable burden, the King might at any time before 
 Easter 1533, or before the next session of parliament, 
 declare by his letters patents, whether the premises 
 or any part of them should be observed or not, which 
 should give them the full force and authority of a 
 law. And that if upon this act the Pope should vex 
 the King or any of his subjects, by excommunica- 
 tions or other censures, these notwithstanding, the 
 King should cause the sacraments, and other rites of 
 the church to be administered, and that none of these 
 censures might be published or executed." 
 
 This bill began in the House of Lords ; from them 
 it was sent to the Commons, and being agreed to by 
 them, received the royal assent, but had not final con- 
 firmation mentioned in the act before the 9th of July, 
 1533 ; and then by letters patents (in which the act 
 The Pop? is at length recited) it was confirmed. 
 UM KJaR But now I come to open the final conclusion of the 
 J^ n ; he King's suit at Rome. On the 25th of January, " The 
 a, n ,e a i. Pope wrote to the King, that he heard reports which 
 
 Parl. 
 Kolls.
 
 PART I. BOOK 1. 193 
 
 he very unwillingly believed, that he had put away 
 his Queen, and kept one Anne about him as his wife ; 
 which, as it gave much scandal, so it was a high con- 
 tempt of the apostolic see, to do such a thing while 
 his suit was still depending, notwithstanding a pro- 
 hibition to the contrary. Therefore the Pope, remem- 
 bering his former merits, which were now like to be 
 clouded with his present carriage, did exhort him to 
 take home his Queen, and to put Anne away ; and 
 not to continue to provoke the Emperor and his bro- 
 ther by so high an indignity, nor to break the general 
 peace of Christendom, which was its only security 
 against the power of the Turk." What answer the 
 King made to this, I do not find ; but instead of that 
 I shall set down the substance of a dispatch, which 
 the King sent to Rome about this time, drawn from 
 a copy of it, to which the date is not added. But it 
 being an answer to a letter he received from the Pope 
 the 7th of October, it seems to have been written 
 about this time ; and it concluding with a credence 
 to an ambassador, I judge it was sent by Doctor 
 Bennet, who was dispatched to Rome in January L. Herbert. 
 1532, to shew the Pope the opinions of learned men, 
 and of the universities, with their reasons. The 
 letter will be found in the end of this volume; thecoiiect.^ 
 contents of it are to this purpose : 
 
 " The Pope had writ to the King, in order to the A dispatch 
 clearing all his scruples, and to give him quiet in his King M 
 conscience ; of which the King takes notice, and is ** Pope> 
 sorry that both the Pope and himself were so deceived 
 in that matter ; the Pope by trusting to the judgments 
 of others, and writing whatever they suggested ; and 
 the King by depending so much on the Pope, and 
 in vain expecting remedy from him so long. He im- 
 putes the mistakes that were in the Pope's letters 
 (which he says had things in them contrary both to 
 God's laws and man's laws), to the ignorance and 
 rashness of his counsellors : for which himself was 
 much to be blamed, since he rested on their advice ; 
 and that he had not carried himself as became Christ's 
 Vicar, but had dealt both unconstantly and deceit- 
 
 VOL. i. o
 
 194 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 fully ; for when the King's cause was first opened to 
 him, and all things that related to it were explained, 
 he had granted a commission, with a promise not to 
 recal it, but to confirm the sentence which the Legates 
 should give ; and a decretal was sent over, defining 
 the cause. If these were justly granted, it was injus- 
 tice to revoke them ; but if they were justly revoked, 
 it was unjust to grant them. So he presses the Pope, 
 that either he could grant these things, or he could 
 not. If he could do it, where was the faith which 
 became a friend, much more a Pope, since he had 
 broke these promises ? but if he said he could not do 
 them, had he not then just cause to distrust all that 
 came from him, when at one time he condemned what 
 he had allowed at another? So that the King saw 
 
 o 
 
 clearly he did not cpnsider the ease of his conscience, 
 but other worldly respects, that had put him on con- 
 sulting so many learned men, whose judgments dif- 
 fered much from those few that were about the Pope, 
 who thought the prohibition of such marriages was 
 only positive, and might be dispensed with by the 
 Pope ; whereas all other learned men thought the 
 law was moral and indispensable. He perceived the 
 apostolic see was destitute of that learning by which 
 it should be directed, and the Pope had oft professed 
 his own ignorance, and that he spake by other men's 
 mouths ; but many universities in England, France, 
 and Italy, had declared the marriage unlawful, and 
 the dispensation null. None honoured the apostolic 
 see more than he had done, and therefore he was 
 sorry to write such things if he could have been silent. 
 If he should obey the Pope's letters, he would offend 
 God and his own conscience, and give scandal to 
 those who condemned his marriage : he did not wil- 
 lingly dissent from him without a very urgent cause, 
 that he might not seem to despise the apostolic see ; 
 therefore he desired the Pope would forgive the free- 
 dom that he used, since it was the truth that drew it 
 from him. And he added, that he intended not to 
 impugn the Pope's authority further, except he com- 
 pelled him ; and what he did was only to bring it
 
 PART I. BOOK II. 195 
 
 within its first and ancient limits, to which it was 
 better to reduce it, than to let it always run on head- 
 long and do amiss ; therefore he desired the Pope 
 would conform himself to the opinions of so many 
 learned men, and do his duty and office. The letter 
 ends with a credence to the ambassador." 
 
 The Pope, seeing his authority was declining in 
 England, resolved now to do all he could to recover 
 it, either by force or treaty ; and so ordered a citation 
 to be made of the King to appear in person, or by 
 proxy, at Rome, to answer to the Queen's appeal : 
 upon which, Sir Edward Karne was sent to Rome, 
 with a new character of Excusator. " His instructions si 
 were to take counsel for pleading an excuse of the 
 King's appearance at Rome. First, upon the grounds 
 that might be found in the canon law ; and these not 
 being sufficient, he was to insist on the prerogatives 
 of the crown of England." Doctor Bonner went with 
 him, who had expressed much zeal in the King's 
 cause, though his great zeal was for preferment, which 
 by the most servile ways he always courted. He 
 was a forward bold man, and since there were many 
 threatenings to be used to the Pope and cardinals, 
 he was thought fittest for the employment, but was 
 neither learned nor discreet. 
 
 They came to Rome in February, where they found HIS m> g o. 
 great heats in the consistory about the King's business. ^eT 
 The Imperialists pressed the Pope to proceed, but all ^ e ri f m 
 the wise and indifferent cardinals wereof anothermind. nal ><; 
 And when they understood what an act was passed vu. i. 
 about annates, they saw clearly that the parliament B- 13- 
 was resolved to adhere to the King in every thing he 
 intended to do against their interests. The Pope ex- 
 postulated with the ambassadors about it ; but they 
 told him the act was still in the King's power; and ex- 
 cept he provoked him, he did not intend to put it in 
 execution. The ambassadors, finding the Cardinal of 
 Ravenna of so great reputation, both for learning and 
 virtue, that in all matters of that kind, his opinion was 
 heard as an oracle, and gave law to the whole consis- 
 tory ; they resolved to gain him by all means possible. 
 
 o2
 
 196 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 And Doctor Bennet made a secret address to him, and 
 offered him what bishoprick either in France or in 
 England he would desire, if he would bring the King's 
 matter to a good issue. He was at first very shy : 
 at length he said, he had been oft deceived by many 
 princes, who had made him great promises, but when 
 their business was ended never thought of performing 
 them : therefore he would be sure ; and so drove a 
 bargain, and got under Dr. Bennet's hand a promise, 
 (of which a copy being sent to the King, written by 
 Bennet himself, will be found at the end of this vo- 
 car- l u me,) bearing, that he, having powers from the King 
 e" for that effect, dated the 29th of December last, did 
 rikt promise the Cardinal, for his help in the King's affair, 
 mTw monaster i es or other benefices in France, to the value 
 of six thousand ducats a year, and the first bishoprick 
 that fell vacant in England ; and if it were not Ely, 
 that whenever that see was vacant, upon his resigning 
 the other, he should be provided with the bishoprick 
 of Ely : dated at Rome, the 7th of February, 1532. 
 This I set down as one of the most considerable ar- 
 guments that could be used to satisfy the Cardinal's 
 conscience about the justice of the King's cause. 
 This Cardinal was the fittest to work secretly for the 
 King, for he had appeared visibly against him. I 
 find also by other letters, that both the Cardinals of 
 Ancona and Monte (afterwards Pope Julius the Third) 
 were prevailed with by arguments of the same nature, 
 though I cannot find out what the bargains were. Pro- 
 videllus, that was accounted the greatest canonist in 
 Italy, was brought from Bononia, and entertained by 
 the ambassadors to give counsel in the King's cause, 
 aad to plead his excuse from appearing at Rome. 
 The plea was summed up in twenty-seven articles, 
 which were offered to the Pope; and he admitted them 
 to be examined in the consistory, appointing three of 
 them to be opened at a session. But the Imperialists 
 opposed that, and after fifteen of them had been heard, 
 procured a new order, that they should be heard in a 
 congregation of cardinals before the Pope ; pretend- 
 ing, that a consistory sitting but once a week, and hav
 
 PART I. BOOK II. 197 
 
 ing a great deal of other business, it would be long be- 
 fore the matter could be brought to any issue. SoKarne 
 was served with a new order to appear in the congre- 
 gation the 3d of April, with this certification, that if 
 he appeared not, they would proceed. Upon which 
 he protested, that he would adhere to the former 
 order ; yet being warned the second time, he went 
 first and protested against it, which he got entered in 
 the Datary. This being considered in the congre- 
 gation, they renewed the order of hearing it in the 
 consistory on the 10th of April, and then Providellus 
 opened three conclusions. Two of them related to 
 Karne's powers, the third was concerning the safety 
 of the place to both parties. But the Imperialists and 
 the Queen's counsel being dissatisfied with this order, 
 would not appear. Upon which Karne complained 
 of their contumacy, and said, by that it was visible 
 they were distrustful of their cause. On the 14th of 
 April, a new intimation was made to Karne to appear 
 on the 17th with his advocates, to open all the rest of 
 the conclusions ; but he, according to the first order, 
 would only plead to three of them, and selected the 
 nineteenth, twentieth, and twenty-first (what these collect. 
 related to I find not). Upon which Providellus N ' 
 pleaded, and answered the objections that did seem 
 to militate against them ; but neither would the Im- 
 perialists appear that session. 
 
 In June news were brought to Rome, which gave 
 the Pope great offence : a priest had preached for the 
 Pope's authority in England, and was for that cast into 
 prison. And another priest being put in prison by the 
 Archbishop of Canterbury, upon suspicion of heresy, 
 had appealed to the King as the supreme head : upon 
 which he was taken out of the Archbishop's hands, 
 and being examined in the King's courts was set at li- 
 berty. This the Pope resented much : but the ambas- 
 sadors said, all such things mighthave been prevented, 
 if the King had got justice at the Pope's hands. 
 
 The King also at this time desired a bull for a com- A bun for 
 mission to erect six new bishopricks, to be endowed by ne 
 monasteries that were to be suppressed. This was ex- riekt -
 
 198 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 pedited and sent away at this time : and the old Car- 
 dinal of Ravenna was so jealous, that the ambassadors 
 were forced to promise him the bishoprick of Chester 
 (one of the new bishopricks) : with which he was well 
 satisfied, having seen, by a particular state of the en- 
 dowment that was designed for it, what advantage it 
 would yield him. But he had declared himself so 
 openly before against the reasons for the excuse, that 
 he could not serve the King in that matter, but in the 
 main cause he undertook to do great service, and so 
 did the Cardinals De Monte and Ancona. 
 
 Upon the 27th of June the debate was brought to a 
 conclusion about the plea excusatory ; and when it was 
 expected that the Pope should have given sentence 
 against the articles, he admitted them all, si et prout 
 dejure. Upon which the Imperialists made great com- 
 plaints : the cardinals grew weary of the length of the 
 debate, since it took up all their time ; but it was told 
 them, the matter was of great importance, and it had 
 been better for them not to have proceeded so preci- 
 pitately at first, which had now brought them into this 
 trouble, and that the King had been at much pains and 
 trouble on their account; therefore it was unreasonable 
 for them to complain, who were put to no other trou- 
 ble, but to sit in their chairs two or three hours in a 
 week to hear the King's defences. The Imperialists 
 had also occasioned the delays, though they com- 
 plained of them by their cavils, and allegations of laws, 
 and decisions that never were made, by which much 
 time was spent. But it was objected, that the King's 
 excuse for not coming to Rome, because it was too re- 
 mote from his kingdom, and not safe, was of no force; 
 since the place was safe to his proxy. And the Car- 
 dinal of Ravenna pressed the ambassadors much to 
 move the King, instead of the excusatory process, to 
 send a proxy, for examining and discussing the me- 
 rits of the cause, in which it would be much easier to 
 advance the King's matter ; and that he, having ap- 
 peared against the King in this process, would be the 
 less suspected in the other. 
 
 The business being further considered in three ses-
 
 PART I. BOOK II. 199 
 
 sions of the consistory, it was resolved, that, since the The p op e 
 vacation was coming on, they would neither allow of, Dicing 
 nor reject the King's excusatory plea ; but the Pope J^* 
 and college of cardinals would write to the King, en- to him. 
 treating him to send a proxy for judging the cause HA <. 
 against the winter. And with this Bonner was sent 
 over, with instructions from the cardinals that were 
 gained to the King, to represent to him that his excu- 
 satory plea could not be admitted ; for since the de- 
 bate was to be, whether the Pope could grant the dis- 
 pensation or not, it could not be committed to legates, 
 but must be judged by the Pope and the consistory. 
 He was also ordered to assure the King, that the Pope 
 did now lean so much to the French faction, that he 
 needed not fear to refer the matter to him. 
 
 But while these things were in debate at Rome, A session 
 there was another session of parliament in April ; and 2 11 *' 
 then the King sent for the Speaker of the House of 
 Commons, and gave him the answer which the clergy 
 had drawn to the addresses they made in the former 
 session about their courts. The King himself seemed 
 not at all pleased with it ; but what the House did in 
 it does not appear, further than that they were no way 
 satisfied with it. But there happened another thing 
 that offended the King much : one Themse of the o ne moves 
 House of Commons moved, that they should address [ng^ 8 
 to the King to bring the Queen back to the court ; Jf o a u " n to 
 and ran out upon the inconveniences that were like to 
 follow if the Queen were put away, particularly the 
 ill consequence of the illegitimation of the Princess. 
 Upon this the King took occasion (when he gave them At which 
 the clergy's answer) to tell them, that he wondered at S^i^ IS 
 that motion made in their House, for the matter was 
 not to be determined there. It touched his soul ; he 
 wished his marriage were good, but the doctors and 
 learned men had determined it to be null and detest- 
 able ; and therefore, he was obliged in conscience to 
 abstain from her, which he assured them flowed from 
 no lust nor foolish appetite. He was then forty-one 
 years old, and at that age those heats abate. But ex- 
 cept in Spain or Portugal it had not been heard of, 
 I
 
 200 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 that a man married two sisters ; and that he never heard, 
 that any Christian man before himself had married his 
 brother's wife : therefore he assured them his con- 
 science was troubled, which he desired them to report 
 to the House. In this session the Lord Chancellor 
 came down to the Commons, with many of the nobi- 
 lity about him, and told them, the King had consi- 
 dered the marches between England and Scotland, 
 which were uninhabited on the English side, but well 
 peopled on the Scottish ; and that laid England open 
 to the incursion of the Scots : therefore the King in- 
 tended to build houses there, for planting the English 
 side. This the lords liked very well, and thought it 
 convenient to give the King some aids for the charges 
 of so necessary a work, and therefore desired the Com- 
 A snbsidy mons to consult about it. Upon which the House 
 voted a subsidy of a fifteenth : but before the bill could 
 be finished, the plague broke out in London, and the 
 parliament was prorogued till February following. 
 The King On the 1 1 th of May (three days before the prorogation) 
 otth" 1 * the King sent for the Speaker of the House of Com- 
 dergy* 6 mons, and told him, " That he found upon inquiry, that 
 swore to a \\ the prelates, whom he had looked on as wholly his 
 dered by subjects, were but half subjects ; for at their conse- 
 mo n ? m cration they swore an oath quite contrary to the oath 
 they swore to the crown ; so that it seemed they were 
 the Pope's subjects rather than his. Which he re- 
 ferred to their care, that such order might be taken in 
 it, that the King might not be deluded." Upon which 
 the two oaths that the clergy swore to the King and 
 the Pope were read in the House of Commons ; but 
 the consequence of them will be better understood by 
 setting them down. 
 
 The Oath to the Pope. 
 
 Theiroath j j ohllj Bishop oi Abbot of A. from this hour 
 Pope. forward shall be faithful and obedient to St. Peter, 
 and to the holy church of Rome, and to my Lord the 
 Pope, and his successors, canonically entering. I 
 shall not be of counsel nor consent, that they shall 
 lose either life or member, or shall be taken, or suffer
 
 PART I. BOOK II. 201 
 
 any violence or any wrong, by any means. Their 
 counsel to me credited by them, their messengers or 
 letters, I shall not" willingly discover to any person. 
 The papacy of Rome, the rules of the holy fathers, 
 and the regality of St. Peter, I shall help, and maintain, 
 and defend against all men. The Legate of the see 
 apostolic going and coming I shall honourably entreat. 
 The rights, honours, privileges, authorities of the 
 church of Rome, and of the Pope and his successors, 
 I shall cause to be conserved, defended, augmented, 
 and promoted. I shall not be in council, treaty, or 
 any act, in the which any thing shall be imagined 
 against him or the church of Rome, their rights, seats, 
 honours, or powers. And if I know any such to be 
 moved or compassed, I shall resist it to my power, 
 and as soon as I can I shall advertise him, or such 
 as may give him knowledge. The rules of the holy 
 fathers, the decrees, ordinances, sentences, disposi- 
 tions, reservations, provisions, and commandments 
 apostolic, to my power I shall keep, and cause to be 
 kept of others. Heretics, schismatics, and rebels to 
 our holy father, and his successors, I shall resist and 
 persecute to my power. I shall come to the synod 
 when I am called, except I be letted by a canonical 
 impediment. The thresholds of the apostles I shall 
 visit yearly personally, or by my deputy. I shall 
 not alienate or sell my possessions without the 
 Pope's counsel. So God help me and the holy 
 Evangelists." 
 
 The Oath to the King. 
 
 " I John, Bishop of A. utterly renounce and clearly Their oath 
 forsake all such clauses, words, sentences, and grants, King! 
 which I have or shall have hereafter of the Pope's 
 holiness, of and for the bishoprick of A. that in any 
 wise hath been, is, or hereafter may be hurtful or pre- 
 judicial to your Highness, your heirs, successors, dig- 
 nity, privilege, or estate royal. And also I do swear, 
 that I shall be faithful and true, and faith and truth 
 I shall bear to you my sovereign Lord, and to your 
 heirs, kings of the same, of life and limb, and yearly
 
 down his 
 
 office. 
 
 202 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 worship above all creatures, for to live and die with 
 you and yours against all people. And diligently I 
 shall be attendant to all your needs and business, after 
 my wit and power, and your counsel I shall keep and 
 hold, acknowledging myself to hold* my bishoprick 
 of you only, beseeching you of restitution of the tem- 
 poralities of the same; promising as before that I 
 shall be a faithful, true, and obedient subject to your 
 said Highness, heirs, and successors, during my life ; 
 and the services and other things due to your High- 
 ness for the restitution of the temporalities of the 
 same bishoprick, I shall truly do and obediently per- 
 form. So God me help and all saints." 
 
 The contradiction that was in these was so visible, 
 that it had soon produced a severe censure from the 
 House, if the plague had not hindered both that and 
 the bill of subsidy. So on the 14th of May the par- 
 More imd liament was prorogued. Two days after, Sir Thomas 
 More, lord chancellor, having oft desired leave to de- 
 liver up the great seal, and be discharged of his office, 
 obtained it ; and Sir Thomas Audley was made lord 
 chancellor. More had carried that dignity with great 
 temper, and lost it with much joy. He saw now how 
 far the King's designs went ; and though he was for 
 cutting off all the illegal jurisdiction which the popes 
 exercised in England, and therefore went cheerfully 
 along with the suit Qipr&mumre; yet when he saw 
 a total rupture like to follow, he excused himself, and 
 retired from business with a greatness of mind, that 
 was equal to what the ancient philosophers pretended 
 in such cases. He also disliked Anne Boleyn, and 
 was prosecuted by her father, who studied to fasten 
 some criminal imputations on him about the dis- 
 charge of his employment; but his integrity had 
 
 * In Strype's Cranmer, the oath expresses, that the archbishop acknowledged, 
 that he took and held his see only of the King ; here he only professes to hold 
 the see of the King. There is a difference in this which has attracted some 
 notice. See Soames't History of the Reformation under King IJenry VIII., 
 who supposes that Cardinal Pole was led into a mistake upon this head, when 
 he charged Cranmer with having renounced the Pope's authority, after being 
 by that very authority made archbishop ; in fact, he never acknowledged that 
 he had been made archbishop by the Pope, but, according to the oath in Strype, 
 expressly by the King. N.
 
 PART I. BOOK II. 203 
 
 been such, that nothing could be found to blemish 
 his reputation. 
 
 In September following, the King created Anne AD inter- 
 Boleyn marchioness of Pembroke, to bring her by STi 
 degrees up to the height for which he had designed King - 
 her. And in October, he passed the seas, and had 
 an interview with the French King ; where all the 
 most obliging compliments that were possible passed 
 on both sides with great magnificence, and a firm 
 union was concerted about all their affairs. They 
 published a league that they made to raise a mighty 
 army next year against the Turk ; but this was not 
 much considered, it being generally believed that the 
 French King and the Turk were in a good corres- 
 pondence. As for the matter of the King's divorce, 
 Francis encouraged him to go on in it, and in his 
 intended marriage with Anne Boleyn ; promising, if 
 it were questioned, to assist him in it : and as for his 
 appearance at Rome, as it was certain he could not 
 go thither in person, so it was not fit to trust the se- 
 crets of his conscience to a proxy. The French King 
 seemed also resolved to stop the payment of annates, 
 and other exactions of the court of Rome, and 'said 
 he would send an ambassador to the Pope, to ask 
 redress of these, and to protest, that if it were not 
 granted, they would seek other remedies by provincial 
 councils : and since there was an interview designed 
 between the Pope and the Emperor at Bononia in 
 December, the French King was to send two cardinals 
 thither to procure judges for ending the business in 
 England. There was also an interview proposed 
 between the Pope and the French King at Nice or 
 Avignon. To this the King of England had some 
 inclinations to go for ending all differences, if the 
 Pope were well disposed to it. 
 
 Upon this, Sir Thomas Eliot was sent to Rome with < * 
 answer to a message the Pope had sent to the King ; IdthT* 
 from whose instructions both the substance of the tructi ns - 
 
 VsOtt* JU- 
 
 message and of the answer may be gathered. " The bnr y- va > 
 Pope had offered to the King, that if he would name B ' 
 any indifferent place out of his own kingdom, he
 
 204 BURNET'S REFORMATION 
 
 would send a legate and two auditors of the Rota 
 thither, to form the process, reserving only the sen- 
 tence to himself. The Pope also proposed a truce 
 of three or four years, and promised that in that time 
 he would call a general council. For this message 
 
 o o 
 
 the King sent the Pope thanks ; but for the peace, 
 he could receive no propositions about it without the 
 concurrence of the French King ; and though he did 
 not doubt the justice of a general council, yet, con- 
 sidering the state of the Emperor's affairs at that time 
 with the Lutherans, he did not think it was then sea- 
 sonable to call one. That as for sending a proxy to 
 Rome, if he were a private person he could do it ; 
 but it was a part of the prerogative of his crown, and 
 of the privileges of his subjects, that all matrimonial 
 causes should be originally judged within his king- 
 dom by the English church, which was consonant to 
 the general councils and customs of the ancient 
 church, whereunto he hoped the Pope would have 
 regard : and that for keeping up his royal authority, 
 to which he was bound by oath, he could not, with 
 out the consent of the realm, submit himself to a 
 foreign jurisdiction ; hoping the Pope would not de- 
 sire any violation of the immunities of the realm, or 
 to bring these into public contention, which had been 
 hitherto enjoyed without intrusion or molestation. 
 The Pope had confessed that without an urgent cause 
 the dispensation could not be granted. This the King 
 laid hold on, and ordered his ambassador to shew him 
 that there was no war, nor appearance of any, between 
 England and Spain when it was granted. To verify 
 that, he sent an attested copy of the treaty between 
 his father and the crown of Spain at that time : by 
 the words of which it appeared, that it was then taken 
 for granted that Prince Arthur had consummated the 
 marriage, which was also proved by good witnesses. 
 In fine, since the thing did so much concern the peace 
 of the realm, it was fitter to judge it within the king- 
 dom than any where else ; therefore he desired the 
 Pope would remit the discussing of it to the church 
 of England, and then confirm the sentence they should
 
 PART I. BOOK II. 205 
 
 give. To the obtaining of this, the ambassador was 
 to use all possible diligence ; yet if he found real in- 
 tentions in the Pope to satisfy the King, he was not 
 to insist on that as the King's final resolution : and 
 to let the Cardinal of Ravenna see that the King in- 
 tended to make good what was promised in his name, 
 the bishoprick of Coventry and Litchfield falling va- 
 cant, he sent him the offer of it, with a promise of 
 the bishoprick of Ely when it should be void." 
 
 Soon after this, he married Anne Boleyn, on the. The king 
 14th of November, upon his landing in England ; but "A"B O . 
 Stow says that it was on the 25th of January.* ^'^ 
 Rowland Lee (who afterwards got the bishoprick of cowper, 
 Coventry and Litchfield) did officiate in the marriage, mutat* 
 It was done secretly, in the presence of the Duke of ders ' 
 Norfolk, and her father, her mother, and brother. 
 The grounds on which the King did this were, that 
 his former marriage being of itself null, there was no 
 need of a declarative sentence after so many univer- 
 sities and doctors had given their judgments against 
 it. Soon after the marriage she was with child, which 
 was looked on as a signal evidence of her chastity, and 
 that she had till then kept the King at a due distance. 
 
 But when the Pope and the Emperor met at Bo- A D inter- 
 nonia, the Pope expressed great inclinations to favour l^^&e 
 the French King ; from which the Emperor could ^P* and 
 
 1 . i . f> Emperor. 
 
 not remove him, nor engage him to accept ot a match 
 for his niece, Catharine de Medici, with Francis 
 Sforza, duke of Milan. But the Pope promised him 
 all that he desired as to the King of England, and so 
 that matter was still carried on. Dr. Bennet made s 
 several propositions to end the matter ; either that it ; 
 should be judged in England, according to the decree v 
 of the council of Nice, and that the Archbishop of *. 
 Canterbury, with the whole clergy of his province, 
 should determine it ; or that the King should name one, 
 either Sir Thomas More or the Bishop of London, the 
 
 Stow is in the right ; for in a letter of Cramner's to Hawkins, then the 
 King's ambassador with the Emperor, dated in June from Croydon, he wrote : 
 " Queen Anne was married much about St. Paul's Day last : as the con- 
 dition thereof doth well appear, by reason she is now somewhat big with 
 child." 
 
 ome over- 
 tures about 
 edi-
 
 206 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 Queen should name another, the French King should 
 name a third, and the Archbishop of Canterbury to 
 be the fourth ; or that the cause should be heard in 
 England, and if the Queen did appeal, it should be 
 referred to three delegates, one of England, another 
 of France, and a third to be sent from Rome, who 
 should sit and judge the appeal in some indifferent 
 place. But the Pope would hearken to none of these 
 overtures, since they were all directly contrary to that 
 height of authority which he resolved to maintain : 
 therefore he ordered Capisucci, the dean of the Rota, 
 to cite the King to answer to the Queen's appeal. 
 Karne at Rome protested against the citation, since 
 the Emperor's power was so great about Rome, that 
 the King could not expect justice there ; and there- 
 fore desired they would desist, otherwise the King 
 would appeal to the learned men in universities ; and 
 said, there was a nullity in all their proceedings, 
 since the King was a sovereign prince, and the 
 church of England a free church, over which the 
 Pope had no just authority. 
 
 1533. But while this depended at Rome, another session 
 
 ofptrHa" of parliament was held in England, which began to 
 
 ment> sit on the 4th of February. In this, the breach with 
 
 Rome was much forwarded by the act they passed 
 
 An act against all appeals to Rome. " The preamble bears, 
 
 appeal's That the crown of England was imperial, and that 
 
 ^HeT* *he na ti n was a complete body within itself, with a 
 
 vin. full power to give justice in all cases, spiritual as 
 
 well as temporal ; and that in the spirituality, as there 
 
 had been at all times, so there were then men of that 
 
 sufficiency and integrity, that they might declare and 
 
 determine all doubts within the kingdom ; and that 
 
 several kings, as Edward I., Edward III., Richard 
 
 II., and Henry IV., had by several laws preserved 
 
 the liberties of the realms, both spiritual and temporal, 
 
 from the annoyance of the see of Rome, and other 
 
 foreign potentates; yet many inconveniences had 
 
 arisen by appeals to the see of Rome in causes of 
 
 matrimony, divorces, and other cases, which were not 
 
 sufficiently provided against by these laws ; by which
 
 PART I. BOOK II. 207 
 
 not only the King and his subjects were put to great 
 charges, but justice was much delayed by appeals ; 
 and Rome being at such a distance, evidences could 
 not be brought thither, nor witnesses, 'so easily as 
 within the kingdom : therefore it was enacted, that 
 all such causes, whether relating to the King or any 
 of his subjects, were to be determined within the 
 kingdom, in the several courts to which they belonged, 
 notwithstanding any appeals to Rome, or inhibitions 
 and bulls from Rome ; whose sentences should take 
 effect, and be fully executed by all inferior ministers : 
 and if any spiritual persons refused to execute them 
 because of censures from Rome, they were to suffer 
 a year's imprisonment, and fine and ransom at the 
 King's will ; and if any persons in the King's domi- 
 nions procured or executed any process or censures 
 from Rome, they were declared liable to the pains 
 in the statute of provisors in the sixteenth of Richard 
 II. But that appeals should only be from the arch- 
 deacon, or his official, to the bishop of the diocess, 
 or his commissary, and from him to the archbishop 
 of the province, or the dean of the Arches ; where 
 the final determination was to be made without any 
 further process ; and in every process concerning the 
 King, or his heirs and successors, an appeal should 
 lie to the Upper House of Convocation; where it 
 should be finally determined, never to be again called 
 in question." 
 
 As this bill passed, the sense of both houses of par- 
 liament about the Kmg's marriage did clearly appear, 
 but in the convocation the business was more fully 
 debated. The convocation of the province of Can- 
 terbury was at this time destitute of its head and prin- 
 cipal member. For Warham, archbishop of Canter- 
 bury was dead since August last year. He was a 
 great canonist, an able statesman, a dexterous cour- 
 tier, and a favourer of learned men. He always hated 
 Cardinal Wolsey, and would never stoop to him, 
 esteeming it below the dignity of his see. He was 
 not so peevishly engaged to the learning of the 
 schools as others were, but set up and encouraged a
 
 208 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 more generous way of knowledge ; yet he was a se- 
 vere persecutor of them whom he thought heretics, 
 and inclined to believe idle and fanatical people, as 
 will afterwards appear when the impostures of the 
 Maid of Kent shall be related. 
 
 The King The King saw well of how great importance it was 
 promote l to the designs he was then forming to fill that see with 
 cranmer. a \ e3Lrne ^ prudent, and resolute man ; but finding 
 none in the episcopal order that was qualified to his 
 mind, and having observed a native simplicity, joined 
 with much courage, and tempered with a great deal of 
 wisdom, in Dr. Cranmer, who was then negotiating his 
 business among the learned men of Germany ; he, of 
 his own accord, without any addresses from Cranmer, 
 designed to raise him to that dignity, and gave him 
 notice of it, that he might make haste and come home 
 to enjoy that reward which the King had appointed 
 FOX. for him. But Cranmer, having received this, did all 
 he could to excuse himself from the burden which was 
 coming upon him; and therefore he returned very 
 slowly to England, hoping that the King's thoughts 
 cooling, some other person might step in between him 
 and a dignity, of which having a just and primitive 
 sense, he did look on it with fear and apprehension, 
 rather than joy and desire. This was so far from 
 setting him back, that the King (who had known well 
 what it was to be importuned by ambitious and as- 
 piring churchmen, but had not found it usual that they 
 should decline and fly from preferment) was thereby 
 confirmed in his high opinion of him ; and neither the 
 delays of his journey, nor his entreaties to be deli- 
 vered from a burden, which his humility made him 
 imagine himself unable to bear, could divert the King. 
 So that though six months elapsed before the thing 
 was settled, yet the King persisted in his opinion, and 
 the other was forced to yield. 
 cranmer's J n the end of January the Kin^ sent to the Pope 
 
 balls from _ ^ *, Jii 
 
 Rome, tor the bulls lor L-ranmer s promotion ; and though 
 the statutes were passed against procuring more bulls 
 from Rome, yet the King resolved not to begin the 
 breach till he was forced to it by the Pope. It may
 
 PART I. BOOK II. 209 
 
 be easily imagined, that the Pope was not hearty in 
 this promotion, and that he apprehended ill conse- 
 quences from the advancement of a man, who had 
 gone over many courts of Christendom, disputing 
 against his power of dispensing, and had lived in much 
 familiarity with Osiander and the Lutherans in Ger- 
 many : yet, on the other hand, he had no mind to 
 precipitate a rupture with England ; therefore he con- 
 sented to it, and the bulls were expedited, though in- 
 stead of annates there was only nine hundred ducats 
 paid for them. 
 
 They were the last bulls that were received in Eng- 
 land in this King's reign; and therefore I shall give an 
 account of them, as they are set down in the begin- 
 ning of Cranmer's Register.. By one bull he is, upon 
 the King's nomination, promoted to be archbishop of 
 Canterbury, which is directed to the King. By a 
 second, directed to himself, he is made archbishop. 
 By a third, he is absolved from all censures. A 
 fourth is to the suffragans. A fifth to the dean and 
 chapter. A sixth to the clergy of Canterbury. A 
 seventh to all the laity in his see. An eighth to all 
 that held lands of it, requiring them to receive and ac- 
 knowledge him as archbishop. All these bear date the 
 21st of February, 1533. By a ninth bull, dated the 
 22d of February, he was ordained to be consecrated, 
 taking the oath that was in the pontifical. By a tenth 
 bull, dated the 2d of March, the pall was sent him. 
 And by an eleventh of the same date the Archbishop 
 of York and the Bishop of London were required to 
 put it on him. These were the several artifices to 
 make compositions high, and to enrich the apostolic 
 chamber ; for now that, about which St. Peter gloried 
 that he had none of it (" neither silver nor gold"), was 
 the thing in the world for which his successors were 
 most careful. 
 
 When these bulls were brought into England, Tho- 
 mas Cranmer was on the 30th of March consecrated 
 by the Bishops of Lincoln, Exeter, and St. Asaph. 
 But here a great scruple was moved by him concern- 
 ing the oath that he was to swear to the Pope, which he 
 
 VOL. i. p
 
 210 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 had no mind to take ; and writers near that time say, 
 the dislike of that oath was one of the motives that 
 ins pro- made him so unwillingly accept of that dignity. He 
 rbom'ws declared, that he thought there were many things 
 rteVope. settled by the laws of the popes, which ought to be 
 reformed ; and that the obligation which that oath 
 brought upon him, would bind him up from doing his 
 duty both to God, the King, and the church. But 
 this being communicated to some of the canonists and 
 casuists, they found a temper that agreed better with 
 their maxims than Cranmer's sincerity ; which was 
 that before he should take the oath, he should make 
 a good and formal protestation, that he did not intend 
 thereby to restrain himself from any thing that he 
 was bound to, either by his duty to God, or the King, 
 or the country ; and that he renounced every thing 
 in it that was contrary to any of these. This protesta- 
 tion he made in St. Stephen's chapel at Westminster, in 
 the hands of some doctors of the canon law, before he 
 was consecrated, and he afterwards repeated it when 
 he took the oath to the Pope ; by which, if he did not 
 wholly save his integrity, yet it was plain he intended 
 no cheat, but to act fairly and above-board. 
 Antiq. As soon as he was consecrated, and had performed 
 in Tit* every thing that was necessary for his investiture, he 
 cranmer. came an ^ sate m j ne Upper House of Convocation. 
 There were there at that time hot and earnest debates 
 upon these two questions : Whether it was against 
 the law of God, and indispensable by the Pope, for 
 a man to marry his brother's wife, he being dead with- 
 out issue, but having consummated the marriage? 
 And whether Prince Arthur had consummated his 
 marriage with the Queen? As for the first, it was 
 brought first into the Lower House of Convocation, 
 and when it was put to the vote, fourteen were for the 
 affirmative, seven for the negative ; one was not clear, 
 and another voted the prohibition to be moral, but yet 
 dispensable by the Pope. In the Upper House it was 
 long debated ; Stokesly, bishop of London, arguing 
 for the affirmative, and Fisher, bishop of /Rochester, 
 for the negative. The opinions of nineteen univer-
 
 PART I. BOOK II. 211 
 
 sities* were read for it, and the one house being as full 
 as the other was empty, two hundred and sixteen 
 being present, either in person or by proxy, it was 
 carried in the affirmative, nemine contradicente ; those 
 few of the Queen's party that were there it seems 
 going out. For the other question, about the matter 
 of fact, it was remitted to the faculty of the canon law 
 (it being a matter that lay within their studies), whe- 
 ther the presumptions were violent, and such as in the 
 course of law must be looked on as good evidences of 
 a thing that was secret, and was not capable of formal 
 proof? They all, except five or six, were for the af- 
 firmative, and all the Upper House confirmed this, 
 the Bishop of Bath and Wells only excepted. 
 
 In this account it may seem strange that there were 
 but twenty-three personsf in the Lower House of Con- 
 vocation, and two hundred and sixteen in the Upper 
 House. It is taken from an unquestioned authority, 
 so the matter of fact is not to be doubted. The most 
 learned Sir Henry Spelman has in no place of his Col- 
 lection of our Councils, considered the constitution of 
 the two houses of convocation ; and in none of our 
 records have I been able to discover of what persons 
 they were made up in the times of popery : and there- 
 fore, since we are left to conjecture, I shall offer mine 
 to the learned reader. It is, that none sate in the 
 Lower House but those who were deputed by the infe- 
 rior clergy ; and that bishops, abbots, mitred and not 
 mitred, and priors, deans, and archdeacons, sate then 
 in the Upper House of Convocation.^; To which I 
 am induced by these two reasons : it is probable that 
 all who were declared prelates by the Pope, and had 
 their writ to sit in a general council, had likewise a 
 
 * The opinions of some foreign Universities were certainly laid before the 
 Upper House of Convocation, but so far from being as many as nineteen, they 
 were only six ; and in fact the former number applies to the minority, who, 
 out of two hundred and sixteen members, opposed the decrees or decisions of 
 the Universities, and so far took the part of the Queen. See Collier, ii. 74. and 
 Burnet's own correction, vol. iii. book ii. anno 1551. See also the Preface to 
 the present edition of this work. N. 
 
 t The number of those who voted being only twenty-three, must be under- 
 stood only of the divines ; for the second question was put only to the jurists, 
 who, in those times, exceeded the divines in number, and they did all vote 
 in the affirmative : so that the numbers did far exceed twenty-three. 
 
 J See this corrected by the author himself, , vol. iii. book ii. anno 1531. N. 
 
 p'2
 
 212 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 right to come to the Upper House of Convocation, 
 and sit with the other prelates. And we find in the 
 tomes of the councils, that not only abbots and priors, 
 but deans and archdeacons were summoned to the 
 fourth council in the Lateran, and to that at Vienna. 
 Another reason is, that their sitting in two houses 
 (for in all other nations they sit together) looks as if 
 it had been taken from the constitution of our parlia- 
 ment, in which all that have writs personally sit in 
 the Lord's House ; and those who come upon an elec- 
 tion sit in the Lower House. So it is not improbable, 
 that all who were summoned personally sate in the 
 Upper House, and those who were returned with an 
 election sate in the Lower House of Convocation. 
 New en- This account of that convocation I take from that 
 to mak? collection of the British antiquities, which is believed 
 the Queen t o have been made by Matthew Parker, who lived at 
 that time, and was afterwards archbishop of Canter- 
 bury. But the convocation books being burnt, there 
 are no records to be appealed to ; yet it is not to be 
 supposed, that in a matter of fact that was so public 
 and well known, any man (especially one of that high 
 rank) would have delivered falsehoods, while the books 
 were yet extant that would have disproved them. 
 
 The church of England having in her representa- 
 tive made such a full decision, nothing remained but 
 to give judgment and to declare the marriage null. 
 The thing was already determined, only the formality 
 of a sentence declarative was wanting. But before 
 they proceeded to that, a new message was sent to 
 the Queen, to lay all that had passed before her, and 
 to desire her to acquiesce in the opinions of so many 
 universities and learned men. But she still persisted 
 in her resolution to own her marriage and to adhere 
 to her appeal, till the Pope should judge in it. And 
 when it was told her, that the King would settle the 
 jointure that she was to have by his brother, and that 
 the honour of Princess of Wales should still be paid 
 BUI in her, she rejected it. But the new Queen was now 
 with child, and brought forth Queen Elizabeth the 
 7th of September this year; from which, looking
 
 PART I. BOOK II. 213 
 
 backwards nine months, to the beginning of Decem- 
 ber,* it shews that she must have been married at or 
 before that time : for all the writers of both sides 
 agree that she was married before she conceived with 
 child. The King therefore thought not fit to conceal 
 it much longer ; so on Easter-eve she was declared 
 Queen of England. It seems it was not thought 
 needful at that time to proceed to any further sen- 
 tence about the former marriage ; otherwise I cannot 
 see what made it be so long delayed, since the thing 
 was in their power now, as well as after. And it was 
 certainly a preposterous method to judge the first 
 marriage null after the second was published. So 
 that it seems more probable, they did not intend 
 any sentence at all, till afterwards, perhaps upon 
 advertisements from beyond sea, they went on to 
 a formal process. Nor is it unlikely that the King, 
 remembering the old advice that the Pope sent him, 
 once to marry a second wife, and then to send for 
 a commission to try the matter, which the Pope 
 was willing to confirm, though he would not seem 
 to allow it originally, resolved to follow this me- 
 thod ; for the Pope was now closing with Francis, 
 from which union the King had reason to expect 
 great advantages. 
 
 Whatsoever were the reasons of the delay, the pro- 
 cess was framed in this method. First, Cranmerf 
 
 * See before, p. 205. The marriage seems undoubtedly to have taken place 
 on, or " much about St. Paul's day," viz. Jan. 25. Cranmer's letter, referred 
 to, p. 205, bears date June 17, 1533. In this letter, it should be observed, 
 he declares, he knew not of it, for a fortnight after it was done ; yet he is gene- 
 rally said to have been present at the ceremony. N. 
 
 t Cranmer, in a letter to Hawkins, gives the following account of the final 
 sentence of divorce : " As touching the final determination and concluding of 
 the matter of divorce, between my Lady Katherine and the King's grace ; and 
 after the convocation in that behalf had determined and agreed, according to 
 the former sentence of the universities, it was thought convenient, by the King 
 and his learned council, that I should repair to Dunstable, and there to call 
 her before me, to hear final sentence in this said matter. Notwithstanding, 
 she would not at all obey thereunto. On the 8th of May, according to the said 
 appointment, I came to Dunstable, my Lord of Lincoln being assistant to me ; 
 and my Lord of Winchester, Dr. Bell, Dr Claybroke, Dr. Tregonnel, Dr. 
 Sterkey, Dr. Olyver, Dr. Britton, Mr. Bedel, with divers others learned in 
 the law, being counsellors to the King. , And so there, at our coming, kept a 
 court, for the appearance of the said Katherine ; where we examined certain 
 witnesses, who testified that she was lawfully cited, and called to appear, as 
 tne process of the law thereunto belongeth ; which continued fifteen davs
 
 214 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 wrote to the King, that the world had been long scan- 
 dalized with his marriage, and that it lay on him as 
 his duty to see it tried and determined ; therefore 
 corner craved his royal leave to proceed in it. Which being 
 tTa^n- obtained, both the King and Queen were cited to ap- 
 d!vorce f P ear before the Archbishop, at Dunstable, the 10th 
 taken ' o f May, and the Archbishop went thither with the 
 origllis. Bishops of London, Winchester (Gardiner), Bath 
 Xo'aio. and Wells, and Lincoln, and many divines and cano- 
 nists. That place was chosen because the Queen lay 
 then very near it at Ampthill, and so she could not 
 pretend ignorance of what was done; and they 
 needed not put many days in the citation, but might 
 end the process so much the sooner. On the 10th 
 of May the Archbishop sate in court, and the King 
 appeared by proxy, but the Queen appeared not. 
 Upon which she was declared contumajc, and a second 
 citation was issued out, and after that a third : but 
 she intended not to appear, and so she was finally 
 declared contumax. Then the evidences that had 
 been brought before the Legates, of the consumma- 
 tion of the marriage with Prince Arthur, were read. 
 After that the determinations of the universities, and 
 divines, and canonists, were also produced and read. 
 Then the judgments of the convocations of both pro- 
 vinces were also read, with many other instruments, 
 collect, and the whole merits of the cause were opened. Upon 
 7 ' which, after many sessions, on the 23d of May sen- 
 tence was given, with the advice of all that were there 
 present, declaring it only to have been a marriage 
 de facto, but not de jure, pronouncing it null from 
 the beginning. One thing is to be observed, that the 
 Archbishop is in the sentence called the Legate of 
 the apostolic see. Whether this went of course as 
 one of his titles, or was put in to make the sentence 
 firmer, the reader may judge. Sentence being given, 
 the Archbishop, with all the rest, returned to London ; 
 and five days after, on the 28th of May, at Lambeth, 
 
 * 
 
 after our first coming thither. The morrow after Ascension day, I gave sen- 
 tence therein, how that it was indispensable for the Pope to license any such 
 marriage."
 
 PART I. BOOK II. 215 
 
 by another judgment, he, in general words (no reasons 
 being given in the sentence), confirmed the King's 
 marriage with the new Queen Anne ; and the 1st of 
 June she was crowned Queen. 
 
 When this great business, which had been so long The cen- 
 m agitation, was thus concluded, it was variously S ^ A at 
 censured as men stood affected. Some approved the thattime - 
 King's proceedings as canonical and just, since so 
 many authorities, which in the interval of a general 
 council were all that could be had (except the Pope 
 be believed infallible), had concurred to strengthen 
 the cause ; and his own clergy had, upon a full and 
 long examination, judged it on his side. Others, 
 who in the main agreed to the divorce, did very much 
 dislike the King's second marriage before the first 
 was dissolved ; for they thought it against the common 
 course of law, to break a marriage without any public 
 sentence ; and since one of the chief politic reasons 
 that was made use of in this suit, was to settle the suc- 
 cession of the crown, this did embroil it more, since 
 there was a fair colour given to except to the validity 
 of the second marriage, because it was contracted 
 before the first was annulled. But to this others an- 
 swered, that the first marriage being judged by the 
 interpreters of the doctrine of the church, to have been 
 null from the beginning, there was no need of any 
 sentence, but only for form. And all concluded, it had 
 been better there had been no sentence at all, than 
 one so late. Some excepted to the Archbishop of 
 Canterbury's being judge, who by his former writings 
 and disputes had declared himself partial. But to 
 this it was answered, that when a man changes his 
 character, all that he did in another figure is no just 
 exception ; so judges decide causes in which they 
 formerly gave counsel ; and popes are not bound to 
 the opinions they held when they were divines or 
 canonists. It was also said, that the Archbishop did 
 only declare in legal form, that which was already 
 judged by the whole convocation of both provinces. 
 Some wondered at the Pope's stiffness, that would 
 put so much to hazard, when there wanted not as
 
 216 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 good colours to justify a bull, as they had made use 
 of to excuse many other things. But the Emperor's 
 greatness, and the fear of giving the Lutherans ad- 
 vantages in disputing the Pope's authority, were on 
 the other hand so prevalent considerations, that no 
 wonder they wrought much on a Pope, who pretended 
 to no other knowledge but that of policy ; for he had 
 often said, he understood not the matter, and there- 
 fore left it in other men's hands. All persons ex- 
 cused Queen Katherine for standing so stiffly to her 
 ground ; only her denying so confidently that Prince 
 Arthur consummated the marriage, seems not capable 
 of an excuse. Every body admired Queen Anne's 
 conduct, who had managed such a King's spirit so 
 long, and had neither surfeited him with great free- 
 dom, nor provoked him by the other extreme ; for 
 the King, who was extremely nice in these matters, 
 conceived still a higher opinion of her; and her being 
 so soon with child after the marriage, as it made 
 people conclude she had been chaste till then, so they 
 hoped for a blessing upon it, since there were such 
 early appearances of issue. Those that favoured the 
 Reformation expected better days under her protec- 
 tion, for they knew she favoured them : but those 
 who were in their hearts for the established religion, 
 did much dislike it ; and many of the clergy, espe- 
 cially the orders of monks and friars, condemned it 
 both in their sermons and discourses. 
 
 But the King, little regarding the censures of the 
 vulgar, sent ambassadors to all the courts of Europe, 
 to give notice of his new marriage, and to justify it 
 by some of those reasons which have been opened in 
 the former parts of this History. He also sent the 
 Lord Mountjoy to the divorced Queen, to let her know 
 what was done, and that she was no more to be 
 treated as Queen, but as Princess Dowager. He was 
 to mix promises with threatenings, particularly con- 
 cerning her daughter's being put next the Queen's 
 issue in the succession. But the afflicted Queen 
 would not yield, and said, she would not damn her 
 soul, nor submit to such an infamy : that she was his
 
 PART I. BOOK II. 217 
 
 wife, and would never call herself by any other name, 
 whatever might follow on it, since the process still 
 depended at Rome. That Lord having written a 
 relation of what had passed between him and her, 
 shewed it to her ; but she dashed with a pen all those 
 places in which she was called Princess Dowager; 
 and would receive no service at any one's hands, but 
 of those who called her Queen : and she continued 
 to be still served as Queen by all about her. Against 
 which, though the King used all the endeavours he 
 could, not without both threatening and violence to 
 some of the servants, yet he could never drive her 
 from it ; and what he did in that, was thought far 
 below that height of mind which appeared in his 
 other actings ; for, since he had stripped her of the 
 real greatness of a Queen, it seemed too much, to vex 
 her for keeping up the pageantry of it. 
 
 But the news of this made great impressions else- 
 where. The Emperor received the King's justifi- 
 cation very coolly, and said he would consider what 
 he was to do upon it, which was looked on as a decla- 
 ration of war. The French King, though he ex-ThePo pe 
 pressed still great friendship to the King, yet was ^"ifto 
 now resolved to link himself to the Pope ; for the e n French 
 crafty Pope, apprehending that nothing made the King 
 of England so confident, as that he knew his friend- 
 ship was necessary to the French King, and fearing 
 they had resolved to proceed at once to the putting 
 down the papal authority in their kingdoms (which 
 it appears they had once agreed to do,) resolved by 
 all means to make sure of the French King, which, as 
 it would preserve that kingdom in his obedience, so 
 would perhaps frighten the King of England from 
 proceeding to such extremities ; since that Prince, in 
 whose conjunction he trusted so much, had forsaken 
 him : therefore the Pope did so vigorously pursue the 
 treaty with Francis, that it was as good as ended at 
 this time, and an interview was projected between 
 them at Marseilles. The Pope did also grant him 
 so great power over his own clergy, that he could 
 scarce have expected more, if he had set up a patri-
 
 218 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 arch in France ; so that Francis did resolve to go on 
 in the designs, which had been concerted between 
 him and the King of England, no further ; but still 
 he considered his alliance so much that he promised 
 to use his most effectual intercession with the Pope 
 to prevent all censures and bulls against the King ; 
 and if it were possible to bring the matter to an ami- 
 cable conclusion. And the Emperor was not ill- 
 pleased to see France and England divided. There- 
 fore, though he had at first opposed the treaty between 
 the Pope and Francis, yet afterwards he was not 
 troubled that it took effect, hoping that it would dis- 
 unite those two kings, whose conjunction had been 
 so troublesome to him. 
 
 And con- But when the news was brought to Rome of what 
 ting's was done in England, with which it was also related 
 f n fo d " that books were coming out against the Pope's supre- 
 Eugiand. macy, all the cardinals of the imperial faction pressed 
 the Pope to give a definitive sentence, and to pro- 
 ceed to censures against the King. But the more 
 moderate cardinals thought, England was not to be 
 thrown away with such precipitation : and therefore 
 a temper was found, that a sentence should be given 
 upon what had been attempted in England, by the 
 Archbishop of Canterbury (which in the style of 
 the canon law were called the attentates?) for it was 
 pretended that the matter depending in the court of 
 Rome, by the Queen's appeal, and the other steps 
 that had been made, it was not in the Archbishop's 
 power to proceed to any sentence. Therefore in 
 general it was declared, that all that had been at- 
 tempted or done in England about the King's suit of 
 divorce was null, and that the King by such attempts 
 was liable to excommunication, unless he put things 
 again in the state they were in, and that before 
 September next, and that then they would proceed 
 further ; and this sentence was affixed in Dunkirk 
 soon after. 
 
 The King resolving to follow the thing as far as 
 it was possible, sent a great embassy to Francis, who 
 was then on his journey to Marseilles, to dissuade
 
 
 PART I. BOOK II. 219 
 
 the interview and marriage, till the Pope gave the 
 King satisfaction. But the French King was engaged 
 in honour to go forward ; yet he protested he would 
 do all that lay in his power to compose the matter, 
 and that he would take any injury that were done to 
 the King as highly as if it were done to himself; and 
 he desired the King would send some to Marseilles, 
 
 O ' 
 
 who thereupon sent Gardiner and Sir Francis Brian. 
 
 But at this time (viz. September 7th, 1533,) the 
 Queen brought forth a daughter, who was christened &? 
 Elizabeth,* (the renowned Queen of England,) the 
 Archbishop of Canterbury being her godfather. She 
 was soon after declared Princess of Wales, though 
 lawyers thought that against law ; for she was only 
 heir presumptive, but not apparent, to the crown, 
 since a son coming after, he must be preferred. Yet 
 the King would justify what he had done in his mar- 
 riage with all possible respect, and having before 
 declared the Lady Mary Princess of Wales, he did 
 now the same in favour of the Lady Elizabeth. 
 
 The interview between the Pope and the French f w in r ~ 
 King was at Marseilles in October, where the mar- tween the 
 riage was made up between the Duke of Orleans and F^T 
 Catherine de Medici ; to whom, besides one hun- M^Juu*. 
 dred thousand crowns portion, the principality of 
 many towns in Italy, as Milan, Reggio, Pisa, Leg- 
 horn, Parma, and Piacenza, and the duchy of Urbio, 
 were given. To the former the Pope pretended in 
 the right of the popedom, and to the last in the 
 right of the house of Medici. But the French The pop* 
 King was to clear all those titles by his sword. As lo^T 
 for the King's business, the Pope referred it to the * 
 consistory. But it seems there was a secret trans- King of 
 action between him and Francis, that if the King divore. * 
 would in all other things return to his wonted obe- 
 dience to the apostolic see, and submit the matter to 
 
 * Queen Elizabeth was born the 13th and 14th day of September, for so 
 Cranmer wrote to Hawkins, and says, that he himself was godfather at the 
 christening, and the Duchess of Norfolk, and the Marchioness of Dorset, were 
 godmothers. [N. B. Queen Elizabeth was undoubtedly born on the 7th of 
 September. See Hallam's Constitutional History of England, vol.i. p. 66. 
 Mr. Soames, in his History of the Reformation, had fallen into the mistake from 
 this very note. See vol. i. 39 ( A N.J
 
 s $ ubdit lnfid ' 
 
 220 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 the judgment of the consistory (excepting only to the 
 cardinals of the imperial faction as partial and in- 
 competent judges), the decision should be made to 
 his heart's content. This I collect from what will 
 afterwards appear. The King, upon the sentence 
 that was passed against him, sent Bonner to Mar- 
 seilles, who, procuring an audience of the Pope, de- 
 sio. li vere d to him the authentic instrument of the King's 
 appeal from him to the next general council lawfully 
 called. At this the Pope was much incensed, but 
 said he would consider of it in consistory ; and, 
 having consulted about it there, he answered, that 
 the appeal was unlawful, and therefore he rejected 
 it ; and for a general council, the calling of it be- 
 longed to him and not to the King. About the same 
 time the Archbishop of Canterbury being threatened 
 with a process from Rome, put in also his appeal to 
 the next general council. Upon which Bonner de- 
 livered the threatenings that he was ordered to make, 
 with so much vehemency and fury, that the Pope 
 talked of throwing him in a cauldron of melted lead, 
 or of burning him alive ; and he apprehending some 
 danger made his escape. About the middle of No- 
 vember the interview ended, the Pope returning to 
 Rome, and the French King to Paris, a firm alliance 
 being established between them. But upon the 
 Duke of Orleans his marrying the Pope's niece, I 
 shall add one observation, that will neither be un- 
 Bamus. pleasant nor impertinent. The Duke of Orleans was 
 then but fourteen years and nine months old, being 
 bom on the last of March, 1518, and yet was be- 
 lieved to have consummated his marriage, the very 
 first night after : so the Pope's historians tell us with 
 much triumph ; though they represented that im- 
 probable, if not impossible in Prince Arthur, who 
 The was nine months older when he died. 
 French Upon the French King's return from Marseilles, 
 Trih with the Bishop of Paris was sent over to the King ; which 
 rfE^giLd ( as ma y De reasonably collected) followed upon some 
 to submit agreement made at Marseilles, and he prevailed with 
 pope. the King to submit the whole matter to the Pope and
 
 PART I. BOOK II. 221 
 
 the consistory, on such terms that the Imperialists 
 should not be allowed a voice, because they were 
 parties, being in the Emperor's power. None that 
 have observed the genius of this King, can think that, 
 after he had proceeded so far, he would have made 
 this submission without very good assurances ; and 
 if there had not been great grounds to expect good 
 effects from it, the Bishop of Paris would not in the 
 middle of winter have undertaken a journey from 
 England to Rome. But the King, it seems, would 
 not abase himself so far as to send any submission in 
 writing, till he had fuller assurances. The Lord 
 Herbert has published a letter (which he transcribed 
 from the original, written by the Archbishop of York 
 and the Bishop of Duresme, to the King, the 1 1th of 
 May, 1534,) giving an account of a conference they 
 had with Queen Katherine ; in which, among other 
 motives they used, this was one, to persuade her to 
 comply with what the King had done : that the Pope 
 had said at Marseilles, That if the King would send 
 a proxy to Rome, he would give the cause for him 
 against the Queen, because he knew his cause was 
 good and just. Which is a great presumption, that 
 the Pope did really give some engagements to the 
 French King about the King's business. 
 
 When the Bishop of Paris came to Rome, the which 
 motion was liked ; and it was promised, that if the '"iv'd 
 King sent a promise of that under his hand, with an atRom - 
 order to his proxies to appear in court, there should 
 be judges sent to Cambray to form the process, and 
 then the matter should be determined for him at Rome. 
 This was sent to the King, with the notice of the day Hist. 
 that was prefixed for the return of his answer, and with ofTrem. 
 other motives which must have been very great, since ^ adr 
 
 i -11 i -n i Paul - 
 
 they prevailed so much, ror m answer there was a 
 courier dispatched from the King, with a formal pro- 
 mise under his hand. And now the matter seemed 
 at a point, the French interest was great in the court 
 of Rome ; four new cardinals had been made at Mar- 
 seilles, and there were six of that faction before, which 
 with the Pope's creatures, an^l the indifferent or venal
 
 222 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 voices, balanced the imperial faction ; so that a wound 
 that was looked on as fatal, was now almost healed. 
 But God in his wise and unsearchable providence had 
 designed to draw other great ends out of this rupture, 
 and therefore suffered them that were the most con- 
 cerned to hinder it. to be the chief instruments of 
 But the driving it on. For the cardinals of the imperial faction 
 a i7s P tTop. were very active, they liked not the precedent of ex- 
 pos ed it. c l u( j m g t ne cardinals of the nations concerned out 
 of any business. But above all things they were to 
 hinder a conjunction between the, Pope and the King 
 of England ; for the Pope being then allied to France, 
 there was nothing the Emperor feared more than the 
 closing the breach with England, which would make 
 the union against him so much stronger. Therefore, 
 when the day that had been prefixed for the return 
 of the courier from England, was elapsed, they all 
 pressed the Pope to proceed to a sentence definitive, 
 and to censures. Bellay, the bishop of Paris, repre- 
 sented the injustice of proceeding with so much pre- 
 cipitation, since where there were seas to cross, in 
 such a season, many accidents might occasion the 
 delay of the express. The King of England had fol- 
 lowed this suit six years, and had patience so long ; 
 therefore he desired the delay of six days, and if in 
 that time no return came, they might proceed. But 
 the Imperialists represented, that those were only 
 delays to gain time ; and that the King of England 
 was still proceeding in his contempt of the apostolic 
 see, and of the cardinals, and publishing books and 
 And with libels against them. This so wrought on the angry 
 
 great pre- -p. . , i l 1 i 
 
 cipitation rope, that, without consulting his ordinary prudence, 
 sen t c e u n r c e e a he brought the business into the consistory, where the 
 against plurality of voices carried it to proceed to a sentence. 
 
 the King. . . i *^ , , 111 i 111 
 
 And though the process had been earned on all that 
 winter in their usual forms, yet it was not so ripe, but 
 by the rules of the consistory, there ought to have been 
 three sessions before sentence was given. But they 
 concluded all in one day; and so, on the 23d of March, 
 the marriage between the King and Queen Katherine 
 was declared good, and the King required to take her
 
 PART I. BOOK II. 223 
 
 as his wife; otherwise censures were to be denounced 
 against him. 
 
 Two days after that, the courier arrived from Eng- The King 
 land, with the King's submission under his hand in^S stc 
 due form, and earnest letters from the French King ** Po ? e ' s 
 
 o power in 
 
 to have it accepted, and so the business might be com- England. 
 posed. When this was known at Rome, all the in- 
 different and wise cardinals (among whom was Far- 
 nese, that was afterwards Pope Paul the Third,) came 
 to the Pope, and desired that it might be again con- 
 sidered before it went further. So it was brought 
 again into the consistory. But the secret reason of 
 the Imperialists opposing it, was now more pressing, 
 since there was such an appearance of a settlement, 
 if the former sentence were once recalled. Therefore 
 they so managed the matter, that it was confirmed 
 anew by the Pope and the consistory, and they or- 
 dered the Emperor to execute the sentence. 
 
 The King was now in so good hope of his busi- 
 ness, that he sent Sir Edward Karne to Rome to pro- 
 secute his suit; who, on his way thither, met the 
 Bishop of Paris, coming back with this melancholy 
 account of his unprosperous negotiation. When the 
 King heard it, and understood that he was used with 
 so much scorn and contempt at Rome, being also the 
 more vexed, because he had come to such a submis- 
 sion, he resolved then to break totally from Rome. 
 And in this he was beforehand with that court: for, 
 judging it the best way to procure a peace, to manage 
 the war vigorously, he had held a session of parlia- 
 ment from the 15th of January till the 30th of March, 
 in which he had procured a great change of the whole 
 constitution of the government of the church. But 
 before I give an account of that, I shall first open all 
 the arguments and reasons, upon which I find they 
 proceeded in this matter. 
 
 The Pope's power had been then for four years to- which had 
 gether much examined and disputed in England ; in St^i* 
 which they went by these steps, one leading to an- there - 
 other. They first controverted his power of dispens- 
 ing with the law of God. From that they went to
 
 224 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 examine what jurisdiction he had in England; upon 
 which followed the convicting the clergy of a prce- 
 munire, with their submission to the King. And that 
 led them to controvert the Pope's right to annates, 
 and other exactions, which they also condemned. 
 The condemning all appeals to Rome followed that 
 naturally. And now so many branches of that power 
 were cut off, the root was next struck at, and the foun- 
 dations of the papal authority were examined. For 
 near a year together there had been many public de- 
 bates about it ; and both in the parliament and con- 
 vocation the thing was long disputed, and all that 
 Pelerine cou i(j b e alleged on both sides was considered. The 
 
 Jnglese. 
 
 reader will be best able to judge of their reasons (and 
 thereby of the ripeness of their judgments, when they 
 Haii. enacted the laws that passed in this parliament), when 
 he sees a full account of them ; which I shall next set 
 down, not drawn from the writings and apologies that 
 have been published since, but from these that came 
 out about that time. For then were written The In- 
 stitution for the necessary Erudition of a Christian 
 Man, concluded in the convocation, and published by 
 authority ; and another book, De Differentia Regies 
 et Ecclesiastics Potestatis. The former of these was 
 called the Bishops', and the latter the King's book. 
 Gardiner also wrote a book, De vera Obedientia, to 
 which Bonner prefixed a preface upon the same sub- 
 ject. Stokesly, bishop of London, and Tonstal, bishop 
 of Duresme, wrote a long letter in defence of the 
 King's proceedings in this matter to Cardinal Pole : 
 from these writings, and the sermons preached by 
 some bishops at this time, with other authentic pieces, 
 I have extracted the substance of the arguments upon 
 which they grounded their laws, which I shall divide 
 in two heads. The one, of the reasons for rejecting 
 the Pope's pretended power : the other, for setting 
 up the King's supremacy with the explanations and 
 The ar limitations of it. 
 
 gumen Fi rs t, of the Pope's power, they declared that 
 wai C re U l h ev found no ground for it in the Scripture. All 
 jecwd. the apostles were made equal by Christ, when he com-
 
 PART I. BOOK II. 225 
 
 mitted the church to their care in common. And he 
 did often declare, there was no superiority of one 
 above another. St. Paul claimed an equality with 
 the chief apostles, both Peter, James, and John ; and 
 when he thought St. Peter blameworthy, he with- 
 stood him to his face. But whatsoever pre-eminence 
 St. Peter might have, that was only personal, and 
 there was no reason to affix it to his chair at Rome, 
 more than at Antioch. But if any see be to be pre- 
 ferred before another, it should be Jerusalem, where 
 Christ died, and out of which the faith was propa- 
 gated over all nations, Christ commanding his disci- 
 ples to begin their preaching in it ; so that it was 
 truly the mother church, and is so called by St. Paul ; 
 whereas in the Scripture, Rome is called Babylon, 
 according to Tertullian and St. Jerome. 
 
 " For the places brought from Scripture in favour 
 of the papacy, they judged that they did not prove 
 any thing for it. That ' thou art Peter,' and ' upon this 
 rock I will build my church,' if it prove any thing in 
 this matter, would prove too much ; even that the 
 church was founded on St. Peter, as he was a private 
 person, and so on the popes in their personal capacity. 
 But both St. Ambrose, St. Jerome, and St. Austin 
 think, that by the rock, the confession he had made 
 was only to be meant. Others of the fathers thought, 
 by the rock, Christ himself was meant, who is the 
 only true foundation of the church ; though in another 
 sense all the apostles are also called foundations by 
 St. Paul. That, ' tell the church,' is thought by Ger- 
 son and .(Eneas Silvius, (afterwards Pope Pius the 
 Second) rather to make against the Pope and for a 
 general council. And the fathers have generally 
 followed St. Chrysostom and St. Austin, who thought 
 that the giving of the keys of the kingdom of heaven, 
 and the charge, * Feed my sheep,' were addressed to 
 St. Peter, in behalf of all the rest of the apostles. 
 And that, ' I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail 
 not,' was only personal, and related to his fall, which 
 was then imminent. It is also clear by St. Paul, that 
 every apostle had his peculiar province, beyond which 
 VOL. i. a
 
 226 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 he was not to stretch himself; and St. Peter's province 
 was the circumcision, and his the uncircumcision, in 
 which he plainly declares his equality with him. 
 
 " This was also clear from the constant tradition 
 of the church. St. Cyprian was against appeals to 
 Rome, and would not submit to Pope Stephen's de- 
 finition in the point of rebaptizing of heretics ; and 
 expressly says, * That all the apostles were equal in 
 power, and that all the bishops were also equal, since 
 the whole office and episcopate was one entire thing, 
 of which every bishop had a complete and equal 
 share.' And though some places are brought out of 
 him concerning the unity of the Roman church, and 
 of other churches with it ; yet those places have no re- 
 lation to any authority that the Roman church had 
 over other churches, but were occasioned by a schism 
 that Novatian had made there at Rome, being elected 
 in opposition to the bishop that was rightly chosen : 
 and of that unity only St. Cyprian writes in those 
 places. But from all his epistles to the bishops of 
 Rome, it is visible he looked on himself as their equal, 
 since he calls them brother, colleague, and fellow- 
 bishop. And whatsoever is said by any ancient writer 
 of St. Peter's chair, is to be understood of the pure 
 gospel, which he delivered, as St. Austin observes, 
 that by ' Moses' chair' is to be understood, ' the de- 
 livering of Moses' law.' But though St. Peter sat 
 there, the succeeding popes have no more right to 
 pretend to such authority, than the kings of Spain to 
 claim the Roman empire, because he that is now 
 their King, is Emperor. When Constantine turned 
 Christian, the dignity of the chief city of the empire 
 made Rome to be accounted the first see ; but by the 
 general council of Nice, it was declared, that the 
 patriarchs of Alexandria and Antioch had the same 
 authority over the countries round about them, that he 
 of Rome had over those that lay about that city. It 
 is true, at that time the Arian heresy, having spread 
 generally over the eastern churches, from which the 
 western were free, the oppressed catholic bishops of 
 the east made appeals to Rome, and extolled that see
 
 PART I. BOOK II. 227 
 
 by a natural maxim in all men, who magnify that from 
 which they have protection. But the second general 
 council took care, that that should not grow a prece- 
 dent, for they decreed that every province should be 
 governed by its own synod, and that bishops, when 
 they were accused, must first be judged by the bishops 
 of their own province, and from them they might 
 appeal to the bishops of the diocese, but no higher 
 appeal was allowed ; and by that council it appears, 
 what was the foundation of the greatness of the 
 Bishop of Rome ; for when Constantinople was made 
 the seat of the empire and new Rome, it had the same 
 privileges that old Rome had, and was set next to it 
 in order and dignity. In a council at Milevi, in which 
 St. Austin sat, they appointed that every clerk, that 
 should appeal to any bishop beyond the sea, should 
 be excommunicated. And when Faustianus was sent 
 by the Pope to the African churches to claim the right 
 of receiving appeals, and pretended a canon of the 
 council of Nice for it, the pretension was rejected by 
 the African fathers, who acknowledged no such right, 
 and had never heard of that canon. Upon which 
 they sent to the eastern churches, and search was 
 every where made for the copies of the canons of that 
 council ; but it was found that it was a forgery. 
 From whence two things were observable : the one, 
 that the church in that age had no tradition of any 
 Divine institution for the authority of that see, since 
 as the popes, who claimed it, never pretended to any 
 such thing ; so the African bishops, by their reject- 
 ing that power, shew that they knew nothing of any 
 Divine warrant, all the contest being only about a 
 canon of the church. It also appeared how early the 
 church of Rome aspired to power, and did not stick 
 at making use of forged writings to support it. But 
 Pope Agatho, more modestly writing to the Emperor 
 in his own name, and in the name of all the synods 
 that were subject to his see, calls them ' a few bishops 
 in the northern and western parts.' When afterwards 
 the patriarch of Constantinople was declared by the 
 Emperor Mauritius, ' the universal bishop,' Gregory 
 
 Q2
 
 228 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 the Great did exclaim against the ambition of that 
 title, as being equal to the pride of Lucifer ; and 
 declared, that he who assumed it was the forerunner 
 of Antichrist ; saying, that none of his predecessors 
 had ever claimed such a power. And this was the 
 more observable, since the English were converted 
 by those whom he sent over ; so that this was the 
 doctrine of that see, when this church received the 
 faith from it. 
 
 " But it did not continue.long within those limits; 
 for Boniface the Third assumed that title, upon the 
 grant of Phocas. And as that Boniface got the spi- 
 ritual sword put in his hand, so the eighth of that 
 name pretended also to the temporal sword ; but they 
 owe these powers to the industry of those popes, and 
 not to any donation of Christ's. The popes, when 
 they are consecrated, promise, to obey the canons of 
 the eight first general councils; which, if they observe, 
 they will receive no appeals, nor pretend to any higher 
 jurisdiction than these give to them, and the other 
 patriarchs equally. 
 
 " As for the decrees of later councils, they are of 
 less authority. For those councils consisted of monks 
 and friars in great part, whose exemptions obtained 
 from Rome, obliged them to support the authority of 
 that court; and those who sat in them knew little 
 of the Scriptures, fathers, or the tradition of the 
 church, being only conversant in the disputes and 
 learning of the schools. And for the Florentine 
 council, the eastern churches, who sent the Greek 
 bishops that sat there, never received their determi- 
 nation, neither then, nor at any time since. 
 
 " Many places were also brought out of the fathers 
 to shew, that they did not look on the bishops of 
 Rome as superior to other bishops : and that they 
 understood not those places of Scripture, which were 
 afterwards brought for the Pope's supremacy in that 
 sense ; so that if tradition be the best expounder of 
 Scripture, those latter glosses must give place to the 
 more ancient. But that passage of St. Jerome, in 
 which he equals the bishops of Eugubium and Con-
 
 PART I. BOOK II. 229 
 
 stantinople to the Bishop of Rome, was much made 
 use of, since he was a presbyter of Rome, and so 
 likely to understand the dignity of his own church 
 best. There were many things brought from the con- 
 tests that other sees had with Rome, to shew, that all 
 the privileges of that and other sees, were only founded 
 on the practice and canons of the church, but not upon 
 any Divine warrant. Constantinople pretended to 
 equal privileges. Ravenna, Milan, and Aquileia, 
 pretended to a patriarchal dignity aud exemption. 
 Some archbishops of Canterbury contended, that 
 popes could do nothing against the laws of the 
 church ; so Laurence and Dunstan, Robert Grostest, 
 bishop of Lincoln, asserted the same, and many popes 
 confessed it. And to this day no constitution of the 
 popes is binding in any church, except it be received 
 by it ; and in the daily practice of the canon law, the 
 customs of churches are pleaded against papal con- 
 stitutions ; which shews their authority cannot be 
 from God, otherwise all must submit to their laws. 
 And from the latter contest up and down Europe, 
 about giving investitures, receiving appeals, admit- 
 ting of legates, and papal constitutions, it was appa- 
 rent that the papal authority was a tyranny, which 
 had been managed by cruel and fraudulent arts, but 
 was never otherwise received in the church, than as 
 a conquest to which they were constrained to yield. 
 And this was more fully made out in England, from 
 what passed in William the Conqueror's and Henry 
 the Second's time, and by the statutes of provisors 
 in many kings' reigns, which were still renewed, till 
 within a hundred years of the present time." 
 
 Upon these grounds they concluded, that the 
 Pope's power in England had no foundation, neither 
 in the law of God, nor in the laws of the church, or 
 of the land. 
 
 "As for the King's power over spiritual persons, rh.arga 
 and in spiritual causes, they proved it from the Scrip- j^"^* 
 tures, in the Old Testament, they found the kings of supremac >- 
 Israel intermeddled in all matters ecclesiastical. Sa- From the 
 muel, though he had been judge, yet acknowledged umem?
 
 230 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 Saul's authority : so also did Abimelech the high 
 priest, and appeared before him when cited to answer 
 upon an accusation. And Samuel (1 Sam. xv. 18.) 
 says, " He was made the head of all the tribes." 
 Aaron in that was an example to all the following 
 high priests who submitted to Moses. David made 
 many laws about sacred things, such as the order of 
 the courses of the priests and their worship ; and 
 when he was dying, he declared to Solomon how far 
 his authority extended. He told him, (i Chron. 
 xxviii. 21.) ' That the courses of the priests, and all 
 the people, were to be wholly at his commandment :' 
 pursuant to which, Solomon, (2 Chron. viii. 14, 15.) 
 did appoint them ' their charges in the service of God, 
 and both the priests and Levites departed not from his 
 commandment in any matter : ' and though he had 
 turned out Abiathar from the high-priesthood, yet they 
 made no opposition. Jehosaphat, Hezekiah, and Jo- 
 sias, made likewise laws about ecclesiastical matters. 
 And the " I n the New Testament Christ himself was obe- 
 dient ; he paid taxes, he declared that he pretended 
 to no earthly kingdom, he. charged the people to 
 ' render to Caesar the things that were Caesar's,' and 
 his disciples not to affect temporal dominion, as the 
 lords of the nations did. And though the magis- 
 trates were then heathens, yet the apostles wrote to 
 the churches to obey magistrates, to submit to them, 
 to pay taxes ; they call the king supreme, and say he 
 is God's minister, to encourage them that do well, 
 and to punish the evil-doers, which is said of all per- 
 sons without exception, and every soul is charged to 
 be subject to the higher power. 
 
 " Many passages were cited out of the writings of 
 the fathers to shew, that they thought churchmen 
 were included in these places as well as other persons ; 
 so that the tradition of the church was for the king's 
 supremacy : and by one place of Scripture the king 
 is called ' supreme,' by another he is called * head,' 
 and by a third ' every soul must be subject to him ;' 
 which laid together, make up this conclusion that 
 the king is the supreme head over all persons. In
 
 primitive 
 church. 
 
 PART I. BOOK II. 231 
 
 the primitive church, the bishops in their councils 
 made rules for ordering their dioceses, which they 
 only called canons or rules, nor had they any com- 
 pulsive authority, but what was derived from the 
 civil sanctions. 
 
 " After the emperors were Christians they made A * th 
 many laws about sacred things, as may be seen in the of 
 Codes ; and when Justinian digested the Roman law, 
 he added many novel constitutions about ecclesiasti- 
 cal persons and causes. The emperors called general 
 councils, presided in them, and confirmed them. And 
 many letters were cited of popes to emperors to call 
 councils, and of the councils to them to confirm their 
 decrees. The election of the popes themselves was 
 sometimes made by the emperors, and sometimes con- 
 firmed by them. Pope Hadrian in a synod decreed, 
 that the emperor should choose the pope : and it was 
 a late and unheard-of thing, before the days of Gre- 
 gory VII. for popes to pretend to depose princes, and 
 give away their dominions. This they compared to 
 the pride of Antichrist and Lucifer. 
 
 " They also argued from reason, that there must 
 be but one supreme ; and that the king being supreme 
 over all his subjects, clergymen must be included, for 
 they are still subjects. Nor can their being in orders 
 change that former relation, founded upon the law of 
 nature and nations, no more than wives or servants, 
 by becoming Christians, were not, according to the 
 doctrine of the apostles, discharged from the duties 
 of their former relations. 
 
 " For the great objection from those offices that 
 are peculiar to their functions it was answered that 
 these notwithstanding the king might well be supreme 
 head ; for in the natural body, there were many vital 
 motions, that proceeded not from the head, but from 
 the heart and the other inward parts and vessels ; and 
 yet the head was still the chief seat and root of life : 
 so though there be peculiar functions appropriated 
 to churchmen, yet the king is still head, having au- 
 thority over them, and a power to direct and coerce 
 them in these.
 
 232 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 And from " From that they proceeded to shew, that in Eng- 
 En e ja a a w d. of land the kings have always assumed a supremacy in 
 ecclesiastical matters. They began with the most 
 ancient writing that relates to the Christian religion 
 in England then extant, Pope Eleutherius's letter to 
 King Lucius, in which he is twice called by him 
 ' God's vicar in his kingdom ;' and he writ in it, ' that 
 it belonged to his office, to bring his subjects to the 
 holy church,' and to maintain, protect, and govern 
 them in it. Many laws were cited, which Canutus, 
 Ethelred, Edgar, Edmond, Athelstan, and Ina had 
 enacted concerning churchmen ; many more laws 
 since the Conquest were also made, both against ap- 
 peals to Rome, and bishops going out of the kingdom 
 without the king's leave. 
 
 " The whole business of the articles of Clarendon, 
 and the contests that followed between King Henry 
 II. and Thomas Becket were also opened. And 
 though a bishop's pastoral care be of Divine institu- 
 tion, yet as the kings of England had divided bishop- 
 ricks as they pleased, so they also converted benefices 
 from the institutions of the founders, and gave them 
 to cloisters and monasteries as King Edgar did : all 
 which was done by the consent of their clergy and 
 nobility, without dependance on Rome; they had 
 also granted these houses exemption from episcopal 
 jurisdiction, so Ina exempted Glastenbury, and Offa 
 St. Albans, from their bishop's visitation : and this 
 continued even till the days of William the Conque- 
 ror ; for he, to perpetuate the memory of the victory 
 he obtained over Harold, and to endear himself to 
 the clergy, founded an abbey in the field where the 
 battle was fought, and called it Battle Abbey ; and 
 in the charter he granted them these words are to be 
 found : ' It shall be also free and quiet for ever from 
 all subjection to bishops, or the dominion of any other 
 persons, as Christ's Church in Canterbury is.' Many 
 other things were brought out of King Alfred's laws ^ 
 and a speech of King Edgar's, with several letters 
 written to the popes from the kings, the parliaments, 
 and the clergy of England, to shew that their kings
 
 PART I. BOOK II. 233 
 
 did always make laws about sacred matters, and that 
 their power reached to that, and to the persons of 
 churchmen as well as to their other subjects." 
 
 But at the same time that they pleaded so much The quii- 
 for the king's supremacy and power of making laws th - 
 for restraining and coercing his subjects, it appeared p remac y- 
 that they were far from vesting him with such an ab- 
 solute power as the popes had pretended to ; for they 
 thus defined the extent of the king's power : ' To 
 them specially and principally itpertaineth to defend Necesary 
 the faith of Christ and his religion, to conserve and ^'"he 
 maintain the true doctrine of Christ, and all such as s f ra . meilt 
 
 ' of orders. 
 
 be true preachers and setters-forth thereof; and to 
 abolish abuses, heresies, and idolatries, and to punish 
 with corporal pains such as of malice be the occasion 
 of the same. And finally, to oversee and cause that 
 the said bishops and priests do execute their pas- 
 toral office truly and faithfully, and specially in these 
 points, which by Christ and his apostles was given 
 and committed to them ; and in case they shall be 
 negligent in any part thereof, or would not diligently 
 execute the same, to cause them to redouble and 
 supply their lack : and if they obstinately withstand 
 their prince's kind monition, and will not amend their 
 faults, then and in such case to put others in their 
 rooms and places. And God hath also commanded 
 the said bishops and priests to obey with all humble- 
 ness and reverence, both kings, and princes, and go- 
 vernors, and all their laws, not being contrary to the 
 laws of God, whatsoever they be : and that not only 
 propter iram but also propter conscieMiam : that is 
 to say, not only for fear of punishment, but also for 
 discharge of conscience.' 
 
 Thus it appears, that they both limited obedience to 
 the King's laws, with a due caution of their not being 
 contrary to the law of God, and acknowledged the ec- 
 clesiastical jurisdiction in the discharge of the pastoral 
 office, committed to the pastors of the church by Christ 
 andhis apostles ; and that the supremacy then pretend- 
 ed to was no such extravagant power as some imagine. 
 
 " Upon the whole matter it was concluded, That
 
 234 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 Theneces. the Pope's power in England had no good founda- 
 t'rpating*" ti n > an d na d been managed with as much tyranny 
 ptwr pes as it na d begun with usurpation ; the exactions of 
 their courts were every where heavy, but in no place 
 so intolerable as in England : and though many 
 complaints were made of them in these last three 
 hundred years, yet they got no ease, and all the laws 
 about provisors were still defeated and made in- 
 effectual ; therefore they saw it was impossible to 
 moderate their proceedings ; so that there was no 
 other remedy, but to extirpate their pretended autho- 
 rity, and thenceforth to acknowledge the Pope only 
 bishop of Rome, with the jurisdiction about it defined 
 by the ancient canons : and for the King to re-assume 
 his own authority, and the prerogatives of his crown ; 
 from which the kings of England had never formally 
 departed, though they had for this last hundred years 
 connived at an invasion and usurpation upon them, 
 which was no longer to be endured." 
 153*. These were the grounds of casting off the Pope's 
 wtTn w power, that had been for two or three years studied 
 satisfy anc [ inquired into by all the learned men in England ; 
 about u. and had been debated both in convocation and par- 
 liament ; and, except Fisher, bishop of Rochester, I 
 do not find that any bishop appeared for the Pope's 
 power : and for the abbots and priors, as they were 
 generally very ignorant, so what the Cardinal had 
 done in suppressing some monasteries, and what they 
 now heard, that the court had an eye on their lands, 
 made them to be as compliant as could be : but Fisher 
 was a man of great reputation, and very ancient, so 
 that much pains was taken to satisfy him. A week 
 before the parliament sat down the Archbishop of Can- 
 terbury proposed to him, that he, and any five doctors, 
 such as he should choose, and the Bishop of London, 
 and five doctors with him, might confer about it, and 
 examine the authorities of both sides; that so there 
 might be an agreement among them by which the 
 scandal might be removed, which otherwise would 
 be taken from their janglings and contests among 
 themselves. Fisher accepted of this, and Stokesley
 
 PART I. BOOK II. 235 
 
 wrote to him on the 8th of January, that he was The 
 ready, whenever the other pleased, and desired him e 
 to name time and place ; and if they could not agree 
 the matter among themselves, he moved to refer it to 
 two learned men, whom they should choose, in whose 
 determination they would both acquiesce. How far 
 this overture went I cannot discover, and perhaps 
 Fisher's sickness hindered the progress of it. But 
 now on the 15th of January, the parliament sat 
 down ; by the Journals I find no other bishops pre- 
 sent but the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Bishops 
 of London, Winchester, Lincoln, Bath and Wells, 
 Landaff, and Carlisle. There were also twelve ab- 
 bots present, but upon what pretences the rest excused 
 their attendance I do not know ; perhaps some made 
 a difference between submitting to what was done, 
 and being active and concurring to make the change. 
 During the session a bishop preached every Sunday 
 at Paul's cross, and declared to the people, that the 
 Pope had no authority at all in England. In the 
 two former sessions the bishops had preached, that 
 the general council was above the Pope, but now 
 they struck a note higher. This was done to let the 
 people see what justice and reason was in the acts 
 that were then passing, to which I now turn ; and 
 shall next give an account of this great session of 
 parliament, which I shall put rather in the natural 
 method according to the matter of the acts, than in 
 the order of time as they passed. 
 
 On the 9th of March, a bill came up from the Jonmu 
 Commons for discharging the subjects of all depend- Procer ' 
 ance on the court of Rome ; it was read the first time 
 in the House of Lords the 13th of March, and on the 
 14th was read the second time and committed. The 
 committee reported it on the 19th, by which it ap- 
 pears there was no stiff nor long opposition ; and he 
 that was likeliest to make it was both obnoxious and 
 absent, as will afterwards appear. On the 19th it was 
 read the third time, and on the 20th the fourth time, 
 and then passed without any protestation. Some 
 provisos were added to it by the Lords, to which the
 
 236 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 Commons agreed, and so it was made ready for the 
 royal assent. 
 The a I n the preamble the intolerable exactions for 
 
 for taking -n ^ .. . Jllir>u 
 
 away the Peter-pence, provisions, pensions, and bulls ot all 
 wert sorts are complained of; which were contrary to all 
 laws, and grounded only on the Pope's power of dis- 
 pensing, which was usurped. But the King and the 
 Lords and Commons within his own realm had only 
 power to consider how any of the laws were to be 
 dispensed with or abrogated ; and since the King 
 was acknowledged the supreme head of the Church 
 of England, by the prelates and clergy in their con- 
 it is the vocations, therefore it was enacted, that all payments 
 t'he'sta" 1 made to the apostolic chamber, and all provisions, 
 tuteBook, bulls, or dispensations should from thenceforth cease. 
 
 27 in the 
 
 Record, But that all dispensations or licenses for things that 
 thejow- were not contrary to the law of God, but only to the 
 nal - law of the land, should be granted within the kingdom 
 by, and under the seals of, the two Archbishops in 
 their several provinces ; who should not presume to 
 grant any contrary to the laws of Almighty God, and 
 should only grant such licenses as had been for- 
 merly in use to be granted ; but give no license for 
 any new thing till it were first examined by the King 
 and his council whether such things might be dis- 
 pensed with ; and that all dispensations which were 
 formerly taxed at or above 4/. should be also con- 
 firmed under the great seal. Then many clauses 
 follow about the rates of licenses and the ways of 
 procuring them. It was also declared, that they did 
 not hereby intend to vary from Christ's church about 
 the articles of the catholic faith of Christendom, or in 
 any other things declared by the Scriptures, and the 
 word of God, necessary for their salvation ; confirm- 
 ing withal the exemptions of monasteries formerly 
 granted by the Bishop of Rome, exempting them 
 still from the Archbishop's visitations ; declaring that 
 such abbeys, whose elections were formerly con- 
 firmed by the Pope, shall be now confirmed by the 
 King ; who likewise shall give commission under his 
 great seal for visiting them : providing also, that
 
 PART I. BOOK II. 237 
 
 licenses and other writs obtained from Rome before 
 the 12th of March in that year should be valid and 
 in force, except they were contrary to the laws of 
 the realm ; giving also to the King and his council 
 power to order and reform all indulgences and pri- 
 vileges (or the abuses of them) which had been 
 granted by the see of Rome. The offenders against 
 this act were to be punished according to the statutes 
 of provisors and p?*<zmimire" 
 
 This act as it gave great ease to the subject, so ifn^jwu- 
 cut off that base trade of indulgences about Divine passed on 
 laws, which had been so gainful to the church of 111 
 Rome, but was of late fatal to it. All in the religious 
 houses saw their privileges now struck at, since they 
 were to be reformed as the King saw cause, which 
 put them in no small confusion. Those that favoured 
 the Reformation rejoiced at this act, not only because 
 the Pope's power was rooted out, but because the 
 faith that was to be adhered to was to be taken from 
 those things which the Scriptures declared necessary 
 to salvation : so that all their fears were now much 
 qualified, since the Scripture was to be the standard of 
 the catholic faith. On the same day that this bill 
 was passed in the House of Lords, another bill was 
 read for confirming the succession to the, crown in 
 the issue of the King's present marriage with Queen 
 Anne. It was read the second time on the 21st of 
 March and committed. It was reported on the 23d, 
 and lead the third time and passed, and sent down 
 to the Commons, who sent it back again to them on 
 the 26th ; so speedily did this bill go through both 
 houses without any opposition. 
 
 The preamble of it was: " The distractions that had A bont 
 been in England about the succession to the crown, ^ " to 
 which had occasioned the effusion of much blood, with J, he . crown 
 many other mischiefs, all which flowed from the want * 
 of a clear decision of the true title, from which the ^Re^r'd. 
 popes usurped a power of investing such as pleased f^\ e 
 them in other princes' kingdoms; and princes had 
 often maintained such donations for their other ends ; 
 therefore, to avoid the like inconveniences, the King's
 
 238 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 former marriage with the Princess Katherine is judged 
 contrary to the laws of God, and void, and of no ef- 
 fect ; and the sentence passed by the Archbishop of 
 Canterbury, annulling it, is confirmed, and the Lady 
 Katherine is thenceforth to be reputed only Princess 
 Dowager, and not Queen, and the marriage with 
 Queen Anne is established and confirmed : and mar- 
 riages within the degrees prohibited by Moses (which 
 are enumerated in the statute) are declared to be un- 
 lawful, according to the judgment of the convocations 
 of this realm, and of the most famous universities and 
 learned men abroad ; any dispensations to the contrary 
 notwithstanding, which are also declared null, since 
 contrary to the laws of God ; and all that were married 
 within these degrees are appointed to be divorced, 
 and the children begotten in such marriages were 
 declared illegitimate : and all the issue that should be 
 between the King and the present Queen is declared 
 lawful, and the crown was to descend on his issue 
 male by her, or any other wife ; or in default of issue 
 male, to the issue female by the Queen ; and in default 
 of any such to the right heirs of the King's Highness 
 for ever : and any that after the 1st of May should 
 maliciously divulge any thing to the slander of the 
 King's marriage, or of the issue begotten in it, were 
 to be adjudged for misprision of treason, and to suffer 
 imprisonment at the King's will, and forfeit all their 
 goods and chattels to him : and if the Queen outlived 
 the King, she is declared regent till the issue by her 
 were of age, if a son eighteen, and if a daughter six- 
 teen years of age ; and all the King's subjects were 
 to swear that they would maintain the contents of this 
 act, and whoever being required did refuse it, was to 
 be judged guilty of misprision of treason, and punished 
 accordingly." The oath it seems was likewise agreed 
 on in the House of Lords, for the form of it is set 
 down in their Journal as follows : 
 
 The oh Ye shall swear to bear faith, truth, and obedience 
 
 succession, alonely to the King's Majesty, and to his heirs of his 
 
 body of his most dear and entirely beloved lawful wife 
 
 Queen Anne, begotten and to be begotten. And
 
 PART I. BOOK II. 239 
 
 further, to the heirs of our Sovereign Lord, according 
 to the limitation in the statute made for surety of his 
 succession in the crown of this realm mentioned and 
 contained, and not to any other within this realm, nor 
 foreign authority or potentate. And in case any oath 
 be made, or hath been made, by you to any person or 
 persons, that then ye to repute the sam as vain and 
 annihilate. And that to your cunning, wit, and utter- 
 most of your power, without guile, fraud, or other 
 undue means, ye shall observe, keep, maintain, and 
 defend the said act of succession, and all the whole 
 effects and contents thereof; and all other acts and 
 statutes made in confirmation or for execution of the 
 same, or of any thing therein contained. And this ye 
 shall do against all manner of persons of what estate, 
 dignity, degree, or condition soever they be ; and in 
 no wise to do or attempt, nor to your power suffer to 
 be done or attempted, directly or indirectly, any thing 
 or things, privily or appartly, to the let, hindrance, 
 damage, or derogation thereof, or of any part of the 
 same, by any manner of means, or for any manner of 
 pretence. So help you God, and all saints, and the 
 holy evangelists." 
 
 And thus was the King's marriage confirmed. But 
 when the Commons returned this bill to the Lords, 
 they sent them another with it concerning the proceed- 
 ings against heretics. There had been complaints 
 made formerly, as was told before, of the severe and 
 intolerable proceedings in the ecclesiastical courts 
 against heretics : and, on the 4th of February, the 
 Commons sent up a complaint made by one Thomas 
 Philips against the Bishop of London, for using him 
 cruelly in prison upon the suspicion of heresy ; but 
 the Lords doing nothing in it, on the 1st of March 
 the House of Commons sent some of their number to 
 the Bishop, requiring him to make answer to the com- 
 plaints exhibited against him, who acquainted the 
 House of Lords with it the next day : but as they had 
 formerly laid aside the complaint as not worthy of ft 
 their time, so they all with one consent answered, 
 That it was not fit for any of the peers to appear
 
 240 BURNET'S REFORMATION 
 
 or answer at the bar of the House of Commons. 
 Upon this the House of Commons, finding they could 
 do nothing in that particular case, resolved to provide 
 an effectual remedy for such abuses for the future : 
 and therefore sent up a bill about the punishment of 
 heretics, which was read that day for the first time, 
 and the second and third time on the 27th and 28th, 
 in which it passed. 
 
 Act about "The act was a repeal of the statute of the 2d of 
 heretics? Henry IV. by which bishops upon suspicion of heresy 
 sutme he might commit any to prison, as was before told ; but 
 Book - in that act there was no declaration made, what was 
 Record, 6 heresy, except in the general words of what was con- 
 journai! 8 trary to Scriptures, or canonical sanctions. This was 
 liable to great ambiguity, by which men were in much 
 danger, and not sufficiently instructed what was 
 heresy. They also complained of their proceedings 
 without presentment or accusation, contrary to what 
 was practised in all other cases, even of treason itself; 
 and many canonical sanctions had been established 
 only by popes without any Divine precept, therefore 
 they repealed the act of Henry IV. but left the statutes 
 of Richard II. and Henry V. still in force, with the 
 following regulation : That heretics should be pro- 
 ceeded against upon presentments, by two witnesses 
 at least, and then be committed, but brought to an- 
 swer to their indictments in open court ; and if they 
 were found guilty, and would not abjure, or were re- 
 lapse, to be adjudged to death ; the King's writ de 
 h&retico comburendo being first obtained. It was also 
 declared, that none should be troubled upon any of 
 the Pope's canons or laws, or for speaking or doing 
 against them. It was likewise provided that men 
 committed for heresy might be bailed." 
 
 It may easily be imagined how acceptable this act 
 was to the whole nation, since it was such an effectual 
 limitation of the ecclesiastical power, in one of the 
 uneasiest parts of it ; and this regulation of the arbi- 
 trary proceedings of the spiritual courts, was a par- 
 ticular blessing to all that favoured reformation. But 
 as the parliament was going on with these good laws,
 
 PART I. BOOK II. 211 
 
 there came a submission from the clergy then sitting 
 in convocation, to be passed in parliament. With 
 what opposition it went through the two houses of 
 Convocation, and the House of Commons, is not 
 known ; for as the registers of the convocation are 
 burnt, so it does not appear that there were any 
 journals kept in the House of Commons at that time. 
 On the 27th of March it was sent up to the Lords, 
 and since the spiritual lords had already consented to 
 it, there was no reason to apprehend any opposition 
 from the temporal lords. The session was now near 
 an end, so they made haste and read it twice that day, 
 and the third time the next day, and passed it. The 
 contents of it were : " The clergy acknowledged that The sub. 
 all convocations had been and ought to be assembled madTbV 
 by the King's writ ; and promised, in verbo sacerdotii, ^l" gy 
 that they would never make nor execute any new Kin g ; ^ 
 canons or constitutions, without the royal assent to me Book" 
 them ; and since many canons had been received that 
 were found prejudicial to the King's prerogative, con- 
 trary to the laws of the land, and heavy to the sub- 
 jects, that therefore there should be a committee of 
 thirty-two persons, sixteen of the two houses of par- 
 liament, and as many of the clergy to be named by 
 the King, who should have full power to abrogate or 
 confirm canons as they found it expedient; the King's 
 assent being obtained. This was confirmed by act of 
 parliament, and by the same act all appeals to Rome 
 were again condemned. If any party found them- 
 selves aggrieved in the archbishops' courts, an appeal 
 might be made to the King in the court of Chancery; 
 and the Lord Chancellor was to grant a commission 
 under the great seal for some delegates, in whose 
 determination all must acquiesce. All exempted 
 abbots were also to appeal to the King ; and it con- 
 cluded with a proviso, that till such correction of the 
 canons was made, all those which were then received 
 should still remain in force, except such as were con- 
 trary to the laws and customs of the realms, or were 
 to the damage or hurt of the King's prerogative." 
 
 This proviso seemed to have a fair colour, that 
 VOL. i. R
 
 242 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 there might still be some canons in force to govern 
 the church by ; but since there was no day prefixed 
 to the determination of the commission, this proviso 
 made that the act never took effect ; for now it lay in 
 the prerogative, and in the judge's breast, to declare 
 what canons were contrary to the laws, or the rights 
 of the crown : and it was judged more for the King's 
 greatness to keep the matter undetermined, than to 
 make such a collection of ecclesiastical laws as should 
 be fixed and unmoveable. The last of the public acts 
 of this session that related to the church, was about 
 the election and consecration of bishops. On the 4th 
 journal of February the Commons sent up a bill to the Lords 
 about the consecration of bishops ; it lay on the table 
 till the 27th of February, and was then cast out, and 
 a new one drawn. On what reason it was cast out, 
 is not mentioned, and the Journal does not so much as 
 say that it was once read. The new bill had its se- 
 cond reading the 3d of March, and on the 5th it was 
 ordered to be engrossed ; and on the 9th it was read 
 the third time, and agreed to, and sent down to the 
 Commons, who returned it to the Lords on the 16th 
 Act about of March. " The first part of it is a confirmation of 
 bisnop s n ; 0f their former act against annates, to which they added, 
 soin sta- th a t bishops should not be any more presented to the 
 
 tute tiook. A w m 
 
 26 in the Bishop of Rome, or sue out any bulls there, but that 
 all bishops should be presented to the Archbishop, 
 and archbishops to any archbishop in the King's do- 
 minions, or to any four bishops whom the King should 
 name ; and that when any see was vacant, the King 
 was to grant a license for a new election, with a 
 letter missive, bearing the name of the person that 
 was to be chosen : and twelve days after these were 
 delivered, an election was to be returned by the dean 
 and chapter, or prior and convent, under their seals. 
 Then the person elected was to swear fealty to the 
 King, upon which a commission was to be issued 
 out, for consecrating and investing him with the usual 
 ceremonies ; after which he was to do homage to the 
 King, and be restored both to the spiritualities and 
 temporalities of his see, for which the King granted
 
 PART I. BOOK II. 243 
 
 commissions during the vacancy ; and whosoever re- 
 fused to obey the contents of the act, or acted con- 
 trary to it, were declared within the statute of prts- 
 munire" There passed a private act for depriving Collect 
 the Bishops of Salisbury and Worcester, who were 
 Cardinal Campegio and Jerome de Ghinuccii ; the 
 former deserved greater severities at the King's hand, 
 but the latter seems to have served him faithfully, and 
 was recommended both by the King and the French 
 King, about a year before to a cardinal's hat. " The 
 preamble of the act bears, that persons promoted to 
 ecclesiastical benefices ought to reside within the 
 kingdom for preaching the laws of almighty God, and 
 for keeping hospitality ; and since these prelates did 
 not that, but lived at the court of Rome, and neg- 
 lected their dioceses, and made the revenues of them 
 be carried out of the kingdoms, contrary to the in- 
 tentions of the founders, and to the prejudice of the 
 realm, 3,000/. 'being at least carried yearly out of 
 the kingdom ; therefore their dioceses were declared 
 vacant." 
 
 But now I come to the act of the attainder of Eliza- The act 
 beth Barton and her complices, which I shall 9p6Hihu t 
 fully, since it was the first step that was made to re- e r D ^ o " d 
 bellion, and the first occasion of putting any to death pices. 
 upon this quarrel ; and from it one will clearly see no* Book, 
 the genius of that part of the clergy that adhered to "^^ 
 the interests of the court of Rome, On the 21st of? 10 ^ 6 
 February the bill was sent up to the Lords, and read 
 the first time ; on the 26th it was read the second 
 time and committed ; then the witnesses and other 
 evidences were brought before them, but chiefly she, 
 with all her complices, who confessed the crimes 
 charged on her. It was reported and read the 6th 
 of March the third time ; and then the Lords ad- 
 dressed to the King to know his pleasure, whether 
 Sir Thomas More, and others mentioned in the act as 
 complices, or at least concealers, might not be heard 
 to speak for themselves in the Star-chamber : as for 
 the Bishop of Rochester he was sick, but he had 
 written to the House all he had to say for his own ex- 
 
 R2
 
 Works, 
 p. U35. 
 
 244 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 cuse. What presumptions lay against Sir Thomas 
 see us More I have not been able to find out, only that he 
 wrote a letter to the Nun, at which the King took 
 great exceptions ; yet it appears he had a mean opi- 
 nion of her, for in discourse with his beloved daughter, 
 Mrs. Roper, he called her commonly " the silly nun." 
 But for justifying himself, he wrote a full account of 
 all the intercourse he had with the Nun and her com- 
 plices to Cromwell ; but though, by his other printed 
 letters, both to Cromwell and the King, it seems 
 some ill impressions remained in the King's mind 
 about it, he still continued to justify not only his in- 
 tentions but his actions in that particular. One thing 
 is not unworthy of observation, that Rastal, who pub- 
 lished his works in Queen Mary's time, printed the 
 second letter he wrote to Cromwell, yet did not pub- 
 lish that account which he sent first to him concerning 
 it, to which More refers himself in all his following 
 letters ; though it is more like a copy of that would 
 have been preserved than of those other letters that 
 refer to it. But perhaps it was kept up on design ; 
 for in Queen Mary's time, they had a mind to magnify 
 that story of the Nun's, since she was thought to have 
 suffered on her mother's account : and among the 
 other things she talked, one was, that the Lady Mary 
 should one day reign in England ; for which Sanders 
 has since thought fit to make a prophetess of her. 
 And it is certain that More had a low opinion of her, 
 which appears in many places of his printed letters ; 
 but that would have been much plainer if that full ac- 
 count he wrote of that affair had been published ; and 
 therefore, that one of their martyrs might not lessen the 
 esteem of another, it was fit to suppress it. Whether 
 my conjectures in this be well grounded or not is left 
 to the reader's judgment. In conclusion, More's jus- 
 tifications, seconded with the good offices that the 
 Lord Chancellor Audley and Cromwell did him (who 
 as appears by his letters stood his friends in that 
 matter), did so work on the King that his name was 
 put out of the bill ; and so the act was agreed on by 
 both Houses, and the royal assent followed. The
 
 PART I. BOOK II. 
 
 matter was this : " Elizabeth Barton, of Kent, in the 
 parish of Aldington, being sick and distempered in her 
 brain, fell in some trances (it seems by the symptoms 
 they were hysterical fits), and spoke many words that 
 made great impressions on some about her, who 
 thought her inspired of God ; and Richard Master, 
 parson of the parish, hoping to draw great advantages 
 from this, wentto Warham, archbishop of Canterbury, 
 and gave him a large account of her speeches ; who 
 ordered him to attend her carefully, and bring him a 
 further report of any new trances she might afterwards 
 fall in. But she had forgot all she had said in her fits, 
 yet the crafty priest would not let it go so ; but per- 
 suaded her, that what she had said was by the inspi- 
 ration of the Holy Ghost, and that she ought to own 
 that it was so. Upon which he taught her to counter- 
 feit such trances, and to utter such speeches as she had 
 done before ; so that after a while's practice she be- 
 came very ready at it. The thing was much noised 
 abroad, and many came to see her ; but the priest had 
 a mind to raise the reputation of an image of the bless- 
 ed Virgin, that was in a chapel within his parish; that 
 so pilgrimage being made to it, he might draw these 
 advantages from it that others made from their famed 
 images ; but chose for his associate one Dr. Bocking, 
 a canon of Christ's Church in Canterbury : upon 
 which they instructed her to say in her counterfeited 
 trances, that the blessed Virgin had appeared to her, 
 and told her, she could never recover till she went and 
 visited her image in that chapel. They had also 
 taught her in her fits to make strange motions with 
 her body, by which she was much disfigured, and to 
 speak many godly words against sin and the new doc- 
 trines, which were called heresies ; as also against 
 the King's suit of divorce. It was also noised abroad 
 on what day she intended to go and visit the image 
 of the Virgin ; so that about two thousand people were 
 gathered together; and she being brought to the 
 chapel, fell into her fits, and made many strange gri- 
 maces and alterations of her body, and spake many 
 words of great piety, saying, That by the inspiration
 
 246 BURNET'S REFORMATION. ' 
 
 of God she was called to be a religious woman, and 
 that Booking was to be her ghostly father. And 
 within a little while she seemed, by the intercession 
 of our Lady, to be perfectly recovered of her former 
 distempers, and she afterwards professed a religious 
 life. There were also violent suspicions of her incon- 
 tinency, and that Bocking was a carnal as well as a 
 spiritual father. She fell in many raptures and pre- 
 tended she saw strange visions, heard heavenly me- 
 lody, and had the revelation of many things that 
 were to come, so that great credit was given to what 
 she said ; and people generally looked on her as a pro- 
 phetess, and among those the late Archbishop of Can- 
 terbury was led away with the rest. A book was 
 writ of her revelations and prophecies by one Deer- 
 ing, another monk, who was taken into the conspiracy, 
 with many others. It was also given out that Mary 
 Magdalen gave her a letter that was writ in heaven, 
 which was shewed to many, being all writ in golden 
 letters. She pretended when the King was last in 
 Calais, that he being at mass, an angel brought away 
 the sacrament and gave it to her, being then invisibly 
 present, and that she was presently brought over the 
 sea to her monastery again. But the design of all 
 these trances was to alienate the people from their 
 duty to the King ; for the Maid gave it out, That 
 God revealed to her, that if the King went on in the 
 divorce, and married another wife, he should not be 
 king a month longer, and in the reputation of Al- 
 mighty God not one hour longer, but should die a 
 villain's death. This she said was revealed to her in 
 answer to the prayer she had put up to God, to know 
 whether he approved of the King's proceedings or 
 not ? which coming to the knowledge of the Bishop 
 of Rochester, and some others who adhered to the 
 Queen's interests, they had frequent meetings with the 
 Maid, and concealed what she spal^e concerning the 
 King ; and some of them gave such credit to what she 
 said, that they practised on many others to draw them 
 from their allegiance ; and prevailed with several of 
 the fathers and nuns of Sion, of the Charter-house in
 
 PART I. BOOK II. 247 
 
 London and Shene, and of the Observants of Rich- 
 mond, Greenwich, and Canterbury, with a great many 
 other persons." 
 
 This appeared signally at Greenwich, where the The bso 
 King lived most in summer, for one Peto being to 1^' of 
 preach in the King's chapel, denounced heavy judg- thefriars 
 ments upon him to his face, and told him, that many stow, 
 lying prophets had deceived him ; but he, as a true 
 Michaiah, warned him that the dogs should lick his 
 blood, as they had done Ahab's, (for that prophecy 
 about Ahab was his text) with many other bitter 
 words, and concluded, that it was the greatest 
 misery of princes to be daily so abused by flatterers 
 as they were. The King bore it patiently, and ex- 
 pressed no signs of any commotion ; but, to unde- 
 ceive the people, he took care that Dr. Corren or 
 Cur win should preach next Sunday, who justified 
 the King's proceedings, and condemned Peto as a 
 rebel, a slanderer, a dog, and a traitor. Peto was 
 gone to Canterbury, but another Observant friar of 
 the same house, Elston, interrupted him and said, 
 He was one of the lying prophets, that sought by 
 adultery to establish the succession to the crown, and 
 that he would justify all that Peto had said, and 
 spake many other things with great vehemency ; nor 
 could they silence him, till the King himself com- 
 manded him to hold his peace. And yet all that was 
 done to him or Peto was, that being called before the 
 privy council, they were rebuked for their insolence ; 
 by which it appears, that King Henry was not very 
 easily inflamed against them, when a crime of so high 
 a nature was so slightly passed over.* 
 
 " Nor was this all, but the fathers that were in the 
 conspiracy had confederated to publish these reve- 
 lations in their sermons up and down the kingdom. 
 They had also given notice of them to the Pope's am- 
 bassadors, and had brought the Maid to declare her 
 revelations to them ; they had also sent an account 
 to Queen Katherine for encouraging her to stand 
 
 * It was not passed over silently ; for Stow says, p. 561, "These friars 
 and all the rest of the order were shortly after banished."
 
 248 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 out and not submit to the laws ; of which confe- 
 deracy Thomas Abel was likewise one." The thing 
 that was in so many hands could not be a secret, 
 therefore the King, who had despised it long, ordered 
 that, in November the former year, the Maid, and her 
 complices, Richard Master, Dr. Bocking, Richard 
 Deering, Henry Gold, a parson in London, Hugh 
 Rich, an Observant friar, Richard Risby, Thomas 
 Gold, and Edward Twaites, gentlemen ; and Thomas 
 Laurence, should be brought into the Star-chamber, 
 where there was a great appearance of many lords : 
 they were examined upon the premises, and did all, 
 without any rack or torture, confess the whole con- 
 spiracy, and were adjudged to stand in Paul's all the 
 sermon time ; and, after sermon, the King's officers 
 were to give every one of them his bill of confession, 
 to be openly read before the people ; which was done 
 next Sunday, the Bishop of Bangor preaching, they 
 being all set in a scaffold before him. This public 
 manner was thought, upon good grounds, to be the 
 best way to satisfy the people of the imposture of the 
 whole matter ; and it did very much convince them 
 that the cause must needs be bad, where such me- 
 thods were used to support it. From thence they 
 were carried to the Tower, where they lay till the 
 session of parliament ; but when they lay there, some 
 of their complices sent messages to the Nun to en- 
 courage her to deny all that she had said ; and it is 
 very probable that the reports that went abroad of 
 her being forced or cheated into a confession, made 
 the King think it necessary to proceed more severely 
 against her. The thing being considered in parlia- 
 ment, it was judged a conspiracy against the King's 
 life and crown. So the Nun, and Master, Bocking, 
 Deering, Rich, Risby, and Henry Gold, were attainted 
 of high treason. And the Bishop of Rochester, 
 Thomas Gold, Thomas Laurence, Edward Twaites, 
 John Adeson, and Thomas Abel, were judged guilty 
 of misprision of treason ; and to forfeit their goods 
 and chattels to the King, and to be imprisoned during 
 his pleasure ; and all the books that were written of
 
 PART I. BOOK II. 249 
 
 her revelations were ordered to be sent in to some of 
 the chief officers of state, under the pains of fine and 
 imprisonment. It had been also found, that the let- 
 ter which she pretended to have got from Mary 
 Magdalen, was written by one Hankherst of Canter- 
 bury ; and that the door of the dormitory, which 
 was given out to be made open by miracle, that she 
 might go into the chapel for converse with God, was 
 opened by some of her complices for beastly and 
 carnal ends. But in the conclusion of the act, all 
 others who had been corrupted in their allegiance by 
 these impostures, except the persons before named, 
 were, at the earnest intercession of Queen Anne, 
 pardoned. 
 
 The two Houses of parliament (having ended their 
 business) were prorogued, on the 29th of March, to 
 the 3d of November ; and, before they broke up, all 
 the members of both Houses, that they might give a 
 good example to the King's other subjects, swore the 
 oath of succession ; as appears from the act made 
 about it in the next session of parliament. The ex- 
 ecution of these persons was delayed for some time ; 
 it is like, till the King had a return from Rome of the 
 messenger he had sent thither with his submission. 
 
 Soon after that, on the 20th of April, the Nun, and 
 Bocking, Master, Deering, Risby, and Gold (Rich is 
 not named, being perhaps either dead or pardoned) 
 were brought to Tyburn. The Nun spake these The Nun's 
 words : " Hither I am come to die, and I have not her e dea!h. 
 been only the cause of mine own death, which most naii. 
 justly I have deserved, but also am the cause of the 
 death of all those persons which at this time here 
 suffer. And yet to say the truth, I am not so much 
 to be blamed, considering that it was well known to 
 these learned men that I was a poor wench without 
 learning, and therefore they might easily have per- 
 ceived that the things that were done by me could 
 not proceed in no such sort ; but their capacities and 
 learning could right well judge, from whence they 
 proceeded, and that they were altogether feigned ; 
 but because the thing that I feigned was profitable
 
 250 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 to them, therefore they much praised me, and bore 
 me in hand, that it was the Holy Ghost and not I, 
 that did them ; and then I, being puffed up with their 
 praises, fell into a certain pride and foolish phantasy 
 with myself, and thought I might feign what I would, 
 which thing hath brought me to this case : and for 
 the which now, I cry God and the King's Highness 
 most heartily mercy, and desire you, all good people, 
 to pray to God to have mercy on me, and on all them 
 that here suffer with me." 
 
 On all this I have dwelt the longer, both because 
 these are all called martyrs by Sanders, and that this 
 did first provoke the King against the regular clergy, 
 and drew after it all the severities that were done in 
 the rest of his reign. The foulness and the wicked 
 designs of this imposture, did much alienate people 
 from the interest of Rome, and made the other acts 
 both pass more easily and be better received by the 
 people. It was also generally believed, that what 
 was now discovered was no new practice, but that 
 many of the visions and miracles, by which religious 
 orders had raised their credit so high, were of the 
 same nature : and it made way for the destroying of 
 all the monasteries in England, though all the severity 
 which at this time followed on it, was that the Ob- 
 stow, servant friars of Richmond, Greenwich, Canterbury, 
 Newark, and Newcastle, were removed out of their 
 houses, and put with the other Gray friars, and Au- 
 gustin friars were put in their houses. 
 
 But because of the great name of Fisher, bishop 
 
 of Rochester, and since this was the first step to his 
 
 ruin, it is necessary to give a fuller account of his 
 
 Fisher carriage in this matter. When the cheat was first 
 
 d^with. discovered, Cromwell, then secretary of state, sent 
 
 the Bishop's brother to him, with a sharp reproof for 
 
 his carriage in that business ; but withal advised him 
 
 to write to the King, and acknowledge his offence, 
 
 and desire his pardon, which he knew the King, 
 
 But is ob- considering his age and sickness, would grant. But 
 
 L!d a intrac. he wrote back, excusing himself, that all he did, was 
 
 uble> only to try, whether her revelations were true ? He
 
 PART I. BOOK II. 251 
 
 confessed, he conceived a great opinion of her holi- 
 ness, both from common fame and her entering into 
 religion ; from the report of her ghostly father, whom 
 he esteemed learned and religious, and of many other 
 learned and virtuous priests ; from the good opinion 
 the late Archbishop of Canterbury had of her, and 
 from what is in the prophet Amos, " That God will 
 do nothing without revealing it to his servants." 
 That, upon these grounds, he was induced to have a 
 good opinion of her ; and that to try the truth about 
 her, he had sometimes spoken with her, and sent his 
 chaplains to her, but never discovered any falsehood 
 in her. And for his concealing what she told him 
 about the King, which was laid to his charge, he 
 thought it needless for him to speak of it to the King, 
 since she had said to him that she had told it to the 
 King herself ; she had named no person who should 
 kill the King, which by being known might have 
 been prevented. And, as in spiritual things every 
 churchman was not bound to denounce judgments 
 against those that could not bear it ; so in temporal 
 things the case might be the same; and the King 
 had on other occasions spoken so sharply to him, that 
 he had reason to think, the King would have been 
 offended with him for speaking of it, and would have 
 suspected that he had a hand in it ; therefore he de- 
 sired for the passion of Christ to be no more troubled 
 about that matter, otherwise he would speak his con- 
 science freely. To all which Cromwell wrote a long 
 letter, which the reader will find in the Collection, collect. 
 copied from the rude draught of it written with his cw^ub 
 own hand : in which he charges the matter upon him ciop. 
 heavily, and shews him, that he had not proceeded 
 as a grave prelate ought to have done ; for he had 
 taken all that he had heard of her upon trust, and had 
 examined nothing ; that if every person that pretends 
 to revelations were believed on their own words, all 
 government would be thereby destroyed. He had no 
 reason to conclude from the prophecy of Amos, that 
 every thing that is to fall out, must be revealed to 
 some prophet, since many notable things had fallen
 
 252 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 out, of which there was no revelation made before- 
 hand. But he told him, the true reason that made 
 him give credit to her was, the matter of her pro- 
 phecies ; to which he was so addicted, as he was to 
 every other thing in which he once entered, that no- 
 thing could come amiss that served to that end. And 
 he appealed to his conscience, whether, if she had 
 prophesied for the King he would have given such 
 easy credit to her, and not have examined the matter 
 further. Then he shews how guilty he was in not 
 revealing what concerned the King's life, and how 
 frivolous all his excuses were. And, after all, tells 
 him, that though his excusing the matter had pro- 
 voked the King, and that if it came to a trial he would 
 certainly be found guilty ; yet again he advises him 
 to beg the King's pardon for his negligence and of- 
 fence in that matter ; and undertakes that the King 
 would receive him into his favour, and that all matters 
 of displeasure passed before that time should be for- 
 given and forgotten. This shews, that though Fisher 
 had, in the progress of the King's cause, given him 
 great offence, yet he was ready to pass it all over, and 
 not to take the advantage which he now had against 
 him. But Fisher was still obstinate and made no 
 submission, and so was included within the act for 
 misprision of treason ; and yet I do not find that the 
 King proceeded against him upon this act, till by 
 new provocations he drew a heavier storm of indig- 
 nation upon himself. 
 
 The oath When the session of parliament was at an end, com- 
 HHMfai missioners were sent every where to offer the oath of 
 fworQ*" 7 succession to the crown to all, according to the act of 
 parliament ; which was universally taken by all sorts 
 orig. cou. of persons. Gardiner wrote from Winchester the 6th 
 c. io. ' of May to Cromwell, that, in the presence of the 
 Lord Chamberlain, the Lord Audley, and many other 
 gentlemen, all abbots, priors, wardens, with the cu- 
 rates of all parishes and chapels within the shire had 
 appeared and taken the oath very obediently ; and 
 had given in a list of all the religious persons in their 
 houses of fourteen years of age and above, for taking
 
 PART I. BOOK II. 253 
 
 whose oaths some commissioners were appointed. 
 The forms in which they took the oath are not known; 
 and it is no wonder, for though they were enrolled, 
 yet in Queen Mary's time there was a commission 
 given to Bonner and others to examine the records, 
 and raze out of them all things that were done either 
 in contempt of the see of Rome or to the defamation 
 of religious houses ; pursuant to which, there are 
 many things taken out of the Rolls, which I shall 
 sometimes have occasion afterwards to take notice 
 of, yet some writings have escaped their diligence ; 
 so there remains but two of the subscriptions of reli- 
 gious orders, both bearing date the 4th of May, 1534. 
 One is by the Prior and Convent of Langley Regis, 
 that were Dominicans, the Franciscans of Ailesbury, 
 the Dominicans of Dunstable, the Franciscans of 
 Bedford, the Carmelites of Hecking, and the Fran- 
 ciscans de Mare. The other is by the Prioress and 
 Convent of the Dominican nuns at Deptford. 
 
 " In these, besides the renewing their allegiance to collect, 
 the King, they swear the lawfulness of his marriage ^ t m c'ui 
 with Queen Anne, and that they shall be true to the 
 issue begotten in it ; that they shall always acknow- 
 ledge the King head of the church of England : and 
 that the Bishop of Rome has no more power than 
 any other bishop has in his own diocese, and that they 
 should submit to all the King's laws, notwithstanding 
 the Pope's censures to the contrary. That in their Those last 
 sermons they should not pervert the Scriptures, but noThTthT 
 preach Christ and his gospel sincerely, according to^ herwm 
 the Scriptures, and the tradition of orthodox and ca- 
 tholic doctors ; and in their prayers, that they should 
 pray first for the King, as supreme head of the church 
 of England, then for the Queen and her issue, and 
 then for the Archbishop of Canterbury and the other 
 ranks of the clergy." To this these six priors set 
 their hands with the seals of their convents, and in 
 their subscriptions declared, that they did it freely 
 and uncompelled, and in the name of all the brethren 
 in the convent. 
 
 But Sir Thomas More and the Bishop of Rochester
 
 254 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 More and refused to take the oath as it was conceived : whose 
 fu* the"" fall being so remarkable, I shall shew the steps of it. 
 oau>. There was a meeting of the privy council at Lambeth, 
 to which many were cited to appeal, and take the 
 see hi. oath. Sir Thomas More was first called, and the oath 
 ^u28. was tendered to him under the great seal ; then he 
 called for the act of succession, to which it related, 
 which was also shewed him : having considered of 
 them, he said, he would neither blame these that 
 made the act, nor those that swore the oath ; but, for 
 his part, though he was willing to swear to the suc- 
 cession, if he might be suffered to draw an oath con- 
 cerning it, yet for the oath that was offered him, his 
 conscience so moved him, that he could not without 
 hazarding his soul take it. Upon this, the Lord 
 Chancellor told him, that he was the first who had 
 refused to swear it, and the King would be highly 
 offended with him for denying it, and so he was de- 
 sired to withdraw and consider better of it. Several 
 others were called upon, and did all take the oath, 
 except the Bishop of Rochester, who answered upon 
 the matter as More had done. When the lords had 
 dispatched all the rest, More was again brought be- 
 fore them ; they shewed him how many had taken it, 
 he answered, he judged no man for doing it, only he 
 could not do it himself. Then they asked the rea- 
 sons why he refused it? He answered, he feared it 
 might provoke the King more against him, if he 
 should offer reasons which would be called a disputing 
 against law : but when he was further pressed to give 
 his reasons, he said, if the King would command him 
 to do it, he would put them in writing. 
 
 The Archbishop of Canterbury urged him with this 
 argument, that since he said he blamed no other per- 
 son for taking it, it seemed he was not persuaded it 
 was a sin, but was doubtful in the matter ; but he did 
 certainly know, he ought to obey the King, and the 
 law, so there was a certainty on the one hand, and 
 only a doubt on the other ; therefore he was obliged 
 to do that about which he was certain, notwithstand- 
 ing these his doubtings. This did shake him a little,
 
 

 
 
 
 R.Gritvts fculp 
 
 (SAIE BEET AIL
 
 PART I. BOOK II. 255 
 
 especially (as himself writes) " coming out of so noble 
 a prelate's mouth ;" but he answered, that though he 
 had examined the matter very carefully, yet his con- 
 science leaned positively to the other side ; and he 
 offered to purge himself by his oath, that it was purely 
 out of a principle of conscience, and out of no light 
 phantasy or obstinacy that he thus refused it. The 
 Abbot of Westminster pressed him, that however the 
 matter appeared to him, he might see his conscience 
 was erroneous, since the great council of the realm 
 was of another mind, and therefore he ought to change 
 his conscience. (A reasoning very fit for so rich an 
 abbot, which discovers of what temper his conscience 
 was.) But to this More answered, that if he were 
 alone against the whole parliament, he had reason to 
 suspect his own understanding ; but he thought he 
 had the whole council of Christendom on his side, as 
 well as the great council of England was against him. 
 Secretary Cromwell, who (as More writes) " tenderly 
 favoured him," seeing his ruin was now inevitable, 
 was much affected at it ; and protested with an oath, 
 he had rather his own only son had lost his head, than 
 that he should have refused the oath. Thus both he 
 and the Bishop of Rochester refused it, but offered 
 to swear another oath for the succession of the crown 
 to the issue of the King's present marriage, because 
 that was in the power of the parliament to determine 
 it. Cranmer, who was a moderate and wise man, 
 and foresaw well the ill effects that would follow on 
 contending so much with persons so highly esteemed 
 over the world, and of such a temper, that severity 
 would bend them to nothing, did by an earnest letter 
 to Cromwell, dated the 27th of April, move, that what wea 
 they offered might be accepted; for if they once swore ^ e D n 
 to the succession, it would quiet the kingdom ; for 
 they acknowledging it, all other persons would ac- 
 quiesce and submit to their judgments. But this 
 sage advice was not accepted. 
 
 The King was much irritated against them, and re- And are 
 solved to proceed with them according to law, and ^ s t' 
 therefore they were both indicted upon the statute,
 
 256 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 and committed prisoners to the Tower. And it being 
 apprehended, that if they had books and papers given 
 them, they would write against the King's marriage 
 or his supremacy ; these were denied them. The 
 old Bishop was hardly used, his bishoprick was seized 
 on, and all his goods taken from him, only some old 
 rags were left to cover him ; and he was neither sup- 
 plied well in diet, nor other necessaries, of which he 
 made sad complaints to Cromwell. But the remainder 
 of this tragical business, which left one of the greatest 
 blots on this King's proceedings, falling within the 
 limits of the next Book, I haste on to the conclusion 
 of this. 
 
 Another The separation from Rome was made in the former 
 o"pTr!. session of parliament, but the King's supremacy was 
 liaiDentl not yet fully settled. This was reserved for the next 
 session that sat in November, from the 3d of that 
 month, to the 18th of December, about which we can 
 The King's have no light from the Journals, they being lost. The 
 declared! 7 first act confirmed what had been already acknow- 
 ledged by the clergy, " that the King was the supreme 
 head in earth, of the church of England, which was 
 to be annexed to his other titles ; it was also enacted, 
 that the King and his heirs and successors, should 
 have power to visit and reform all heresies, errors, 
 and other abuses, which in the spiritual jurisdiction 
 ought to be reformed." 
 
 The oath By the second act they confirmed the oath about 
 
 MoetMfaM the succession, concerning which some doubts had 
 
 charmed. ^ een ma( j e) because there was no oath specified in the 
 
 former act, though both Houses had taken it . it was 
 
 now enacted, that all the subjects were obliged to take 
 
 it when offered to them, under the pains contained in 
 
 The erst the act, passed in the former session. By the third 
 
 ten'efi<s act, the first fruits and tenths of all ecclesiastical 
 
 rtTittD benefices were given to the King as the supreme head 
 
 of the church. The clergy were easily prevailed on 
 
 to consent to the putting down of the amiates, paid to 
 
 the court of Rome ; for all men readily concur to take 
 
 off any imposition : but at that time it had perhaps 
 
 abated much of their heartiness, if they had imagined
 
 PART I. BOOK II. 257 
 
 that these duties should have been still paid ; there- 
 fore that was kept up till they had done all that was 
 to be done against Rome. And now, as the Commons 
 and the secular lords would no doubt easily agree 
 to lay a tax on the clergy, so the others, having no 
 foreign support, were not in a condition to wrestle 
 against it. 
 
 In the thirteenth act, among other things that were sundry 
 made treason, one was, the denying the King the declared* 
 dignity, title, or name, of his estate royal; or the call- treason - 
 ing the King heretic, schismatic, tyrant, infidel, or 
 usurper of the crown. This was done to restrain the 
 insolence of some friars, and all such offenders were 
 to be denied the privileges of sanctuaries. By the Anafor 
 fourteenth act, provision was made for suffragan bu^fs!" 
 bishops, which, as is said, " had been accustomed to 
 be had within this realm, for the more speedy admi- 
 nistration of the sacraments, and other good whole- 
 some and devout things, and laudable ceremonies, to 
 the increase of God's honour, and for the commodity 
 of good and devout people:" therefore they appointed 
 for suffragans' sees, the towns of Thetford, Ipswich, 
 Colchester, Dover, Gilford, Southampton, Taunton, 
 Shaftsbury,Molton, Marlborough, Bedford, Leicester, 
 Gloucester, Shrewsbury, Bristol, Penreth, Bridg- 
 water, Nottingham, Grantham, Hull, Huntington, 
 Cambridge, and the towns of Pereth and Berwick, 
 St. Germans in Cornwall, and the Isle of Wight. 
 For these sees, the bishop of the diocese was to pre- 
 sent two to the King, who might choose either of 
 them, and present the person so named to the archbi- 
 shop of the province, to be consecrated ; after which 
 they might exercise such jurisdiction as the bishop 
 of the diocese should give to them, or as suffragans 
 had been formerly used to do ; but their authority 
 was to last no longer than the bishop continued his 
 commission to them. But that the reader may more 
 clearly see how this act was executed, he shall find 
 in the Collection, a writ for making a suffragan collect. 
 bishop. These were believed to be the same with 
 the Chorepiscopi in the primitive church, which as 
 
 VOL. i. s
 
 258 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 they were begun before the first council of Nice, so 
 they continued in the western church till the ninth 
 century, and then a decretal of Damascus being 
 forged, that condemned them, they were put down 
 every where by degrees, and now revived in England.* 
 A 26. Then followed the grant of a subsidy to the King ; 
 A^Md? it was now twelve years since there was any sub- 
 granted. g -^y granted. A fifteenth and a tenth were given to 
 be paid in three years, the final payment being to be 
 at Allhallontide, in the year 1537. The bill began 
 with a most glorious preamble " of the King's high 
 wisdom and policy in the government of the king- 
 dom these twenty-four years, in great wealth and 
 quietness, and the great charges he had been at in 
 the last war with Scotland, in fortifying Calais, and 
 in the war of Ireland, and that he intended to bring 
 the wilful, wild, and unreasonable, and savage people 
 of Ireland, to order and obedience, and intended to 
 build forts on the marches of Scotland for the secu- 
 rity of the nation, to amend the haven of Calais, and 
 make a new one at Dover. By all which they did 
 perceive the entire love and zeal which the King 
 bore to his people, and that he sought not their wealth 
 and quietness only for his own time, being a mortal 
 man, but did provide for it in all time coming, there- 
 fore they thought that of very equity, reason, and 
 good conscience, they were bound to shew like cor- 
 respondence of zeal, gratitude, and kindness." Upon 
 this the King sent a general pardon with some ex- 
 More and ceptions, ordinary in such cases. But Fisher and 
 turned* 1 " More, were not only excluded from this pardon by 
 A 3 and general clauses, but by two particular acts they were 
 pari. attainted of misprision of treason. By the third act, 
 according to the record, John bishop of Rochester, 
 Christopher Plummer, Nicholas Wilson, Edward 
 
 * The bishops suffragans were before common in England, some abbots or 
 rich clergymen, procuring under foreign, or perhaps feigned titles, that dignity, 
 and so performing some parts of the episcopal function in large or neglected 
 dioceses ; so the Abbot or Prior of Tame was one. Such was Robert King, 
 abbot of Oseney, afterwards bishop of Oxford ; and Thomas Cornish, a resi- 
 dentiary of Wells, who by the name of Thomas Episcopus Tinensis, did confer 
 orders, and perform other episcopal functions for Fox, while he was bishop of 
 Exeter, from 1487 to 1492, and afterwards, when he was bishop of Wells, as 
 appears by those registers. He died in 1513.
 
 PART I. BOOK II. 259 
 
 Powel, Richard Fetherstone and Miles Wyllir, clerks, 
 were attainted for refusing the oath of succession, and 
 the bishopric of Rochester, with the benefices of the 
 other clerks, were declared void from the 2d of Ja- 
 nuary next ; yet it seems few were fond of succeeding 
 him in that see ; for John Hilsey, the next bishop of 
 Rochester, was not consecrated before the year 1537. 
 By the fourth act, Sir Thomas More is by an invi- 
 dious preamble charged with ingratitude, for the 
 great favours he had received from the King, and for 
 studying to sow and make sedition among the King's 
 subjects, and refusing to take the oath of succession ; 
 therefore they declared the King's grants to him to 
 be void, and attaint him of misprision of treason. 
 
 This severity, though it was blamed by many, yet The pro- 
 others thought it was necessary in so great a change; ^^f 
 since the authority of these two men was such, that th T vari 
 
 rf ously ceo* 
 
 if some signal notice had not been taken of them, ^^> 
 many might, by their endeavours, especially encou- 
 raged by that impunity, have been corrupted in their 
 affections to the King. Others thought the prose- 
 cuting them in such a manner, did rather raise their 
 reputation higher, and give them more credit with 
 the people, who are naturally inclined to pity those 
 that suffer, and to think well of those opinions, for , 
 which they see men resolved to endure all extre- 
 mities. But others observed the justice of God, in 
 retaliating thus upon them their own severities to 
 others ; for as Fisher did grievously prosecute the 
 preachers of Luther's doctrine, so More's hand had 
 been very heavy on them as long as he had power, 
 and he had shewed them no mercy, but the extremity 
 of the law, which himself now felt to be very heavy. 
 Thus ended this session of parliament, with which 
 this Book is also to conclude ; for now I come to a 
 third period of the King's reign, in which he did go- 
 vern his subjects without any competitor ; but I am 
 to stop a little, and give an account of the progress 
 of the Reformation in these years that I have passed 
 through. 
 
 The Cardinal was no great persecutor of heretics, 
 s 2
 
 230 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 The pro which was generally thought to flow from his hatred 
 fhTiie. of the clergy, and that he was not ill-pleased to have 
 formation. faem depressed. During the agitation of the King's 
 process, there was no prosecution of the preachers of 
 Luther's doctrine. Whether this flowed from any 
 intimation of the King's pleasure to the bishops or 
 not, I cannot tell, but it is very probable it must 
 have been so, for these opinions were received by 
 many, and the popish clergy were so inclined to 
 severity, that as they wanted not occasions, so they 
 had a good mind to use those preachers cruelly ; so 
 that it is likely the King restrained them, and that 
 was always mixed with the other threatenings to 
 work upon the Pope, that heresy would prevail in 
 England, if the King got not justice done him ; so 
 that, till the Cardinal fell, they were put to no further 
 trouble. 
 
 But as soon as More came into favour, he pressed 
 the King much to put the laws against heretics in 
 execution, and suggested, that the court of Rome 
 would be more wrought upon, by the King's sup- 
 porting the church, and defending the faith vigo- 
 rously, than by threatenings : and therefore a long 
 proclamation was issued out against the heretics, 
 FOX. many of their books were prohibited, and all the 
 laws against them were appointed to be put in exe- 
 cution, and great care was taken to seize them as 
 they came into England; but many escaped their 
 . diligence. 
 
 Tindai and There were some at Antwerp, Tindal, Joye, Con- 
 Antwer* stantine, with a few more, that were every year writ- 
 ing and printing new books chiefly against the cor- 
 ruptions of the clergy, the superstition of pilgrim- 
 ages, of worshipping images, saints, and relics, and 
 against relying on these things, which were then 
 called, in the common style, good works, in oppo- 
 sition to which they wrote much about faith in Christ 
 with a true evangelical obedience, as the only mean 
 by which men could be saved. The book that had 
 the greatest authority and influence, was Tindal's 
 translation of the New Testament, of which the
 
 PART I. BOOK II. 2CH 
 
 bishops made great complaints, and said, it was full 
 of errors. But Tonstal, then bishop of London, being IWL 
 a man of invincible moderation, would do nobody 
 hurt, yet endeavoured as he could to get their books 
 into his hands : so being at Antwerp in the year 
 1529, as he returned from his embassy at the treaty 
 of Cambray, he sent for one Packington, an English 
 merchant there, and desired him to see how many 
 New Testaments of Tindal's translation he might 
 have for money. Packington, who was a secret fa- 
 vourer of Tindal, told him what the Bishop proposed. 
 Tindal was very glad of it ; for, being convinced of 
 some faults in his work, he was designing a new and 
 more correct edition ; but he was poor, and the 
 former impression not being sold off, he could not go 
 about it ; so he gave Packington all the copies that 
 lay in his hands, for which the Bishop paid the price, 
 and brought them over, and burnt them publicly in 
 Cheapside. This had such an hateful appearance in The 
 it, being generally called a burning of the word of burt 
 God, that people from thence concluded there must 
 be a visible contrariety, between that book and the 
 doctrines of those who so handled it ; by which both 
 their prejudice against the clergy, and their desire of 
 reading the New Testament was increased. So that 
 next year, when the second edition was finished, 
 many more were brought over, and Constantine being 
 taken in England, the Lord Chancellor, in a private 
 examination, promised him that no hurt should be 
 done him if he would reveal who encouraged and 
 supported them at Antwerp ; which he accepted of, 
 and told, that the greatest encouragement they had, 
 was from the Bishop of London, who had bought up 
 half the impression. This made all that heard of it 
 laugh heartily, though more judicious persons dis- 
 cerned the great temper of that learned Bishop in it. 
 When the clergy condemned Tindal's translation of 
 the New Testament, they declared they intended to 
 set out a true translation of it ; which many thought 
 was never truly designed by them, but only pre- 
 tended, that they might restrain the curiosity of see-
 
 262 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 ing Tindal's work, with the hopes of one that should 
 be authorized : and as they made no progress in it, 
 so at length, on the 24th of May, anno 1530, there 
 was a paper drawn and agreed to by Archbishop 
 Warham, Chancellor More, Bishop Tonstal, and 
 many canonists and divines, which every incumbent 
 was commanded to read to his parish, as a warning 
 The last to prevent the contagion of heresy. The contents of 
 s^HelTry which were, " that the King having called together 
 2j e ^, an ' s many of the prelates, with other learned men out of 
 both Universities, to examine some books lately set 
 out in the English tongue, they had agreed to con- 
 demn them, as containing several points of heresy 
 in them ; and it being proposed to them, whether it 
 was necessary to set forth the Scriptures in the vul- 
 gar tongue, they were of opinion, that though it had 
 been sometimes done, yet it was not necessary, and 
 that the King did well, not to set it out at that time 
 in the English tongue." So by this all the hopes of 
 a translation of the Scriptures vanished. 
 suppiica- There came out another book which took mightily, 
 beTgars! e it was entitled, The Supplication of the Beggars, 
 written by one Simon Fish, of Gray's-inn. In it the 
 beggars complained to the King, that they were re- 
 duced to great misery, the alms of the people being 
 intercepted by companies of strong and idle friars ; 
 for supposing that each of the five mendicant orders 
 had but a penny a quarter from every household, it 
 did rise to a vast sum, of which the indigent and 
 truly necessitous beggars were defrauded. Their 
 being unprofitable to the commonwealth, with several 
 other things, were also complained of. He also 
 taxed the Pope for cruelty and covetousness, that 
 did not deliver all persons out of purgatory, and that 
 none but the rich, who paid well for it, could be 
 discharged out of that prison. This was written in 
 a witty and taking style, and the King had it put in 
 his hands by Anne Boleyn, and liked it well, and 
 would not suffer any thing to be done to the author. 
 Chancellor More was the most zealous champion 
 the clergy had ; for I do not find that any of them 
 
 More an- 
 swers it.
 
 PART I. BOOK II. 263 
 
 wrote much, only the Bishop of Rochester wrote for 
 purgatory ; but the rest left it wholly to him, either 
 because few of them could write well, or that he being 
 much esteemed, and a disinterested person, things 
 would be better received from him, than from them 
 who were looked on as parties. So he answered this 
 supplication by another, in the name of the souls that 
 were in purgatory ; representing the miseries they 
 were in, and the great relief they found by the masses 
 the friars said for them, and brought in every man's 
 ancestors calling earnestly upon him to befriend those 
 poor friars now, when they had so many enemies. 
 He confidently asserted, it had been the doctrine of 
 the church for many ages, and brought many places 
 out of the Scriptures to prove it, besides several rea- 
 sons that seemed to confirm it. This, being: writ of 
 
 7 O 
 
 a subject that would allow of a great deal of popular 
 and moving eloquence, in which he was very eminent, 
 took with many. 
 
 But it discovered to others what was the foundation Frith re. 
 of those religious orders, and that if the belief of pur- 
 gatory were once rooted out, all that was built on that 
 foundation must needs fall with it. So John Frith 
 wrote an answer to More's supplication, to shew, that 
 there was no ground for purgatory in Scripture ; and 
 that it was not believed in the primitive church. He 
 also answered the Bishop of Rochester's book, and 
 some dialogues that were written on the same subject, 
 by Rastal, a printer, and kinsman of More's : he dis- 
 covered the fallacy of their reasonings, which were 
 built on the weakness or defects of our repentance in 
 this life ; and that therefore there must be another 
 state in which we must be further purified. To this 
 he answered, " That our sins were not pardoned for 
 our repentance, or the perfection of it, but only for the 
 merits and sufferings of Christ ; and that, if our re- 
 pentance is sincere, God accepts of it ; and sin, being 
 once pardoned, it could not be further punished. He 
 shewed the difference between the punishments we 
 may suffer in this life, and those in purgatory ; the 
 one are either medicinal corrections for reforming us
 
 264 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 more and more, or for giving warning to others : the 
 other are terrible punishments, without any of these 
 ends in them,: therefore the one might well consist 
 with the free pardon of sin, the other could not. So 
 he argued from all these places of Scripture, in which 
 we are said to be freely pardoned our sins by the blood 
 of Christ, that no punishment in another state could 
 consist with it : he also argued from all those places 
 in which it is said, that we shall at the day of judg- 
 ment receive according to what we have done in the 
 body, that there was no state of purgatory beyond this 
 life. For the places brought out of the Old Testa- 
 ment, he shewed they could not be meant of purgatory, 
 since according to the doctrine of the schoolmen there 
 was no going to purgatory before Christ. For the 
 places in the New Testament he appealed to More's 
 great friend, Erasmus, whose exposition of these 
 places differed much from his glosses. That place in 
 the Epistle to the Corinthians about the fire, that was 
 to try every man's work, he said, was plainly allego- 
 rical: and since the foundation, the building of gold, 
 silver, and precious stones ; of wood, hay, and stub- 
 ble, were figuratively taken, there was no reason to 
 take the fire in a literal sense : therefore by fire was to 
 be understood the persecution then near at hand ; 
 called in other places, the fiery trial. 
 
 For the ancient doctors, he shewed, that in the 
 fourth century, St. Ambrose, Jerome, and St. Austin, 
 the three great doctors of that age, did not believe it, 
 and cited several passages out of their writings. It is 
 true, St. Austin went further than the rest; for though 
 in some passages he delivered his opinion against it, 
 yet in other places he spake of it more doubtfully, as 
 a thing that might be inquired into, but that it could 
 not be certainly known ; and indeed before Gregory 
 the Great's time, it was not received in the church, 
 and then the Benedictine monks were beginning to 
 spread and grow numerous, and they, to draw advan- 
 tages from it, told many stories of visions and dreams, 
 to possess the world with the belief of it ; then the 
 trade grew so profitable, that ever since it was kept
 
 PART I. BOOK II. 265 
 
 up, and improved : and what succeeded so well with 
 one society and order, to enrich themselves much by 
 it, was an encouragement toothers to follow their track 
 in the same way of traffic. This book was generally 
 well received, and the clergy were so offended at the 
 author, that they resolved to make him feel a real fire 
 whenever he was catched, for endeavouring to put out 
 their imaginary one. 
 
 That from which More and others took greatest ad- 
 vantage, was, that the new preachers prevailed only 
 on simple tradesmen, and women, and other illiterate 
 persons : but to this the others answered, that the 
 Pharisees made the same objection to the followers of 
 Christ, who were fishermen, women, and rude mecha- 
 nics ; but Christ told them, that to the poor the gos- 
 pel was preached ; and when the philosophers and 
 Jews objected that to the apostles, they said, God's 
 glory did the more appear, since not many rich, wise, 
 or noble, were called, but the poor and despised were 
 chosen : that men who had much to lose, had not that 
 simplicity of mind, nor that disengagement from 
 worldly things that was a necessary disposition to fit 
 them for a doctrine, which was like to bring much 
 trouble and persecution on them. 
 
 Thus I have opened some of these things, which The 
 were at that time disputed by the pen, in which op- aga 
 position new things were still started and examined. ^ 
 But this was too feeble a weapon for the defence of 
 the clergy, therefore they sought out sharper tools. 
 So there were many brought into the bishops' courts, 
 some for teaching their children the Lord's Prayer, in 
 English, some for reading the forbidden books, some 
 for harbouring the preachers, some for speaking 
 against pilgrimages, or the worshipping and adorning 
 of images, some for not observing the church fasts, 
 some for not coming to confession and the sacrament, 
 and some for speaking against the vices of the clergy. 
 Most of these were simple and illiterate men, and the 
 terror of the bishops' courts, and prisons, and of a 
 faggot, in the end, wrought so much on their fears and 
 weakness, that they generally abjured, and were dis-
 
 266 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 MOM. missed. But in the end of the year 1530, one Tho- 
 mas Hitton, who had been curate of Maidstone, and 
 had left that place, going oft to Antwerp ; he bringing 
 over some of the books that were printed there, was 
 xindai. taken at Gravesend, and brought before Warham and 
 Fisher, who, after he had suffered much by a long and 
 cruel imprisonment, condemned him to be burnt. 
 Busy's The most eminent person that suffered about this 
 trial> time was Thomas Bilney, of whose abjuration an ac- 
 count was given in the first Book : he after that went 
 to Cambridge, and was much troubled in his con- 
 science for what he had done ; so that the rest of that 
 Latimer's society at Cambridge were in great apprehensions 
 sermons. o f some violent effect which that desperation might 
 produce, and sometimes watched him whole nights. 
 This continued about a year, but at length his mind 
 was more quieted, and he resolved to expiate his ab- 
 juration by as public and solemn a confession of the 
 truth : and to prepare himself the better both to de- 
 fend and suffer for the doctrines which he had for- 
 merly through fear denied, he followed his studies for 
 two years. And when he found himself well fortified 
 in this resolution, he took leave of his friends at Cam- 
 bridge and went to his own country of Norfolk, to 
 whom he thought he owed his first endeavours. 
 The things He preached up and down the country, confessing 
 to bJ hTm. d his former sin of denying the faith, and taught the 
 people to beware of idolatry, or trusting to pilgrim- 
 ages, to the cowl of St. Francis, to the prayers of saints, 
 or to images ; but exhorted them to stay at home, to 
 give much alms, to believe in Jesus Christ, and to 
 FOX. offer up their hearts, wills, and minds to him in the 
 sacrament. This being noised about, he was seized 
 on by the Bishop's officers, and put in prison at Nor- 
 wich ; and the writ was sent for to burn him as a 
 relapse, he being first condemned and degraded from 
 his priesthood : while he was in prison, the friars 
 came oft about him to persuade him to recant again, 
 and it was given out that he did read a bill of abju- 
 ration. 
 
 More, not being satisfied to have sent the writ for
 
 PART I. BOOK II. 2G7 
 
 his burning, studied also to defame him, publishing it is 
 this to the world ; yet in that he was certainly abused, ^ 
 for if he had signed any such paper, it had been put 
 in the Bishop's register, as all things of that nature 
 were ; but no such writing was ever shewn, only some 
 said they heard him read it ; and others, who denied 
 there was any such thing, being questioned for it, 
 submitted and confessed their fault. But, at such a 
 time it was no strange thing if a lie of that nature was 
 vented with so much authority, that men were afraid 
 to contradict it ; and when a man is a close prisoner, 
 those who only have access to him may spread what 
 report of him they please ; and when once such a 
 thing is said, they never want officious vouchers to 
 lie and swear for it. But since nothing was ever 
 shewed under his hand, it was clear there was no 
 truth in these reports, which were spread about to 
 take away the honour of martyrdom from the new 
 doctrines. It is true, he had never inquired into all 
 the other tenets of the church of Rome, and so did 
 not differ from them about the presence of Christ in 
 the sacrament and some other things. But when men The 
 durst speak freely, there were several persons that Jhic 
 witnessed the constancy and sincerity of Bilney in l a e p 
 these his last conflicts ; and, among the rest, Matthew FOX. 
 Parker, afterwards archbishop of Canterbury, was an 
 eye-witness of his sufferings, which from his relation 
 were published afterwards : he took his death pa- 
 tiently and constantly, and in the little time that was 
 allowed him to live after his sentence, he was observed 
 to be cheerful ; and the poor victuals that were 
 brought him, bread and ale, he eat up heartily ; of 
 which when one took notice, he said, he must keep 
 up that ruinous cottage till it fell ; and often repeated 
 that passage in Isaiah, " When thou walkest through 
 the fire thou shalt not be burnt;" and, putting his 
 finger in the flame of the candle, he told those about 
 him, that he well knew what a pain burning was, 
 but that it should only consume the stubble of his 
 body, and that his soul should be purged by it. 
 When the day of execution came, being the 10th
 
 268 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 The man- of November, as he was led out, he said to one that 
 Offering? exhorted him to be patient and constant, that as the 
 mariners endured the tossing of the waves, hoping 
 to arrive at their desired port; so, though he was 
 now entering into a storm, yet he hoped he should 
 soon arrive at the haven ; and desired their prayers. 
 When he came to the stake, he repeated the creed, 
 to shew the people that he died in the faith of the 
 apostles ; then he put up his prayers to God with 
 great shows of inward devotion ; which ended, he 
 repeated the 1 43d Psalm, and paused on these words 
 of it, " Enter not into judgment with thy servant, for 
 in thy sight shall no man living be justified," with 
 deep recollection : and when Dr. Warner, that accom- 
 panied him to the stake, took leave of him with many 
 tears, Bilney, with a cheerful countenance, exhorted 
 him to feed his flock, that at his Lord's coming he 
 might find him so doing. Many of the begging friars 
 desired him to declare to the people, that, they had 
 not procured his death ; for that was got among them, 
 and they feared the people would give them no more 
 alms : so he desired the spectators not to be the worse 
 to these men for his sake, for they had not procured 
 his death. Then the fire was set to, and his body 
 consumed to ashes. 
 
 Thus it appears, both what opinion the people had 
 of him, and in what charity he died even towards his 
 enemies, doing them good for evil ; but this, though 
 it perhaps struck terror in weaker minds, yet it no 
 less encouraged others to endure patiently all the se- 
 verities that were used to draw them from this doc- 
 ByfieWs trine. Soon after one Richard Byfield suffered : he 
 rings ' was a monk of St. Edmundsbury, and had been in- 
 structed by Dr. Barnes, who gave him some books ; 
 which being discovered, he was put in prison, but 
 through fear abjured ; yet afterward he left the mo- 
 nastery and came to London : he went oft over to 
 Antwerp and brought in forbidden books, which being 
 smelled out, he was seized on and examined about 
 these books ; he, justified them, and said, he thought 
 they were good and profitable, and did openly ex-
 
 PART I. BOOK II. 269 
 
 claim against the dissolute lives of the clergy : so 
 being judged heretic, he was burnt in Smithfield the 
 llth of November. 
 
 In December, one John Tewksbury, a shopkeeper And 
 in London, who had formerly abjured, was also taken b w y 
 and tried in Sir Thomas More's house at Chelsea, 
 where sentence was given against him by Stokesley, 
 bishop of London (for Tonstal was translated the 
 former year to Duresme), and was burnt in Smithfield. 
 There were also three burnt at York this year, two 
 men and one woman. 
 
 These proceedings were complained of in the fol- 
 lowing session of parliament, as was formerly told, 
 and the ecclesiastical courts being found both arbi- 
 trary and cruel, the House of Commons desired a re- 
 dress of that from the King ; but nothing was done 
 about it till three years after that the new act against 
 heretics was made, as was already told. The clergy 
 were not much moved at the address which the 
 House of Commons made, and therefore went on in 
 their extreme courses ; and to strike a terror in the 
 gentry, they resolved to make an example of one 
 James Bainham, a gentleman of the Temple : he was Bainham'$ 
 carried to the Lord Chancellor's house, where much * 
 pains was taken to persuade him to discover such as 
 he knew in the Temple who favoured the new opi- FOX. 
 nions ; but fair means not prevailing, More made him 
 be whipped in his own presence, and after that sent 
 him to the Tower, where he looked on and saw him 
 put to the rack. Yet it seems nothing could be drawn 
 from him that might be made use of to any other per- 
 son's hurt ; yet he himself afterwards, overcome with 
 fear, abjured and did penance ; but had no quiet in 
 his conscience, till he went publicly to church, with 
 a New Testament in his hand, and confessed with 
 many tears that he had denied God ; and prayed the 
 people not to do as he had done, and said that he felt 
 a hell in his own conscience for what he had done. 
 So he was soon after carried to the Tower (for now 
 the bishops, to avoid the imputation of using men 
 cruelly in their prisons, did put heretics in the King's
 
 270 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 prisons) : he was charged for having said " That 
 Thomas-a-Becket was a murderer, and damned in 
 hell if he did not repent ; and for speaking contemp- 
 tuously of praying to saints, and saying that the sa- 
 crament of the altar, was only Christ's mystical body, 
 and that his body was not chewed with the teeth, but 
 received by faith. So he was judged an obstinate 
 and relapsed heretic, and was burnt in Smithfield 
 about the end of April, 1532." There were also 
 some others burnt a little before his time, of whom a 
 particular account could not be recovered by Fox 
 with all his industry. But with Bainham More's 
 persecution ended ; for soon after he laid down the 
 great seal, which set the poor preachers at ease. 
 
 Crome and Latimer were brought before the Con- 
 vocation, and accused of heresy. They both sub- 
 Articies scribed the articles offered to them : " That there 
 Tomf was a purgatory : that the souls in it were profited 
 abjured, by masse s said for them : that the saints are now in 
 heaven, and as mediators pray for us : that men ought 
 to pray to them and honour them : that pilgrimages 
 were pious and meritorious : that men who vowed 
 chastity might not marry without the Pope's dispen- 
 sation : that the keys of binding and loosing were 
 given to St. Peter, and to his successors, though their 
 lives were bad, and not at all to the laity : that men 
 merited by prayers, fasting, and other good works : 
 that priests prohibited by the bishop should not 
 preach till they were purged and restored : that the 
 seven sacraments conferred grace : that consecrations 
 and benedictions used by the church were good : 
 that it was good and profitable to set up the images 
 of Christ and the saints in the churches, and to adorn 
 them and burn candles before them ; and that kings 
 were not obliged to give their people the Scriptures in 
 a vulgar tongue." By these articles it may be easily 
 collected what were the doctrines then preached by 
 the reformers. There was yet no dispute about the 
 presence of Christ in the sacrament, which was first 
 called in question by Frith ; for the books of Zuin- 
 glius and CEcolampadius came later into England ;
 
 PART I. BOOK II. 271 
 
 and hitherto they had only seen Luther's works, with 
 those written by his followers. 
 
 But in the year 1532, there was another memo- Tracy's 
 rable instance of the clergy's cruelty against the dead 
 bodies of those whom they suspected of heresy. The 
 common style of all wills and testaments at that time 
 was, " First, I bequeath my soul to Almighty God, Regtst. 
 and to our Lady Saint Mary, and to all the saints in jame. 
 heaven : but one William Tracy of Worcestershire 
 dying, left a will of a far different strain ; for he be- 
 queathed his soul only to God through Jesus Christ, 
 to whose intercession alone he trusted, without the 
 help of any other saint ; therefore he left no part 
 of his goods to have any pray for his soul." This *<* 
 being brought into the Convocation by the Prolo- Foi. e ?2. 
 cutor, he was condemned as an heretic, and an order 
 was sent to Parker, chancellor of Winchester, to raise 
 his body. The officious Chancellor went beyond his 
 order, and burnt the body ; but the record bears, that 
 though he might, by the warrant he had, raise the 
 body, according to the law of the church, yet he had 
 no authority to burn it. So two years after Tracy's 
 heirs sued him for it, and he was turned out of his 
 office of chancellor, and fined in 400/. 
 
 There is another instance of the cruelty of the narding-s 
 clergy this year. One Thomas Harding of Buck- sa 
 inghamshire, an ancient man, who had abjured in the 
 year 1 506, was now observed to go often into woods, 
 and was seen sometimes reading. Upon which his 
 house was searched, and some parcels of the New 
 Testament in English were found in it. So he was 
 carried before Longland, bishop of Lincoln, who, as 
 he was a cruel persecutor, so being the King's con- 
 fessor, acted with the more authority. This aged 
 man was judged* a relapse, and sent to Chesham, 
 were he lived to be burnt, which was executed on 
 Corpus Christi eve. At this time there was an in- 
 dulgence of forty days' pardon proclaimed to all that 
 carried a faggot to the burning of an heretic : so dex- 
 terously did the clergy endeavour to infect the laity 
 with their own cruel spirit ; and that wrought upon
 
 J>72 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 this occasion a signal effect for as the fire was kin- 
 Fox, died, one flung a faggot at the old man's head, which 
 
 dashed out his brains. 
 
 1533. In the year 1533 it was thought fit by some signal 
 evidence to convince the world, that the King did not 
 design to change the established religion, though he 
 had then proceeded far in his breach with Rome ; and 
 the crafty Bishop of Winchester, Gardiner, as he com- 
 plied with the King in his second marriage and sepa- 
 ration from Rome, so, being an inveterate enemy to 
 the Reformation, and in his heart addicted to the 
 court of Rome, did by this argument often prevail with 
 the King, to punish the heretics ; that it would most 
 effectually justify his other proceedings, and convince 
 the world that he was still a good catholic King ; 
 which at several times drew the King to what he 
 desired. And at this time, the steps the King had 
 made in his separation from the Pope had given such 
 heart to the new preachers, that they grew bolder 
 and more public in their assemblies. 
 
 Frith'ssuf- John Frith, as he was an excellent scholar, which 
 was so taken notice of some years before, that he was 
 put in the list of those whom the Cardinal intended 
 to bring from Cambridge and put in his college at 
 Oxford ; so he had offended them by several writings, 
 and by a discourse which he wrote against the cor- 
 poral presence of Christ, in the sacrament, had pro- 
 voked the King, who continued to his death to be- 
 iiisarga- lieve that firmly : " The substance of his argument 
 Snstthe was, that Christ in the sacrament gave eternal life, 
 pwTnc'l but the receiving the bare sacrament did not give 
 eternal life, since many took it to their damnation ; 
 therefore Christ's presence there, was only felt by 
 faith. This he further proved by the fathers before 
 Christ, who did eat the same spiritual food, and drink 
 of the rock, which was Christ, according to St. Paul : 
 since then, they and we communicate in the same 
 thing, and it was certain that they did not eat Christ's 
 flesh corporally, but fed by faith on a Messias to 
 come, as Christians do on a Messias already come: 
 therefore we now do only communicate by faith. He
 
 PART I. BOOK II. 273 
 
 also insisted much on the signification of the word 
 sacrament, from whence he concluded, that the ele- 
 ments must be the mystical signs of Christ's body 
 and blood ; for if they were truly the flesh and blood 
 of Christ, they should not be sacraments : he con- 
 cluded, that the ends of the sacrament were these 
 three, by a visible action to knit the society of Chris- 
 tians together in one body, to be a means of convey- 
 ing grace upon our due participating of them, and 
 to be remembrances to stir up men to bless God for 
 that unspeakable love, which in the death of Christ 
 appeared to mankind. To all these ends the cor- 
 poral presence of Christ availed nothing, they being 
 sufficiently answered by a mystical presence : yet he 
 drew no other conclusion, from these premises, but 
 that the belief of the corporal presence in the sacra- 
 ment, was no necessary article of our faith. This 
 either flowed from his not having yet arrived at a 
 sure persuasion in the matter, or that he chose in that 
 modest style, to encounter an opinion, of which the 
 world was so fond, that to have opposed it in down- 
 right words, would have given prejudices against all 
 that he could say. 
 
 Frith, upon a long conversation with one upon 
 this subject, was desired to set down the heads of it 
 in writing, which he did. The paper went about, 
 and was by a false brother conveyed to Sir Thomas 
 More's hands, who set himself to answer it in his 
 ordinary style, treating Frith with great contempt, 
 calling him always the young man. Frith was in 
 prison before he saw More's book, yet he wrote a 
 reply to it, which I do not find was then published ; 
 but a copy of it was brought afterwards to Cranmer, 
 who acknowledged when he wrote his Apology 
 against Gardiner, that he had received great light in 
 that matter from Frith's book, and drew most of his 
 arguments out of it It was afterwards printed with 
 his works, anno 1573; and by it may appear, how 
 much truth is stronger than error. For though More 
 wrote with as much wit and eloquence as any man 
 in that age did, and Frith wrote plainly without any 
 
 VOL. I. T
 
 274 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 art; yet there is so great a difference between their 
 books, that whoever compares them, will clearly per- 
 ceive the one to be the ingenious defender of an ill 
 cause, and the other a simple asserter of truth. Frith 
 wrote with all the disadvantage that was possible, 
 being then in the jail, where he could have no books, 
 but some notes he might have collected formerly : he 
 was also so loaded with irons, that he could scarce 
 sit with any ease. He began with confirming what 
 he had delivered about the fathers before Christ, 
 their feeding on his body in the same manner that 
 Christians do since his death; this he proved from 
 Scripture, and several places of St. Austin's works : 
 he proved also from Scripture, that after the conse- 
 cration the elements were still bread and wine, and 
 were so called both by our Saviour and his apostles ; 
 that our senses shew they are not changed in their 
 natures, and that they are still subject to corruption, 
 which can in no way be said of the body of Christ. 
 He proved that the eating of Christ's flesh in the 
 Gth of St. John, cannot be applied to the sacrament; 
 since the wicked receive it, who yet do not eat the 
 flesh of Christ, otherwise they should have eternal 
 life. He shewed also, that the sacrament coming in 
 the room of the Jewish paschal larnb, we must un- 
 derstand Christ's words, " This is my body," in the 
 same sense in which it was said, that the lamb was 
 the Lord's passover. He confirmed this by many 
 passages, cited out of Tertullian, Athanasius, Chry- 
 sostome, Ambrose, Jerome, Austin, Fulgentius, Eu- 
 sebius, and some later writers, as Beda, Bertram, and 
 Druthmar, who did all assert that the elements re- 
 tained their former natures, and were only the mys- 
 teries, signs, and figures of the body and blood of 
 Christ. But Gelasius's words seemed so remark- 
 able, that they could not but determine the contro- 
 versy, especially considering he was bishop of Rome : 
 he, therefore, writing against the Eutychians, who 
 thought the human nature of Christ was changed 
 into the Divine, says, " That as the elements of bread 
 and wine being consecrated to be the sacraments of
 
 PART I. BOOK II. 275 
 
 the body and blood of Christ, did not cease to be 
 bread and wine in substance, but continued in their 
 own proper natures;" so the human nature of Christ 
 continued still, though it was united to the Divine 
 nature : this was a manifest indication of the belief 
 of the church in that age, and ought to weigh more 
 than a hundred high rhetorical expressions. He 
 brought likewise several testimonies out of the fa- 
 thers, to shew that they knew nothing of the conse- 
 quences that follow transubstantiation ; of a body 
 being in more places at once, or being in a place 
 after the manner of a spirit, or of the worship to be 
 given to the sacrament. Upon this he digresses, 
 and says, that the German divines believed a corpo- 
 ral presence; yet since that was only an opinion that 
 rested in their minds, and did not carry along with 
 it any corruption of the worship, or idolatrous prac- 
 tice, it was to be borne with, and the peace of the 
 church was not to be broken for it: but the case of 
 the church of Rome was very different, which had 
 set up gross idolatry, building it upon this doctrine. 
 
 Thus I have given a short abstract of Frith's book, 
 which I thought fit the rather to do, because it was 
 the first book that was written on this subject in 
 England by any of the reformers. And from hence it 
 may appear, upon what solid and weighty reasons they 
 then began to shake the received opinion of transub- 
 stantiation : and with how much learning this contro- 
 versy was managed by him, who first undertook it. 
 
 One thing was singular in Frith's opinion, that he 
 thought there should be no contest made about the 
 
 O 
 
 manner of Christ's presence in the sacrament ; for 
 whatever opinion men held in speculation, if it went 
 not to a practical error (which was the adoration of 
 it, for that was idolatry in his opinion) there were no 
 disputes to be made about it, therefore he was much 
 against all heats between the Lutherans and Zuing- 
 lians; for he thought in such a matter, that was 
 wholly speculative, every man might hold his own 
 opinion without making a breach of the unity of the 
 church about it. 
 
 T 2
 
 of hT s " 
 
 276 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 He was apprehended in May, 1533, and kept in 
 prison till the 20th of June, and then he was brought 
 before the bishop of London, Gardiner and Longland 
 sitting with him. They objected to him his opi- 
 nions about the sacrament and purgatory ; he an- 
 swered, that for the first he did not find transubstan- 
 tiation in the Scriptures, nor in any approved au- 
 thors ; and therefore he would not admit any thing 
 as an article of faith, without clear and certain 
 grounds : for he did not think the authority of the 
 church reached so far. They argued with him upon 
 some passages out of St. Austin and St. Chrysostome, 
 to which he answered, by opposing other places of 
 the same fathers, and shewed how they were to be 
 reconciled to themselves : when it came to a conclu- 
 sion, these words are set down in the register as his 
 confession. 
 
 Hisopinion " Frith thinketh and judgeth that the natural body 
 
 cramLt. of Christ is not in the sacrament of the altar, but in 
 
 one place only at once. Item, he saith, that neither 
 
 part is a necessary article of our faith, whether the 
 
 natural body be there in the sacrament or not." 
 
 As for purgatory, he said a man consisted of two 
 parts, his body and soul ; his body was purged by 
 sickness and other pains, and at last by death, and 
 was not by their own doctrine sent to purgatory. 
 And for the soul, it was purged through the word of 
 God received by faith. So his confession was writ- 
 Andof ten down in these words. Item, " Frith thinketh 
 " ory * and judgeth that there is no purgatory for the soul 
 after that it is departed from the body, and as he 
 thinketh herein, so hath he said, written, and de- 
 fended ; howbeit he thinketh neither part to be an 
 article of faith, necessarily to be believed under pain 
 of damnation." 
 
 The bishops, with the doctors that stood about 
 them, took much pains to make him change ; but he 
 told them, that he could not be induced to believe, 
 that these were articles of faith. And when they 
 threatened to proceed to a final sentence, he seemed 
 not moved with it, but said, " Let judgment be done
 
 PART I. BOOK II. 277 
 
 in righteousness." The bishops, though none of 
 them were guilty of great tenderness, yet seemed to 
 pity him much ; and the Bishop of London pro- 
 fessed, he gave sentence with great grief of heart. 
 In the end he was judged an obstinate heretic, and 
 was delivered to the secular power : there is one clause 
 in this sentence, which is not in many others, there- 
 fore I shall set it down. 
 
 "Most earnestly requiring, in the bowels of our nets con. 
 Lord Jesus Christ, that this execution and punish- 
 ment, worthily to be done upon thee, may be so mo- 
 derate, that the rigour thereof be not too extreme, nor 
 yet the gentleness too much mitigated, but that it 
 may be to the salvation of thy soul, to the extirpation, 
 terror, and conversion of heretics, and to the unity of 
 the catholic faith." This was thought a scorning of 
 God and men, when those, who knew that he was to 
 be burnt, and intended it should be so, yet used such 
 an obtestation by the bowels of Jesus Christ, that the 
 rigour might not be extreme. This being certified, 
 the writ was issued out, and as the register bears, he 
 was burnt in Smithfield the 4th of July, and one 
 Andrew Hewet with him, who also denied the pre- 
 sence of Christ in the sacrament of the altar. This 
 Hewet was an apprentice, and went to the meetings 
 of these preachers, and was twice betrayed by some 
 spies whom the bishops' officers had among them, 
 who discovered many. When he was examined, he 
 would not acknowledge the corporal presence, but 
 was illiterate, and resolved to do as Frith did ; so he 
 was also condemned and burnt with him. 
 
 When they were brought to the stake, Frith ex- His cor 
 pressed great joy, at his approaching martyrdom, J** n ^ ff |, n r . 
 and in a transport of it, hugged the faggots in his in s- 
 arms, as the instruments that were to send him to his 
 eternal rest. One Dr. Cook, a parson of London, called 
 to the people, that they should not pray for them any 
 more than they would do for a dog. At which Frith 
 smiled, and prayed God to forgive him ; so the fire 
 was set to, and they were consumed to ashes. 
 
 This was the last act of the clergy's cruelty against
 
 278 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 men's lives, and was much condemned : it was thought 
 an unheard-of barbarity, thus to burn a moderate and 
 learned young man, only because he would not ac- 
 knowledge some of their doctrines to be articles of 
 faith ; and though his private judgment was against 
 their tenet, yet he was not positive in it, any further, 
 than that he could not believe the contrary to be 
 necessary to salvation. But the clergy were now so 
 bathed in blood, that they seemed to have stripped 
 themselves of those impressions of pity and compas- 
 sion, which are natural to mankind ; they therefore 
 held on in their severe courses, till the act of parlia- 
 ment did effectually restrain them. 
 
 philips-* In the account that was given of that act, mention 
 was made of one Thomas Philips, who put in his 
 complaint to the House of Commons against the 
 Bishop of London. The proceedings against him, 
 had been both extreme and illegal : he was at first 
 apprehended, and put in the Tower upon suspicion 
 of heresy, and when they searched him, a copy of 
 Tracy's Testament was found about him, and butter 
 and cheese were found in his chamber, it being in the 
 time of Lent. There was also another letter found 
 about him, exhorting him to be ready to suffer con- 
 stantly for the truth. Upon these presumptions the 
 Bishop of London proceeded against him, and re- 
 quired him to abjure. But he said, he would wil- 
 lingly swear to be obedient as a Christian man ought, 
 and that he would never hold any heresy during his 
 life, nor favour heretics ; but the Bishop would not 
 accept of that, since there might be ambiguities in it : 
 therefore he required him to make the abjuration in 
 common form, which he refused to do, and appealed 
 to the King as the supreme head of the church. Yet 
 the Bishop pronounced him contumav, and did ex- 
 communicate him ; but whether he was released on 
 his appeal, or not, I do not find ; yet perhaps this was 
 the man of whom the Pope complained to the English 
 ambassadors, 1532, that an heretic having appealed 
 to the King as the supreme head of the church, was 
 taken out of the Bishop's hands, and judged and
 
 PART I. BOOK II. 279 
 
 acquitted in the King's courts. It is probable this 
 was the man, only the Pope was informed, that it 
 was from the Archbishop of Canterbury that he 
 appealed, in which there might be a mistake for the 
 Bishop of London. But whatever ground there may 
 be for that conjecture, Philips got his liberty, and put 
 in a complaint to the House of Commons, which 
 produced the act about heretics. 
 
 And now that act being passed, together with the A * to p s 
 
 .. f , i TJ , .1 , i ,r puttothes* 
 
 extirpation 01 the ropes authority, and the power cruet pro- 
 being lodged in the King to correct and reform ceedlDgs - 
 heresies, idolatries, and abuses, the standard of the 
 catholic faith being also declared to be the Scriptures, 
 the persecuted preachers had ease and encourage- 
 ment every where. They also saw that the necessity 
 of the King's affairs would constrain him to be gentle 
 to them ; for the sentence which the Pope gave 
 against the King was committed to the Emperor to 
 be executed by him, who was then aspiring to a uni- 
 versal monarchy ; and therefore as soon as his other 
 wars gave him leisure to look over to England and 
 Ireland, he had now a good colour to justify an inva- 
 sion, both from the Pope's sentence, and the interests 
 and honour of his family in protecting his aunt and 
 her daughter : therefore the King was to give him 
 work elsewhere, in order to which his interest obliged 
 him to join himself to the princes of Germany, who 
 had at Smalcald entered into a league offensive and 
 defensive, for the liberty of religion and the rights of 
 the empire. This was a thorn in the Emperor's side, 
 which the King's interest would oblige him by all 
 means to maintain. Upon which the reformers in 
 England concluded, that either the King, to recom- 
 mend himself to these princes, would relax the seve- 
 rities of the law against them, or otherwise, that their 
 friends in Germany would see to it ; for in those first 
 fervours of reformations, the princes made that always 
 a condition in their treaties, that those who favoured 
 their doctrine might be no more persecuted. n , QllMn 
 
 But their chief encouragement was from the Queen, [^ r u e re 
 who reigned in the King's heart, as absolutely as he 
 
 ured
 
 280 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 did over his subjects ; and was a known favourer of 
 them. She took Shaxton and Latimer to be her chap- 
 lains, and soon after promoted them to the bishop- 
 ricks of Salisbury and Worcester, then vacant by the 
 deprivation of Campegio and Ghinuccii ; and in all 
 other things cherished and protected them, and used 
 her most effectual endeavours with the King to pro- 
 oanmer mote the Reformation. Next to her, Cranmer, arch- 
 ti* a.- bishop of Canterbury, was a professed favourer of it, 
 formation. w k besides the authority of his character and see, 
 
 V 
 
 was well fitted for carrying it on, being a very learned 
 and industrious man. He was at great pains to col- 
 lect the sense of ancient writers, upon all the heads 
 of religion, by which he might be well directed in 
 such an important matter. I have seen two volumes 
 in folio written with his own hand, containing upon 
 all the heads of religion a vast heap, both of places 
 of Scripture and quotations out of ancient fathers, 
 and later doctors, and schoolmen, by which he go- 
 verned himself in that work. There is also an ori- 
 ginal letter of the Lord Burghley's extant, which I 
 have seen, in which he writes, that he had six or 
 seven volumes of his writings ; all which, except two 
 other that I have seen, are lost, for aught I can un- 
 derstand. From which it will appear in the sequel 
 of this work, that he neither copied from foreign 
 writers, nor proceeded rashly in the Reformation. He 
 was a man of great temper ; and, as I have seen in 
 some of his letters to Osiander, and some of Osian- 
 der's answers to him, he very much disliked the vio- 
 lence of the German divines. He was gentle in his 
 whole behaviour ; and though he was a man of too 
 great candour and simplicity to be refined in the arts 
 of policy, yet he managed his affairs with great pru- 
 dence ; which did so much recommend him to the 
 King, that no ill offices were ever able to hurt him. 
 It is true, he had some singular opinions about eccle- 
 siastical functions and offices, which he seemed to 
 make wholly dependant on the magistrate, as much as 
 the civil were ; but as he never studied to get his opi- 
 nion in that made a part of the doctrine of the church,

 
 1
 
 PART I. BOOK I. 281 
 
 reserving only to himself the freedom of his own 
 thoughts, which I have reason to think he did after- 
 wards either change, or at least was content to be 
 overruled in it : so it is clear that he held not that opi- 
 nion to get the King's favour by it, for in many other 
 things, as in the business of the six articles, he boldly 
 and freely argued, both in the Convocation and the 
 House of Peers, against that which he knew was the 
 King's mind, and took his life in his hands, which 
 had certainly been offered at a stake, if the King's 
 esteem of him had not been proof against all attempts. 
 
 Next him, or rather above him, was Cromwell, who 1535. 
 was made the King's vicegerent in ecclesiastical mat- b>"crom- 
 ters, a man of mean birth, but noble qualities, as ap- well> 
 peared in two signal instances ; the one being his 
 pleading in parliament so zealously and successfully 
 for the fallen and disgraced Cardinal, whose secretary 
 he was, when Gardiner, though more obliged by him, 
 had basely forsaken him. This was thought so just 
 and generous in him, that it did not at all hinder his 
 preferment, but raised his credit higher ; such a de- 
 monstration of gratitude and friendship in misfortune 
 being so rare a thing in a court. The other was his 
 remembering the merchant of Lucca, that had pitied 
 and relieved him when he was a poor stranger there, 
 and expressing most extraordinary acknowledgments 
 and gratitude when he was afterwards in the top of 
 his greatness : and the other did not so much as 
 know him, much less pretend to any returns for past 
 favours, which shewed that he had a noble and gene- 
 rous temper ; only he made too much haste to be 
 great and rich. He joined himself in a firm friend- 
 ship to Cranmer, and did promote the Reformation 
 very vigorously. 
 
 But there was another party in the court, that wrest- The Duke 
 led much against it; the head of it was the Duke ofL<i.Gar 
 Norfolk, who, though he was the Queen's uncle, y 
 was her mortal enemy. He was a dexterous courtier 
 and complied with the King, both in his divorce and 
 separation from Rome, yet did upon all occasions per- 
 suade the King to innovate nothing in religion : his
 
 282 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 great friend, that joined all along with him in those 
 counsels, was Gardiner, bishop of Winchester, who 
 was a crafty and politic man, and understood the 
 King well, and complied with his temper in every 
 thing ; he despised Cranmer, and hated all reforma- 
 tion. Longland, that had been the King's confessor, 
 was also managed by them, and they had a great 
 party in the court, and almost all the churchmen were 
 on their side. 
 
 Keasons That which prevailed most with the King was, that 
 Rrfomv himself had writ a book in defence of the faith, and 
 tion - they said, would he now retract that, which all learned 
 men admired so much ? or would he encourage Lu- 
 ther and his party, who had treated him with so little 
 respect? If he went to change the doctrines that were 
 formerly received, all the world would say he did it 
 in spite to the Pope, which would cast a great dis- 
 honour on him, as if his passion governed his religion. 
 Foreign princes, who in their hearts did not much 
 blame him for what he had hitherto done, but rather 
 wished for a good opportunity to do the like, would 
 now condemn him if he meddled with the religion : 
 and his own subjects, who complied with that which 
 he had done, and were glad to be delivered from fo- 
 reign jurisdiction, and the exactions of the court of 
 Rome, would not bear a change of the faith, but 
 might be thereby easily set on, by the emissaries of 
 the Pope or Emperor, to break out in rebellion. 
 These things being managed skilfully, and agreeing 
 with his own private opinion, wrought much on him ; 
 and particularly what was said about his own book, 
 which had been so much commended to him, that he 
 was almost made believe, it was written by a special 
 inspiration of the Holy Ghost. 
 
 Reasons But, on the other side, Cranmer represented to him, 
 that since he had put down the Pope's authority, it 
 was not fit to let those doctrines be still taught, which 
 
 eJ * 
 
 had no other foundation but the decrees of popes : and 
 he offered, upon the greatest h%zard, to prove, that 
 many things then received as articles of faith, were 
 no better grounded ; therefore he pressed the King
 
 PART I. BOOK II. 283 
 
 to give order to hear and examine things freely, that 
 when the Pope's power was rejected, the people might 
 not be obliged to believe doctrines, which had no 
 better warrant. And, for political councils, he was 
 to do the duty of a good Christian prince, and leave 
 the event to God ; and things might be carried on 
 with that due care, that the justice and reasonableness 
 of the King's proceedings should appear to all the 
 world. And whereas it was objected, that the doc- 
 trines of the catholic church ought not to be examined 
 by any particular church : it was answered, that when 
 all Christendom were under one Emperor, it was easy 
 for him to call general councils, and in such circum- 
 stances it was fit to stay for one ; and yet even then, 
 particular churches did in their national synods con- 
 demn heresies, and reform abuses. But the state of 
 Christendom was now altered, it was under many 
 princes, who had different interests, and therefore they 
 thought it a vain expectation to look for any such 
 council. The Protestants of Germany had now for 
 above ten years desired the Emperor to procure one, 
 but to no effect ; for sometimes the Pope would not 
 grant it, at other times the French King protested 
 against it. The former year the Pope had sent to the BUI. 
 King to offer a general council to be held at Mantua 
 this year, but the King found that was but an illu- 
 sion ; for the Marquis of Mantua protested, he would 
 not admit such a number of strangers as a council 
 would draw together into his town ; yet the King 
 promised to send his ambassadors thither, when the 
 council met. But now the King, consulting his pre- 
 lates, whether the Emperor might by his authority 
 summon a general council, as the Roman emperors 
 had done ; some of them gave the following answer, A reso 
 copied from the original that is yet extant, which ^'^ 
 might have been written any time between the year bisli p s 
 1534, in which Thomas Goodrick was made bishop caiunV of 
 of Ely, and the year 1540, in which John Clark, ^f 
 bishop of Bath and "Wells died ; but I incline to think 
 from other cirumstances, that it was written about 
 the end of the year 1534.
 
 284 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 For the General Council. 
 
 . " Though that in the old time, when the empire of 
 ! 1 ' Rome had his ample dominion over the most part of 
 the world, the first four general councils (the which 
 at all times have been of most estimation in the 
 church of Christ) were called and gathered by the 
 Emperor's commandment, and for a godly intent ; 
 that heresies might be extinct, schisms put away, good 
 order and manners in the ministers of the church and 
 the people of the same established. Like as many 
 councils more were called : till now of late by the 
 negligence, as well of the Emperor and other princes, 
 the Bishop of Rome hath been suffered to usurp this 
 power; yet now, for so much that the empire of Rome, 
 and the monarchy of the same hath no such general 
 dominion ; but many princes have absolute power in 
 their own realms, and a whole and entire monarchy, 
 no one prince may by his authority call any general 
 council, but if that any one or more of these princes, 
 for the establishing of the faith, for the extirpation of 
 schism, &c. lovingly, charitably, with a good sincere 
 intent, to a sure place, require any other prince, or the 
 rest of the great princes, to be content to agree, that 
 for the wealth, quietness, and tranquillity of all Chris- 
 tian people, by his or their free consent, a general 
 council might be assembled : that prince, or those 
 princes, so required, are bound by the order of cha- 
 rity, for the good fruit that may come of it, to conde- 
 scend and agree thereunto, having no lawful impedi- 
 ment, nor just cause moving to the contrary. The chief 
 causes of the general councils are before expressed. 
 
 " In all the ancient councils of the church, in mat- 
 ters of the faith and interpretation of the Scripture, no 
 man made definitive subscription, but bishops and 
 priests, forsomuch as the declaration of the word of 
 God pertaineth unto them. 
 
 T. Cantuarien. 
 
 Cuthbertus Dunelmen. 
 Jo. Bath. Wellen. 
 Tho. Ellen."
 
 PART I. BOOK II. 285 
 
 But besides this resolution, I have seen a long 
 speech of Cranmer's, written by one of his secretaries. 
 It was spoken soon after the parliament had passed 
 the acts formerly mentioned, for it relates to them as 
 lately done ; it was delivered either in the House of 
 Lords, the Upper House of Convocation, or at the 
 Council Board ; but I rather think, it was in the 
 House of Lords, for it begins, My Lords. The mat- A p^ C h 
 ter of it does so much concern the business of refor- ^"alou 
 mation, that I know the reader will expect I should a gene , ral 
 
 council* 
 
 set down the heads of it. It appears he had been or- 
 dered to inform the House about these things. The 
 preamble of his speech runs upon this conceit. 
 "That as rich men, flying from their enemies, carry EX MSS. 
 away all they can with them, and what they cannot tftet.~ 
 take away, they either hide or destroy it; so the court 
 of Rome had destroyed so many ancient writings, and 
 hid the rest, having carefully preserved every thing 
 that was of advantage to them, that it was not easy 
 to discover what they had so artificially concealed : 
 therefore in the canon law, some honest truths were 
 yet to be found, butso mislaid, that they are not placed 
 where one might expect them, but are to be met with 
 in some other chapters, where one would least, look 
 for them. And many more things said by the ancients, 
 of the see of Rome, and against their authority, were 
 lost, as appears by the fragments yet remaining. He 
 shewed that many of the ancients called every thing 
 which they thought well done, of Divine institution, 
 by a large extent of the phrase, in which sense the 
 passages of many fathers, that magnified the see of 
 Rome, were to be understood. 
 
 " Then he shewed for what end general councils 
 were called, to declare the faith and reform errors ; 
 not that ever any council was truly general, for even 
 at Nice there were no bishops almost but out of Egypt, 
 Asia, and Greece ; but they were called general be- 
 cause the Emperor summoned them, and all Chris- 
 tendom did agree to their definitions ; which he proved 
 by several authorities : therefore, though there were 
 many more bishops in the council of Arimini, than at
 
 286 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 Nice or Constantinople, yet the one was not received 
 as a general council, and the others were ; so that it 
 was not the number nor authority of the bishops, but 
 the matter of their decisions, which made them be re- 
 ceived with so general a submission. 
 
 " As for the head of the council : St. Peter and St. 
 James had the chief direction of the council of the 
 apostles, but there were no contests then about head- 
 ship. Christ named no head, which could be no more 
 called a defect in him than it was one in God, that 
 had named no head to govern the world. Yet the 
 church found it convenient to have one over them, so 
 archbishops were set over provinces. And though 
 St. Peter had been head of the apostles, yet as it is 
 not certain that he was ever in Rome, so it does not 
 appear that he had his headship for Rome's sake, or 
 that he left it there ; but he was made head for his 
 faith, and not for the dignity of any see : therefore 
 the bishops of Rome could pretend to nothing from 
 him but as they followed his faith ; and Liberius, and 
 some other bishops there, had been condemned for 
 heresy ; and if, according to St. James, faith be to be 
 tried by works, the lives of the popes for several ages 
 gave shrewd presumptions, that their faith was not 
 good. And though it were granted that such a power 
 was given to the see of Rome, yet by many instances 
 he shewed that positive precepts in a matter of that 
 nature were not for ever obligatory. And therefore 
 Gerson wrote a book, ' De Auferibilitate Papae.' So 
 that if a Pope with the Cardinals be corrupted, they 
 ought to be tried by a general council, and submit 
 to it. St. Peter gave an account of his baptizing 
 Cornelius, when he was questioned about it. So 
 Damasus, Sixtus, and Leo purged themselves of some 
 scandals. 
 
 " Then he shewed how corrupt the present Pope 
 was, both in his person and government, for which he 
 was abhorred even by some of his cardinals, as him- 
 self had heard and seen at Rome. It was true there 
 was no law to proceed against a vicious pope, for it 
 was a thing not foreseen, and thought scarcely pos-
 
 PART I. BOOK II. 267 
 
 sible ; but new diseases required new remedies, and 
 if a pope that is an heretic may be judged in a coun- 
 cil, the same reason would hold against a simoniacal, 
 covetous, and impious pope, who was salt that had 
 lost its savour. And by several authorities he proved, 
 that every man who lives so, is thereby out of the 
 communion of the church ; and as the pre-eminence 
 of the see of Rome flowed only from the laws of men, 
 so there was now good cause to repeal these ; for the 
 Pope, as was said in the council of Basil, was,only 
 vicar of the church, and not of Christ, so he was ac- 
 countable to the church. The council of Constance 
 and the divines of Paris had, according to the doctrine 
 of the ancient church, declared the Pope to be subject 
 to a general council, which many popes in former 
 ages had confessed. And all that the Pope can claim, 
 even by the canon law, is only to call and preside in 
 a general council, but not to overrule it, or have a 
 negative vote in it. 
 
 *' The power of councils did not extend to princes, 
 dominions, or secular matters, but only to points of 
 faith which they were to declare, and to condemn 
 heretics : nor were their decrees laws till they were 
 enacted by princes. Upon this he enlarged much, to 
 shew that though a council did proceed against a king 
 (with which they then threatened the King), that their 
 sentence was of no force, as being without their sphere. 
 The determination of councils ought to be well con- 
 sidered and examined by the Scriptures, and in mat- 
 ters indifferent men ought to be left to their freedom ; 
 he taxed the severity of Victor's proceedings against 
 the churches of the East about the day of Easter : and 
 concluded, that as a member of the body is not cut 
 off except a gangrene comes in it, so no part of the 
 church ought to be cut off, but upon a great and 
 inevitable cause. And he very largely shewed with 
 what moderation and charity the church should pro- 
 ceed even against those that held errors. And the 
 standard of the council's definitions should only be 
 taken from the Scriptures, and not from men's tra- 
 ditions.
 
 288 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 " He said, some general councils had been rejected 
 by others, and it was a tender point how much ought 
 to be deferred to a council ; some decrees of councils 
 were not at all obeyed. The divines of Paris held, 
 that a council could not make a new article of faith 
 that was not in the Scriptures. And as all God's 
 promises to the people of Israel, had this condition 
 implied within them, ' If they kept his command- 
 ments ;' so he thought the promises to the Christian 
 church had this condition in them, * If they kept the 
 faith.' Therefore he had much doubting in himself 
 as to general councils, and he thought that only the 
 word of God was the rule of faith, which ousfht to 
 
 o 
 
 take place in all controversies of religion. The 
 Scriptures were called canonical, as being the only 
 rules of the faith of Christians ; and these, by ap- 
 pointment of the ancient councils, were only to be read 
 in the churches. The fathers, SS. Ambrose, Jerome, 
 and Austin, did in many things differ from one 
 another, but always appealed to the Scriptures as the 
 common and certain standard. And he cited some 
 remarkable passage out of St. Austin, to shew what 
 difference he put between the Scriptures and all the 
 other writings even of the best and holiest fathers. 
 But when all the fathers agreed in the exposition of 
 any place of Scripture, he acknowledged he looked 
 on that as flowing from the Spirit of God, and it was 
 a most dangerous thing to be wise in our own conceit: 
 therefore he thought councils ought to found their 
 decisions on the word of God, and those expositions 
 of it that had been agreed on by the doctors of the 
 church. 
 
 " Then he discoursed very largely what a person a 
 judge ought to be ; he must not be partial, nor a j udge 
 in his own cause, nor so much as sit on the bench 
 when it is tried, lest his presence should overawe 
 others. Things also done upon a common error can- 
 not bind, when the error upon which they were done 
 comes to be discovered ; and all human laws ought 
 to be changed, when a public visible inconvenience 
 follows them. From which he concluded, that the
 
 PART I. BOOK III. 289 
 
 Pope, being a party, and having already passed his 
 sentence in things which ought to be examined by a 
 general council, could not be a judge, nor sit in it. 
 Princes, also, who upon a common mistake, thinking 
 the Pope head of the church, had sworn to him, find- 
 ing that this was done upon a false ground, may pull 
 their neck out of his yoke, as every man may make 
 his escape out of the hands of a robber. And the 
 court of Rome was so corrupt that a pope, though he 
 meant well as Hadrian did, yet could never bring any 
 good design to an issue ; the cardinals and the rest' 
 of that court being so engaged to maintain their cor- 
 ruptions." These were the heads of that discourse, 
 which it seems he gave them in writing after he had 
 delivered it ; but he promised to entertain them with 
 another discourse of the power the bishops of the 
 Christian church have in their sees, and of the power 
 of a Christian prince to make them do their duty ; but 
 that I could never see, and I am afraid it is lost. 
 
 All this I thought necessary to open, to shew the 
 state of the court, and the principles that the several 
 parties in it went upon, when the Reformation was 
 first brought under consideration, in the third period 
 of this King's reign, to which I am now advanced. 
 
 PART I. BOOK III. 
 
 OF THE OTHER TRANSACTIONS ABOUT RELIGION AND RE- 
 FORMATION DURING THE REST OF THE REIGN OF KING 
 HENRY VIII. 
 
 KING having passed through the traverses 15*5. 
 and tossings of his suit of divorce, and having, &* 
 
 with the concurrence both of his clergy and parlia- reignRrows 
 
 i 11 1111 i i r " ; 'i- 
 
 ment, brought about what he had projected, seemed some. 
 
 now at ease in his own dominions. But though 
 matters were carried in public assemblies smoothly 
 and successfully, yet there were many secret discon- 
 tents, which, being fomented both by the Pope and 
 the Emperor's agents, wrought him great trouble ; so 
 VOL. i. u
 
 290 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 that the rest of his life was full of vexation and dis- 
 quiet. 
 
 All that were zealously addicted to that which 
 they called the old religion, did conclude, that what- 
 ever firmness the King expressed to it now was either 
 pretended out of policy, for avoiding the inconveni- 
 ences which the fears of a change might produce 
 or, though he really intended to perform what he 
 professed, yet the interests in which he must embark 
 with the Princes of Germany against the Pope and 
 the Emperor, together with the power that the Queen 
 had over him, and the credit Cranmer and Cromwell 
 had with him, would prevail on him to change some 
 things in religion. And they looked on these things 
 as so complicated together, that the change of any 
 one must needs make way for change in more ; since 
 that struck at the authority of the church, and left 
 people at liberty to dispute the articles of faith. This 
 they thought was a gate opened to heresy. And 
 therefore they were every where meeting together, 
 and consulting what should be done for suppressing 
 heresy, and preserving the Catholic faith. 
 By the That zeal was much inflamed by the monks and 
 
 practices f / 
 
 of the friars, who clearly saw the acts of parliament were 
 war.. 8 a so levelled at their exemptions and immunities, that 
 they were now like to be at the King's mercy. They 
 were no more to plead their bulls, nor claim any pri- 
 vileges, further than it pleased the King to allow 
 them. No new saints from Rome could draw more 
 riches or honour to their orders. Privileges and in- 
 dulgences were out of doors ; so that the arts of 
 drawing in the people, to enrich their churches and 
 houses, were at an end. And they had also secret 
 intimations, that the King and the courtiers, had an 
 eye on their lands, and they gave themselves for lost, 
 if they could not so embroil the King's affairs, that 
 he should not adventure on so invidious a thing : 
 therefore, both in confessions and conferences, they 
 infused into the people a dislike of the King's pro- 
 ceedings ; which, though for some time it did not 
 break out into open rebellion, yet the humour still
 
 PART I. BOOK III. 29J 
 
 fermented, and people only waited for an opportu- 
 nity : so that, if the Emperor had not been otherwise 
 distracted, he might have made war upon the King, 
 with great advantages : for many of his discontented 
 subjects would have joined with the enemy. But the 
 King did so dexterously manage his leagues with the 
 French King, and the princes of the empire, that the 
 Emperor could never make any impressions on his 
 dominions. 
 
 But those factious spirits, seeing nothing was to be Which 
 
 j f f . Provoked 
 
 expected irom any foreign power, could not contain the King 
 themselves, but broke out into open rebellion. And ^ruL. 
 this provoked the King to great severities : his spirit 
 was so fretted, by the tricks the court of Rome had 
 put on him, and by the ingratitude and seditious 
 practices of Reginald Pool, that he thereby lost much 
 of his former temper and patience, and was too ready 
 upon slight grounds to bring his subjects to the bar. 
 Where, though the matter was always so ordered 
 that, according to law, they were indicted and judged : 
 yet the severity of the law bordering sometimes on 
 rigour and cruelty, he came to be called a cruel 
 tyrant. Nor did his severity lie only on one side, 
 but being addicted to some tenets of the old religion, 
 and impatient of contradiction ; or perhaps blown up, 
 either with the vanity of his new title, of Head of 
 the Church, or with the praises which flatterers be- 
 stowed on him ; he thought all persons were bound 
 to regulate their belief by his dictates, which made 
 him prosecute Protestants as well as Papists. Yet it 
 does not appear that cruelty was natural to him. For 
 in twenty-five years' reign, none had suffered for any 
 crime against the state, but Pool, earl of Suffolk, and 
 Stafford, duke of Buckingham. The former, he pro- 
 secuted in obedience to his father's last commands at 
 his death. His severity to the other was imputed to 
 the Cardinal's malice. The proceedings were also 
 legal. And the Duke of Buckingham had, by the 
 knavery of a priest, to whom he gave great credit, 
 been made believe he had a right to the crown ; and 
 practices of that nature touch princes so nearly, that 
 
 u 2
 
 292 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 no wonder the law was executed in such a case. This 
 shews, that the King was not very jealous, nor de- 
 sirous of the blood of his subjects. But though he 
 always proceeded upon law, yet in the last ten years 
 of his life many instances of severity occurred, for 
 which he is rather to be pitied, than either imitated 
 or sharply censured. 
 
 The former Book was full of intrigues and foreign 
 transactions ; the greatest part of it being an account 
 of a tedious negotiation with the subtlest and most re- 
 
 O 
 
 fined court of Christendom, in all the art of human 
 policy. But now my work is confined to this nation ; 
 and, except in short touches by the way, I shall med- 
 dle no further with the mysteries of state ; but shall 
 give as clear an account of those things that relate to 
 religion and reformation as I could possibly recover. 
 The suppression of monasteries, the advance and de- 
 clension of reformation, and the proceedings against 
 those who adhered to the interests of the court of 
 Rome, must be the chief subjects of this Book. The 
 two former shall be opened, in the series of time as 
 they were transacted ; but the last shall be left to the 
 end of the Book, that it may be presented in one full 
 view. 
 
 The After the parliament had ended their business, the 
 
 Itw the bishops did all renew their allegiance to the King, and 
 King's su- swore a l so to maintain his supremacy in ecclesiastical 
 
 premacy. m i 
 
 matters ; acknowledging that he was the supreme head 
 of the church of England, though there was yet no 
 law for the requiring of any such oath. The first act 
 of the King's supremacy was, his naming Cromwell 
 vicar-general, and general visitor of all the monaste- 
 ries and other privileged places. This is commonly 
 confounded with his following dignity of lord vice- 
 gerent in ecclesiastical matters ; but they were two 
 different places, and held by different commissions. 
 By the one, he had no authority over the bishops, nor 
 had he any precedence ; but the other, as it gave him 
 the precedence next the royal family, so it clothed him 
 with a complete delegation of the King's whole power 
 in ecclesiastical affairs. For two years he was only
 
 PART I. BOOK III. 293 
 
 vicar-general : but the tenor of his commissions, and 
 the nature of the power devolved on him by them, 
 cannot be fully known. For neither the one nor the 
 other are in the Rolls, though there can be no doubt 
 made but commissions of such importance were en- 
 rolled ; therefore the loss of them can only be charged 
 on that search and rasure of records made by Bonner, 
 upon the commission granted to him by Queen Mary; 
 of which I have spoken in the preface of this work. 
 In the Prerogative Office there is a subaltern com- 
 mission granted to Dr. (afterwards Secretary) Petre, 
 on January 13, in the twenty-seventh year of the 
 King's reign ; by which it appears, that Cromwell's 
 commission was at first conceived in very general 
 words ; for he is called the King's vicegerent in ec- 
 clesiastical causes, his vicar-general, and official prin- 
 cipal. But because he could not himself attend upon 
 all these affairs, therefore Dr. Petre is deputed under 
 him, for receiving the probates of wills : from thence 
 likewise it appears, that all wills, where the estate 
 was 200 lib. or above, were no more to be tried or 
 proved in the bishops' courts, but in the vicar-gene- 
 ral's tourt. Yet though he was called vicegerent in 
 that commission, he was spoken of, and writ to, by 
 the name of vicar-general ; but after the second com- 
 mission, seen and mentioned by the Lord Herbert in 
 July, 1536, he was always designed lord vicegerent.* 
 The next thing that was every where laboured with 
 great industry was, to engage all the rest of the clergy, 
 chiefly the regulars, to own the King's supremacy ; to 
 which they generally submitted. In Oxford, the ques- Antip. 
 tion being put, Whether the Pope had any other ju- "p ."^' 
 risdiction in England than any other foreign bishop ? ^""jj" 
 it was referred to thirty doctors and bachelors, who isinC - 
 were empowered to set the University-seal to their E.i. " 
 conclusion. They all agreed in the negative, and the Feb ' 15 ' 
 whole University, being examined about it man by 
 man, assented to their determination. All the diffi- 
 
 * Collier is severe upon the Bishop for speaking of the offices of Vicar-Ge- 
 neral and Vicegerent, as distinct offices. But see upon this Mr. Lewis's remarks 
 in the Collectanea Curiosa, vol. ii. Oxford, 1781. N.
 
 294 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 The Fr an culty that I find made was at Richmond, by the Fran- 
 tri^rTre- ciscan friars, where the Bishop of Coventry and Litch- 
 fuseit. fi e }d (R ow i anc i L ee ) an d Thomas Bedyl, tendered 
 some conclusions to them ; among which this was 
 one : " That the pope of Rome has no greater juris- 
 diction in this kingdom of England, by the law of 
 God, than any other foreign bishop." This they told 
 them was already subscribed by the two Archbishops, 
 the Bishops of London, Winchester, Duresme, Bath, 
 and all the other prelates, and heads of houses, and 
 all the famous clerks of the realm. And therefore 
 they desired that the friars would refer the matter to 
 the four seniors of the house, and acquiesce in what 
 they should do. But the friars said, it concerned their 
 consciences, and therefore they would not submit it to 
 a small part of their house: they added, that they had 
 sworn to follow the rule of St. Francis, and in that 
 they would live and die ; and cited a chapter of their 
 rule " That their order should have a cardinal for 
 their protector, by whose directions they might be 
 governed in their obedience to the holy see." But 
 to this the Bishop answered, that St. Francis lived in 
 Italy, where the monks and other regulars, that had 
 exemptions, were subject to the Pope, as they were in 
 England to the Archbishop of Canterbury. And for 
 the chapter which they cited, it was shewed them, 
 that it was not written by St. Francis, but made since 
 his time ; and though it were truly a part of his rule, 
 it was told them, that no particular rule ought to be 
 preferred to the laws of the land ; to which all sub- 
 jects were bound to give obedience, and could not be 
 excused from it by any voluntary obligation under 
 which they brought themselves. Yet all this could 
 not prevail on them ; but they said to the Bishop, 
 they had professed St. Francis's rule, and would still 
 continue in the observance of it. 
 
 A general But though I do not find such resistance made 
 If S monM- elsewhere, yet it appears that some secret practices 
 de^ed. f man y f those orders against the state were disco- 
 vered ; therefore it was resolved, that some effectual 
 means must be taken for lessening their credit and
 
 PART I. BOOK III. 295 
 
 authority with the people ; and so a general visitation 
 of all monasteries and other religious houses was re- 
 solved on. This was ehiefly advised by Dr. Leigh- ong.cou. 
 ton, who had been in the Cardinal's service with 
 Cromwell, and was then taken notice of by him, as 
 a dexterous and diligent man, and therefore was now 
 made use of on this occasion. He, by a letter to 
 Cromwell, advertised him, that upon a long confe- 
 rence with the Dean of the Arches, he found the 
 Dean was of opinion, that it was not fit to make any 
 visitation in the King's name yet, for two or three 
 years, till his supremacy were better received ; and 
 that he apprehended a severe visitation so early would 
 make the clergy more averse to the King's power. 
 But Leigh ton, on the other hand, thought nothing 
 would so much recommend the supremacy, as to see 
 such good effects of it as might follow upon a strict 
 and exact visitation. And the abuses of religious 
 persons were now so great and visible, even to the 
 laity, that the correcting and reforming these would 
 be a very popular thing. He writ further, that there 
 had been no visitation in the northern parts since the 
 Cardinal ordered it : therefore he advised one, and 
 desired to be employed in Yorkshire. And, by an- 
 other letter, dated the 4th of June, he wrote to Crom- 
 well, desiring that Dr. Lee and he might be employed 
 in visiting all the monasteries from the diocese of 
 Lincoln northwards ; which they could manage better 
 than any body else, having great kindred and a large 
 acquaintance in those parts : so that they would be 
 able to discover all the disorders or seditious prac- 
 tices in these houses. He complained, that former 
 visitations had been slight and insignificant, and pro- 
 mised great faithfulness and diligence, both from 
 himself and Dr. Lee. 
 
 The Archbishop of Canterbury was now making cranmer 
 his metropolitical visitation, having obtained the^ 
 King's license for it ; which says, that he having de- 
 sired, that according to the custom and the preroga- 
 tive of his metropolitical see, he might make his vi- 
 sitation, the King granted him license to do it, and
 
 296 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 required all to assist and obey him ; dated the 28th 
 
 not Pat. of April. Things were not yet ripe for doing great 
 
 ?an D 'if ' matters ; so that which he now looked to, was to see 
 
 that all should submit to the King's supremacy, and 
 
 renounce any dependance on the Pope, whose name 
 
 was to be struck out of all the public offices of the 
 
 Regist. church. This was begun in May, 1535. Stokesley, 
 
 foK 1 *!! bishop of London, submitted not to this visitation, 
 
 till he had entered three protestations for keeping up 
 
 of privileges. 
 
 The Km^ In October began the great visitation of monaste- 
 begun!"" 1 nes, which was committed to several commissioners. 
 Leighton, Lee, and London were most employed : 
 but many others were also empowered to visit. For 
 I find letters from Robert Southwell, Ellice Price, 
 John Ap-price, Richard Southwell, John Gage, 
 Richard Bellasis, Walter Hendle, and several others, 
 to Cromwell ; giving him an account of the progress 
 they made in their several provinces. Their com- 
 missions, if they were passed under the great seal, 
 and enrolled, have been taken out of the Rolls ; for 
 there are none of them to be found there. Yet I in- 
 cline to think, they were net under the great seal, 
 in MSS. For I have seen an original commission for the visi- 
 point! ' er tation that was next year, which was only under the 
 King's hand and signet. From which it may be in- 
 ferred, that the commissions this year were of the 
 same nature : yet whether such commissions could 
 authorize them to grant dispensations, and discharge 
 men out of the houses they were in, I am not skilled 
 enough in law to determine. And by their letters to 
 Cromwell, I find they did assume authority for these 
 things. So what their power was, I am not able to 
 discover. But besides their powers and commissions, 
 they got instructions to direct them in their visita- 
 tions and injunctions to be left in every house, of 
 cott.ia>. which, though I could not recover the originals, yet 
 copies of very good authority I have seen, which the 
 reader will find in the Collection at the end of this 
 Book. The instructions contain eighty-six articles. 
 The substance of them was, to try,
 
 PART I. BOOK III. 297 
 
 " Whether Divine service was kept up, day and Ins| - 
 night, in the right hours ? And how many were com- *. u. 
 monly present, and who were frequently absent ? co"i e ee 
 
 " Whether the full number, according to the foun- *' umb - l - 
 dation, was in every house ? Who were the founders ? 
 What additions have been made since the founda- 
 tion ? And what were their revenues ? Whether it 
 was ever changed from one order to another ? By 
 whom ? And for what cause ? 
 
 " What mortmains they had ? And whether their 
 founders were sufficiently authorized to make such 
 donations ? 
 
 " Upon what suggestions, and for what causes, 
 they were exempted from their diocesans? 
 
 " Their local statutes were also to be seen and ex- 
 amined. 
 
 " The election of their head was to be inquired into. 
 The rule of every house was to be considered. How 
 many professed ? And how many novices were in 
 it ? And at what time the novices professed ? 
 
 " Whether they knew their rule and observed it? 
 Chiefly the three vows of poverty, chastity, and obe- 
 dience? Whether any of them kept any money 
 without the master's knowledge ? Whether they kept 
 company with women, within or without the monas- 
 tery ? Or if there were any back doors, by which 
 women came within the precinct? Whether they 
 had any boys lying by them ? 
 
 " Whether they observed the rules of silence, fast- 
 ing, abstinence, and hair shirts ? Or by what warrant 
 they were dispensed with, in any of these ? 
 
 " Whether they did eat, sleep, wear their habit, 
 and stay within the monastery, according to their 
 rules ? 
 
 "Whether the master was too cruel, or too re- 
 miss? And whether he used the brethren without 
 partiality or malice ? 
 
 " Whether any of the brethren were incorrigible-? 
 
 " Whether the master made his accompts faithfully 
 once a year? Whether all the other officers made 
 their accompts truly ? And whether the whole re-
 
 S*)8 JBURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 venues of the house were employed according to the 
 intention of the founders ? 
 
 " Whether the fabric was kept up, and the plate 
 and furniture were carefully preserved ? 
 
 " Whether the covent-seal, and the writings of the 
 house, were well kept? And whether leases were made 
 by the master to his kindred and friends, to the da- 
 mage of the house ? Whether hospitality was kept, and 
 whether, at the receiving of novices, any money or 
 reward was demanded or promised ? What care was 
 taken to instruct the novices ? 
 
 "Whether any had entered into the house, in hope 
 to be once the master of it ? 
 
 " Whether, in giving presentations to livings, the 
 master had reserved a pension out of them ? Or what 
 sort of bargains he made concerning them ? 
 
 " An account was to be taken, of all the parsonages 
 and vicarages belonging to every house, and how 
 these benefices were disposed of, and how the cure 
 was served." 
 
 All these things were to be inquired after in the 
 house of monks or friars. And in the visitation of 
 nunneries, they were to search, 
 
 " Whether the house had a good inclosure, and if 
 the doors and windows were kept shut, so that no 
 man could enter at inconvenient hours ? 
 
 "Whether any men conversed with the sisters 
 alone, without the abbess's leave ? 
 
 " Whether any sister was forced to profess, either 
 by her kindred, or by the abbess ? 
 
 " Whether they went out of their precinct without 
 leave ? And whether they wore their habit then ? 
 
 " What employment they had out of the times of 
 Divine service ? What familiarity they had with re- 
 ligious men ? Whether they wrote love-letters ? Or 
 sent and received tokens or presents ? 
 
 u Whether the confessor was a discreet and learned 
 man, and of good reputation ? And how oft a year 
 the sisters did confess and communicate ?" 
 
 They were also to visit all collegiate churches, hos- 
 pitals and cathedrals, and the order of the Knights of
 
 PART I. BOOK III 290 
 
 Jerusalem. But if this copy be complete, they were 
 only to view their writings and papers, to see what 
 could be gathered out of them, about the reformation 
 of monastical orders. And as they were to visit, ac- 
 cording to these instructions, so they were to give 
 some injunctions in the King's name. 
 
 " That they should endeavour, all that in them lay, injunctions 
 that the act of the King's succession should be ob- [ r io a ^ re ~ 
 served," (where it is said, ' that they had under their houses - 
 hands and seals confirmed it.' This shews, that all See 
 the religious houses of England had acknowledged Numb.. 
 it:) "and they should teach the people, that the King's 
 power was supreme on earth, under God, and that 
 the Bishop of Rome's power was usurped by craft 
 and policy, and by his ill canons and decretals, which 
 had been long tolerated by the Prince, but was now 
 justly taken away. 
 
 " The abbot and brethren were declared to be ab- 
 solved from any oath they had sworn to the Pope, or 
 to any foreign potentate ; and the statutes of any order, 
 that did bind them to a foreign subjection, were abro- 
 gated, and ordered to be razed out of their books. 
 
 " That no monk should go out of the precinct, nor 
 any woman enter within it, without leave from the 
 King or the visitor, and that there should be no entry 
 to it, but one. 
 
 " Some rules were given about their meals, and a 
 chapter of the Old or New Testament was ordered to 
 be read at every one. The abbot's table was to be 
 served with common meats, and not with delicate and 
 strange dishes ; and either he, or one of the seniors, 
 was to be always there to entertain strangers. 
 
 " Some other rules follow about the distribution of 
 their alms, their accommodation in health and sick- 
 ness. One or two of every house was to be kept at the 
 University, that, when they were well instructed, they 
 might come and teach others : and every day, there 
 was to be a lecture of divinity for a whole hour : the 
 brethren must all be well employed. 
 
 " The abbot or head was every day to explain some 
 part of the rule, and apply it according to Christ's law;
 
 iJOO BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 and to shew them, that their ceremonies were but ele- 
 ments, introductory to true Christianity ; and that re- 
 ligion consisted not in habits, or in such-like rites, but 
 in cleanness of heart, pureness of living, unfeigned 
 faith, brotherly charity, and true honouring of God in 
 spirit and truth : that therefore they must riot rest in 
 their ceremonies, but ascend by them to true religion. 
 
 " Other rules are added about the revenues of the 
 house, and against wastes, and that none be entered 
 into their house, nor admitted under twenty-four years 
 of age. 
 
 " Every priest in the house was to say mass daily, 
 and in it to pray for the King and Queen. 
 
 " If any brake any of these injunctions, he was to be 
 denounced to the King, or his Visitor-sreneral. The 
 
 O ' O 
 
 Visitor had also authority to punish any, whom he 
 should find guilty of any crime, and to bring the 
 Visitor-general such of their books and writings as 
 he thought fit." 
 
 /\nac- But before I give an account of this visitation, I 
 
 th""- presume it will not be ingrateful to the reader, to offer 
 
 fhTmoLs- n ^ m some short view of the rise and progress of mo- 
 
 tieai siate nastic orders in England, and of the state they were 
 
 iand." g in at this time. What the ancient British monks were, 
 
 or by what rule they were governed ; whether it was 
 
 from the eastern churches, that this constitution was 
 
 brought into Britain, and was either suited to the rule 
 
 of St. Anthony, St. Pachom, or St. Basil ; or whether 
 
 they had it from France, where Sulpitius tells us, St. 
 
 Martin set up monasteries, must be left to conjecture. 
 
 But from the little that remains of them, we find they 
 
 were very numerous, and were obedient to the Bishop 
 
 of Caerleon, as all the monks of the primitive times 
 
 were to their bishops, according to the canons of the 
 
 council of Chalcedon. 
 
 But, upon the confusions which the Gothic wars 
 brought into Italy, Benedict and others set up religious 
 houses : and more artificial rules and methods were 
 found out for their government. Not long after that, 
 Austin the monk came into England ; and having bap- 
 tized Ethelbert, he persuaded him to found a monas-
 
 PART I. BOOK III. 301 
 
 tery at Canterbury, which the King, by his charter, ex- The - 
 empted from the jurisdiction of the Archbishop and 0?'."* 
 his successors. This was not only done by Austin's S^'M'"' 
 consent, but he by another writing confirms this foun- '> 
 dation, and exempted both the monastery and all the 
 churches belonging to it from his or his successors' 
 jurisdictions; and most earnestly conjures his succes- 
 sors, never to give any trouble to the monks, who were 
 only to be subject to their own abbot. And this was 
 granted, that they might have no disturbance in the 
 service of God. (But whether this, with many other 
 ancient foundations, were not latter forgeries, which 
 I vehemently suspect, I leave to critics to discuss.) 
 The next exemption, that I find, was granted in the 
 year 680, to the abbey of Peterborough, by Pope 
 Agatho, and was signed by Theodore, archbishop of 
 Canterbury, called the Pope's legate. (This I doubt 
 was forged afterwards.) In the year 725, King Ina's 
 cnarter to the abbey of Glassenbury relates to their 
 ancient charters, and exempts them from the bishop's 
 jurisdiction. King Offa founded and exempted the 
 monastery of St. Albans, in the year 793, which Pope 
 Honorius III. confirmed, anno 1218. Kenulph, king 
 of Mercia, founded and exempted Abington, in the 
 year 821. Knut founded and exempted St. Edmunds- 
 bury, in the year 1020. 
 
 About the end of the eighth century, the Danes be- Mowste. 
 gan to make their descents into England, and made rljiy 8 . 
 every where great depredations; and finding the e ^ ed 
 monks had possessed themselves of the greatest part 
 of the riches of the nation, they made their most fre- Amiquu. 
 quent inroads upon these places where they knew the 
 richest spoil was to be found. And they did so waste 
 and ruin these houses, that they were generally aban- 
 doned by the monks, who as they loved the ease and 
 wealth they had enjoyed formerly in their houses, so 
 had no rnind to expose themselves to the persecutions 
 of those heathenish invaders. But when they had de- 
 serted their seats, the secular clergy came and possessed 
 them ; so that in King Edgar's time there was scarce 
 a monk in all England. He was a most dissolute and
 
 302 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 Bat are lewd prince ; but, being persuaded by Dunstan, and 
 upV King other monks, that what he did towards restoring of 
 Edgar ' that decayed state would be a matter of great merit, 
 became the great promoter of the monastical state in 
 England ; for he converted most of the chapters into 
 monasteries ; and by his foundation of the priory of 
 Worcester, it appears, he had then founded no fewer 
 than forty-seven, which he intended to increase to 
 fifty, the number of pardons. Yet in his foundations, 
 he only exempted the monasteries from all exactions 
 or dues, which the bishops claimed. There are ex- 
 emptions of several rates and sizes : some houses were 
 only exempted from all exactions; others from all ju- 
 risdiction or visitations; others had only an exemp- 
 tion for their precinct ; others for all the churches that 
 belonged to them. Edward the Confessor exempted 
 many of these houses, which Edgar had founded, as 
 Ramsey, &c. He also founded and exempted West- 
 minster; which exemption was confirmed by Pope 
 Nicolas, in a bull to King Edward. William the 
 Conqueror founded and exempted the abbey, of Battle 
 from all episcopal jurisdiction. 
 
 But after that time I do not find that our kings ex- 
 
 O 
 
 empted abbeys from any thing but episcopal exac- 
 tions ; for though formerly kings had made laws, and 
 given orders about ecclesiastical matters, yet now the 
 claim to an immunity from the civil jurisdiction, and 
 also the papal authority, were grown to that height, 
 that princes were to meddle no more with sacred 
 things. And henceforth all exemptions were granted 
 by the popes, who claimed a jurisdiction over the 
 whole church ; and assumed that power to them- 
 selves, with many other usurpations. 
 
 Arts used All the ancient foundations were subscribed by the 
 nfonksfor King, the Queen, and Prince, with many bishops and 
 enmhmg J^^Q^ an( j d u k es an d ear l s consenting. The abbeys 
 hoascs. being exempted from all jurisdiction, both civil and 
 spiritual, and from all impositions ; and having ge- 
 nerally the privilege of sanctuary for all that fled to 
 them, were at ease, and accountable to none ; so they 
 might do what they pleased. They found also means
 
 PART I. BOOK III. 303 
 
 to enrich themselves, first, by the belief of purgatory. 
 For they persuaded all people, that the souls departed 
 went generally thither : few were so holy, as to go 
 straight to heaven ; and few so bad, as to be cast to 
 hell. Then people were made believe, that the say- 
 ing of masses for their souls gave them great relief 
 in torments, and did at length deliver them out of 
 them. This being generally received, it was thought 
 by all a piece of piety to their parents, and of ne- 
 cessary care for themselves and their families, to give 
 some part of their estates towards the enriching of 
 these houses, for having a mass said every day for 
 the souls of their ancestors, and for their own, after 
 their death. And this did so spread, that if some 
 laws had not restrained their profuseness, the greater 
 part of all the estates in England had been given to 
 those houses. But the statutes of mortmain were 
 not very effectual restraints ; for what king soever 
 had refused to grant a mortmain, was sure to have 
 an uneasy reign ever after. 
 
 Yet this did not satisfy the monks, but they fell 
 upon other contrivances, to get the best of all men's 
 jewels, plate, and furniture. For they persuaded 
 them, that the protection and intercession of saints 
 were of mighty use to them ; so that whatsoever re- 
 spect they put on the shrines and images, but chiefly 
 on the relics of saints, they would find their account 
 in it, and the saints would take it kindly at their 
 hands, and intercede the more earnestly for them. 
 And people, who saw courtiers much wrought on by 
 presents, imagined the saints were of the same tem- 
 per ; only with this difference, that courtiers love to 
 have presents put in their own hands, but the saints 
 were satisfied if they were given to others. And as 
 in the courts of princes, the new favourite commonly 
 had greatest credit, so every new saint was believed 
 to have a greater force in his addresses ; and there- 
 fore every body was to run to their shrines, and make 
 great presents to them. This being infused into the 
 credulous multitude, they brought the richest things 
 they had to the places where the bodies or relics of
 
 304 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 those saints were laid. Some images were also be- 
 lieved to have a peculiar excellency in them ; and 
 pilgrimages and presents to these were much mag- 
 nified. But, to quicken all this, the monks found 
 the means, either by dreams and visions, or strange 
 miraculous stories, to feed the devotion of the people. 
 Relics without number were every where discovered ; 
 and most wonderful relations of the martyrdom, and 
 other miracles of the saints, were made and read in 
 all places to the people ; and new improvements were 
 daily made in a trade, that, through the craft of the 
 monks, and the simplicity of the people, brought in 
 great advantages. And though there was enough 
 got to enrich them all, yet there was strange rival- 
 ling, not only among the several orders, but the 
 houses of the same order. The monks, especially of 
 Glassenbury, St. Albans, and St. Edmundsbury, vied 
 one with another who could tell the most extrava- 
 gant stories for the honour of their house, and of the 
 relics in it. 
 
 They be. The monks in these houses abounding in wealth, 
 r^Ty co e and living at ease and in idleness, did so degenerate, 
 rupted. that, from the twelfth century downward, their repu- 
 tation abated much ; and the privileges of sanctuaries 
 were a general grievance, and oft complained of in 
 parliaments : for they received all that fled to them, 
 which put a great stop to justice, and did encourage 
 the most criminal offenders. They became lewd and 
 dissolute, and so impudent in it, that some of their 
 farms were let for bringing in a yearly tribute to their 
 lusts : nor did they keep hospitality and relieve the 
 poor ; but rather encouraged vagabonds and beggars 
 against whom laws were made, both in Edward III. 
 King Henry VII. and this King's reign. 
 U P D But from the twelfth century, the orders of beg- 
 
 which the . r . , , ^ ' , 
 
 ^gging gmg triars were set up, and they, by the appearance 
 muc in"* f severity and mortification, gained great esteem, 
 credit. At first they would have nothing, no real estates, but 
 the ground on which their house stood. But after- 
 wards distinctions were found for satisfying their 
 consciences in larger possessions. They were not so
 
 PART I. BOOK III. 305 
 
 idle and lazy as the monks, but went about and 
 preached, and heard confessions, and carried about 
 indulgences, with many other pretty little things, 
 Agnus Dei's, rosaries, and pebbles ; which they made 
 the world believe had great virtue in them. And 
 they had the esteem of the people wholly engrossed 
 to themselves They were also more formidable to 
 princes than the monks, because they were poorer, 
 and, by consequence, more hardy and bold. There 
 was also a firmer union of their whole order, they 
 having a general at Rome, and divided into many 
 provinces, subject to their provincials. They had 
 likewise the school-learning wholly in their hands, 
 and were great preachers, so that many things con- 
 curred to raise their esteem with the people very 
 high ; yet great complaints lay against them, for they 
 went more abroad than the monks did, and were 
 believed guilty of corrupting families. The scandals 
 that went on them, upon their relaxing the primitive 
 strictness of their orders, were a little rectified by 
 some reformations of these orders. But that lasted 
 not long; for they became liable to much censure, 
 and many visitations had been made, but to little pur- 
 pose. This concurring with their secret practices 
 against the King, both in the matter of his divorce 
 and supremacy, made him more willing to examine 
 the truth of these reports ; that if they were found 
 guilty of such scandals, they might lose their credit 
 with the people, and occasions be ministered to the 
 King, to justify the suppression of them. 
 
 There were also two other motives that inclined the The King's 
 King to this counsel. The one was, that he appre- ^"VoT 
 hended a war from the Emperor, who was then the j^ lviDf 
 only prince in the world that had any considerable h<*es. 
 force at sea ; having both great fleets in the Indies, 
 and being Prince of the Netherlands, where the 
 greatest trade of these parts was driven. Therefore 
 the King judged it necessary to fortify his ports, and 
 seeing the great advantages of trade, which began 
 then to rise much, was resolved to encourage it : for 
 which end he intended to build many havens and 
 
 VOL. i. x
 
 306 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 harbours. This was a matter of great charge, and 
 as his own revenue could not defray it, so he had no 
 mind to lay heavy taxes on his subjects : therefore 
 the suppression of monasteries was thought the easiest 
 way of raising money. 
 
 He also intended to erect many more bishopricks, 
 to which Cranmer advised him much, that the vast- 
 ness of some dioceses, being reduced to a narrower 
 compass, bishops might better discharge their duties, 
 and oversee their flocks, according to the Scriptures, 
 and the primitive rules. 
 
 cranmer-s But Cranmer did on another reason press the sup- 
 u! sigl ' pression of monasteries. He found that their founda- 
 tions, and whole state, was inconsistent with a full 
 and true reformation. For among the things to be 
 reformed were these abuses, which were essential to 
 their constitution ; (such as, the belief of purgatory, 
 of redeeming souls by masses, the worship of saints 
 and images, and pilgrimages, and the like.) And 
 therefore those societies, whose interest it was to op- 
 pose the Reformation, were once to be suppressed : 
 and then he hoped, upon new endowments and 
 foundations, new houses should have been erected at 
 every cathedral, to be nurseries for that whole dio- 
 cese ; which he thought would be more suitable to 
 the primitive use of monasteries, and more profitable 
 to the church. This was his scheme, as will after- 
 wards appear ; which was in some measure effected, 
 though not so fully as he projected, for reasons to be 
 told in their proper place. 
 
 First mo- There had been a bull sent from Rome for dis- 
 thatTas solving some monasteries, and erecting bishopricks 
 dissolved. ou j. o f t nenlj as was related in the former Book, in 
 the year 1532. And it seems it was upon that au- 
 thority, that in the year 1533, the priory of Christ's 
 Church, near Algate in London, was dissolved, and 
 given to the Lord Chancellor, Sir Thomas Audley ; 
 (not to make him speak shriller for his master in the 
 House of Commons, as Fuller mistakes it ; for he had 
 been lord chancellor a year before this was given him.) 
 The Pope's authority not being at that time put down,
 
 PART I. BOOK III. 307 
 
 nor the King's supremacy set up, I conjecture it was 
 done pursuant to the bull for the dissolution of some 
 religious houses ; but I never saw the dissolution, and 
 so can only guess on what ground it was made. But A <* 10. 
 in the parliament held the former year, in which the Rg . 25. 
 King's grant of that house to the Lord Chancellor 
 was confirmed, it is said, in the preamble, " that the 
 prior and convent had resigned that house to the 
 King, the 24th of February, 23d Regni, and had left 
 their house ;" but no mention is made upon what rea- 
 son they did it. 
 
 But now I come to consider how the visitors car- xbepro- 
 ried on their visitations. Many severe things are ^e^fw 
 said of their proceedings ; nor is it any wonder, that Lib 
 men who had traded so long in lies, as the monks had E- * 
 done, should load those, whom they esteemed the 
 instruments of their ruin, with many calumnies. By 
 their letters to Cromwell, it appears, that in most 
 houses they found monstrous disorders. That many 
 fell down on their knees, and prayed they might be 
 discharged, since they had been forced to make vows 
 against their wills ; with these the visitors dispensed, 
 and set them at liberty. They found great factions 
 in the houses, and barbarous cruelties exercised by 
 one faction against another, as either of them pre- 
 vailed. In many places, when they gave them the 
 King's injunctions, many cried out, that the severity 
 of them was intolerable, and they desired rather to 
 be suppressed, than so reformed. They were all 
 extremely addicted to idolatry and superstition, hi 
 some they found the instruments, and other tools, for 
 multiplying and coining. 
 
 But for the lewdness of the confessors of nunneries, 
 and the great corruption of that state, whole houses 
 being found almost all with child ; for the dissolute- 
 ness of abbots and the other monks and friars, not 
 only with whores, but married women ; and for their 
 unnatural lusts and other brutal practices, these are 
 not fit to be spoken of, much less enlarged on in a 
 work of this nature. The full report of this visitation iwa. 
 is lost, yet I have seen an extract of a part of it, con- 
 
 x 2
 
 Some 
 houses 
 
 308 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 cerning one hundred and forty-four houses, that 
 contains abominations in it equal to any that were in 
 Sodom. 
 
 One passage that is more remarkable, I shall only 
 set down ; because upon it followed the first resig- 
 e nation of any religious house that I could ever find. 
 Doctor Leighton beset the Abbot of Langden's house, 
 and broke open his door of a sudden, and found his 
 whore with him ; and in the Abbot's coffer there was 
 a habit for her, for she went for a young brother. 
 Whether the shame of this discovery, or any other 
 consideration prevailed with him, I know not ; but, 
 on the 13th of November, he and ten monks signed a 
 
 ' ~ 
 
 resignation, which hath an odd kind of preamble, to 
 collect, be found in the Collection. " It says, that the revenue 
 sect! i. of the house was so much endamaged and engaged 
 in so much debt, that they considering this, and what 
 remedies might be found for it, saw, that except 
 the King, of whose foundation the house was, did 
 speedily relieve them, it must be very quickly ruined, 
 both as to its spiritual and temporal concerns ; there- 
 fore they surrender up their house to the King/' 
 They were of the order of Premonstre, and their 
 house was dedicated to the honour of the blessed 
 xheorigi- Virgin and St. Thomas Becket. This precedent was 
 "e!igna hese followed by the like surrender, with the same pre- 
 ilthe A* am ^ e > on tne 1 5th of November, by the Prior of 
 mentation Folkeston, a Benedictine ; and, on the 16th, by the 
 envied!" 1 Prior of Dover, with eight monks. These were all 
 i^i"""' of them in the county of Kent. But neither among 
 Regn.27. the original surrenders, nor in the Clause Rolls, are 
 there any other deeds in this year of our Lord. There 
 are indeed in the same year of the King, (which runs 
 till April, 1536,) four other surrenders, with the same 
 preambles. Of Merton, in Yorkshire, a convent of 
 Augustinians, signed by the Prior and five monks, 
 the 9th of February ; of Bilsingtoun, in Kent, signed 
 by the Prior and two monks, the 21st of February ; 
 of Tilty, in Essex, a convent of Cistercians, signed 
 by the Prior and five monks ; and of Hornby, in York- 
 shire, a convent of the Premonstre, signed by the
 
 PART I. BOOK III. 309 
 
 Prior and two monks, the 23d of March. These 
 were all the surrenders that I can discover to have 
 been made before the act of Parliament, for sup- 
 pressing the lesser monasteries, passed in the next 
 session that was assembled in February. 
 
 But before that the afflicted and unfortunate Queen isse. 
 Katherine died at Kimbolton : she had been much T1 
 
 of Queen 
 
 Katherine. 
 
 disquieted, because she would not lay down her title K 
 of Queen. Many of her servants were put from her 
 on that account ; but she would accept of no service, 
 from any that did not use her as a queen, and call 
 her so. The King sent oft to her, to persuade her 
 to more compliance. But she stood her ground, and 
 said, since the Pope had judged her marriage good, original*, 
 she would lose her life before she did any thing in l . c'eu! 
 prejudice of it. She became more cheerful than she Ub> 
 had wont to be ; and the country people came much 
 to her, whom she received and used very obligingly, 
 The King had a mind she should go to Fotheringay 
 Castle. But when it was proposed to her, she plainly 
 said, she would never go thither, unless she was car- 
 ried as a prisoner, bound with ropes. She desired 
 leave to come nearer London ; but that was not 
 granted. She had the jointure that was assigned her, 
 as Princess Dowager, and was treated with the respect 
 due to that dignity ; but all the women about her 
 still called her Queen. I do not find she had any 
 thoughts of going out of England ; though her life in 
 it was but melancholy. Yet her care to support her 
 daughter's title made her bear all the disgraces she 
 lay under. The officious and practising clergy, that 
 were for the court of Rome, looked on her as the 
 head of their party, and asserted her interests much. 
 Yet she was so watched, that she could not hold 
 any great correspondence with them ; though in the 
 matter of the Maid of Kent she had some meddling. 
 When she sickened, she made her will ; and ap- 
 pointed her body to be buried in a convent of Obser- 
 vant friars, (who had done and suffered most for her,) 
 and ordered five hundred masses to be said for her 
 soul ; and that one should go a pilgrimage to our
 
 310 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 Lady of Walsingham, and give twenty nobles by the 
 way to the poor. Some other small legacies she left 
 to her servants. When the King heard she was sick, 
 he sent a kind message to her ; and the Emperor's 
 ambassador went to see her, and to cheer her up ; but 
 when she found her sickness like to prove mortal, she 
 made one about her write a letter in her name to the 
 King. In the title she called him, " Her good Lord, 
 King, and Husband. She advised him to look to the 
 health of his soul. She forgave him all the troubles 
 he had cast her into. She recommended their daugh- 
 ter Mary to him, and desired he would be a loving 
 father to her. She also desired, that he would provide 
 matches for her maids, who were but three ; and that 
 he would give her servants one year's wages more 
 than was due to them. And concluded lastly, ' I 
 make this vow, that mine eyes desire you above all 
 things.' 51 By another letter, she recommended her 
 daughter to the Emperor's care. On the 8th of Ja- 
 nuary she died, in the fiftieth year of her age, thirty- 
 three years after she came to England. She was a de- 
 vout and pious princess, and led a severe and mor- 
 tified life. In her greatness she wrought much with 
 her own hands, and kept her women well employed 
 about her ; as appeared when the two legates came 
 once to speak to her. She came out to them with 
 a skein of silk about her neck, and told them, she 
 had been at work with her women. She was most 
 passionately devoted to the interests of the court of 
 Rome, they being so interwoven with her own. And, 
 in a word, she is represented as a most wonderful 
 good woman. Only I find on many occasions, that 
 the King complained much of her uneasiness and 
 peevishness. But whether the fault was in her humour, 
 or in the provocations she met with, the reader may 
 conjecture. The King received the news of her death 
 with some regret. But he would not give leave to 
 bury her as she had ordered ; but made her body be 
 laid in the abbey church of Peterborough, which he 
 afterwards converted to an episcopal cathedral. But 
 Queen Anne did not carry her death so decently ;
 
 PART I. BOOK III. 311 
 
 for she expressed too much joy at it, both in her car- 
 riage and dress. 
 
 On the 4th of February, the parliament sat, upon A new**. 
 a prorogation of fourteen months, (for in the Record u^***' 
 there is no mention of any intermedial prorogation,) 
 where a great many laws, relating to civil concerns, 
 were passed. By the 15th act, the power that had 
 been given by a former act to the King, for naming 
 thirty-two persons, to make a collection of ecclesi- 
 astical laws, was again confirmed ; for nothing had 
 been done upon the former act. But there was no 
 limitation of time in this act, and so there was nothing 
 done in pursuance of it. 
 
 The great business of this session of parliament was The lessfr 
 the suppressing the lesser monasteries. How this . 
 went through the two houses we cannot know from pressed ' 
 the Journals, for they are lost. But all the historians 
 of that time, tell us, that the report which the visitors 
 made to the King was read in parliament : which re- 
 presented the manners of these houses so odiously, 
 that the act was easily carried. The preamble bears, 
 " That small religious houses, under the number of 
 twelve persons, had been long and notoriously guilty 
 of vicious and abominable living ; and did much con- 
 sume and waste their churches, lands, and other things 
 belonging to them ; and that for above two hundred 
 years, there had been many visitations for reforming 
 these abuses, but with no success ; their vicious living 
 increasing daily : so that except small houses were 
 dissolved, and the religious put into greater monas- 
 teries, there could no reformation be expected in that 
 matter. Whereupon the King having received a full 
 information of these abuses, both by his visitors and 
 other credible ways, and considering that there were 
 divers great monasteries, in which religion was well 
 kept and observed, which had not the full number in 
 them, that they might and ought to receive, had made 
 a full declaration of the premises in parliament. 
 Whereupon it was enacted, that all houses which 
 might spend yearly two hundred pounds, or within it, 
 should be suppressed, and their revenues converted to
 
 Keasons 
 for do- 
 
 912 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 better uses, and they compelled to reform their lives." 
 The Lord Herbert thinks it strange, that the statute in 
 the printed book has no preamble, but begins bluntly. 
 Fuller tells us, that he wonders that Lord did not see 
 the record ; and he sets down the preamble, and says, 
 " The rest follow as in the printed statute, chap. 27th ;" 
 by a mistake for the 28th. This shews that neither 
 the one nor the other ever looked on the record. For 
 there is a particular statute of dissolution, distinct 
 from the 28th chapter ; and the preamble, which 
 Fuller sets down, belongs not to the 28th chapter, as 
 he says, but to the 18th chapter, which was never 
 printed ; and the 28th relates in the preamble to that 
 other statute, which had given these monasteries to 
 the King. 
 
 The reasons that were pretended for dissolving 
 ">g these houses, were : that whereas there was but a 
 small number of persons in them, they entered into 
 confederacies together, and their poverty set them on 
 to use many ill arts to grow rich. They were also 
 much abroad, and kept no manner of discipline in their 
 houses. But those houses were generally much richer 
 than they seemed to be : for the abbots, raising great 
 fines out of them, held the leases still low ; and by 
 that means, they were not obliged to entertain a 
 greater number in their house, and so enriched them- 
 selves and their brethren by the fines that were raised ; 
 for many houses, then rated at two hundred pounds, 
 were worth many thousands, as will appear to any 
 that compares, what they were then valued at, (which 
 is collected by Speed,) with what their estates are 
 truly worth. When this was passing in parliament, 
 Stokesley, bishop of London, said, " These lesser 
 houses were as thorns, soon plucked up, but the great 
 abbots were like putrefied old oaks ; yet they must 
 needs follow, and so would others do in Christendom, 
 before many years were passed." 
 
 By another act, all these houses, their churches, 
 lands, and all their goods, were given to the King, and 
 his heirs and successors, together with all other houses, 
 which within a year before the making of the act had
 
 PART I. BOOK III. 313 
 
 been dissolved or suppressed ; and for the gathering 
 the revenues that belonged to them, a new court was 
 erected, called the Court of the Augmentations of the 
 King's Revenue ; which was to consist of a chancel- 
 lor, a treasurer, an attorney and solicitor, and ten au- 
 ditors, seventeen receivers, a clerk, an usher, and a 
 messenger. This court was to bring in the revenues 
 of such houses as were now dissolved, excepting only 
 such as the King by his letters-patents continued in 
 their former state, appointing a seal for the court, with 
 full power and authority to dispose of these lands so 
 as might be most for the King's service. 
 
 Thus fell the lesser abbeys, to the number of three 
 hundred and seventy-six; and, soon after, this par- 
 liament, which had done the King such eminent ser- 
 vice, and had now sat six years, was dissolved on the 
 14th of April. 
 
 In the convocation, a motion was made of great con- The tr. ns 
 sequence, that there should be a translation of the !heBibi f e 
 Bible in English, to be set up in all the churches of j, n es f" D g ^ sh 
 England. The clergy, when they procured Tindal's 
 translation to be condemned, and suppressed it, gave 
 out that they intended to make a translation into the 
 vulgar tongue : yet it was afterwards, upon a long 
 consultation, resolved, that it was free for the church 
 to give the Bible in a vulgar tongue, or not, as they 
 pleased ; and that the King was not obliged to it, and 
 that at that time it was not at all expedient to do it. 
 Upon which those that promoted the Reformation 
 made great complaints, and said it was visible the 
 clergy knew there was an opposition between the 
 Scriptures and their doctrine. That they had first 
 condemned Wickliffe's translation, and then Tindal's; 
 and though they ought to teach men the word of God, 
 yet they did all they could to suppress it. 
 
 In the times of the Old Testament, the Scriptures Therea. 
 were writ in the vulgar tongue, and all were charged *' 
 to read and remember the law. The apostles wrote 
 in Greek, which was then the most common language 
 in the world. Christ did also appeal to the Scrip- 
 tures, and sent the people to them. And by what St.
 
 314 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 Paul says of Timothy, it appears, that children were 
 then early trained up in that study. In the primitive 
 church, as nations were converted to the faith, the Bi- 
 ble was translated into their tongue. The Latin trans- 
 lation was very ancient ; the Bible was afterwards put 
 into the Scythian, Dalmatian, and Gothic tongues. 
 It continued thus for several ages, till the state of 
 monkery rose ; and then, when they engrossed the 
 riches, and the popes assumed the dominion, of the 
 world, it was not consistent with these designs, nor 
 with the arts used to promote them, to let the Scrip- 
 tures be much known : therefore legends and strange 
 stories of visions, with other devices, were thought 
 more proper for keeping up their credit, and carrying 
 on their ends. 
 
 It was now generally desired, that if there were 
 just exceptions against what Tindal had done, these 
 might be amended in a new translation. This was 
 a plausible thing, and wrought much on all that 
 heard it; who plainly concluded, that those who 
 denied the people the use of the Scriptures in their 
 vulgar tongues, must needs know their own doctrine 
 and practices to be inconsistent with it. Upon these 
 grounds, Cranmer, who was projecting the most effec- 
 tual means for promoting a reformation of doctrine, 
 moved in convocation, that they should petition the 
 The oppo- King for leave to make a translation of the Bible. But 
 Mtionmade Q ar 3i ner an d Q\\ his party opposed it, both in convo- 
 cation and in secret with the King. It was said, that 
 all the heresies and extravagant opinions, which were 
 then in Germany, and from thence coming over to 
 England, sprang from the free use of the Scriptures. 
 And whereas in May the last year, nineteen Hol- 
 landers were accused of some heretical opinions; " de- 
 nying Christ to be both God and man, or that he took 
 flesh and blood of the Virgin Mary, or that the sacra- 
 ments had any effect on those that received them;" 
 in which opinions fourteen of them remained obsti- 
 nate, and were burnt by pairs in several places : it was 
 complained, that all those drew their damnable errors 
 from the indiscreet use of the Scriptures. And to
 
 PART I. BOOK III. 315 
 
 offer the Bible in the English tongue to the whole 
 nation, during these distractions, would prove, as they 
 pretended, the greatest snare that could be. There- 
 fore they proposed, there should be a short exposi- 
 tion of the most useful and necessary doctrines of the 
 Christian faith given to the people in the English 
 tongue, for the instruction of the nation, which would 
 keep them in a certain subjection to the King and 
 the church in matters of faith. 
 
 The other party, though they liked well the pub- 
 lishing such a treatise in the vulgar tongue, yet by no 
 means thought that sufficient; but said, the people 
 must be allowed to search the Scripture, by which 
 they might be convinced that such treatises were ac- 
 cording to it. These arguments prevailed with the 
 two houses of convocation: so they petitioned the 
 King, that he would give order to some to set about 
 it. To this great opposition was made at court. 
 Some, on the one hand, told the King, that a diver- 
 sity of opinions would arise out of it; and that he 
 could no more govern his subjects if he gave way to 
 that. But, on the other hand, it was represented, that 
 nothing would make his supremacy so acceptable to 
 the nation, and make the Pope more hateful, than to 
 let them see, that whereas the popes had governed 
 them by a blind obedience, and kept them in dark- 
 ness, the King brought them into the light, and gave 
 them the free use of the word of God. And nothing 
 would more effectually extirpate the Pope's authority, 
 and discover the impostures of the monks, than the 
 Bible in English; in which all people would clearly 
 discern, there was no foundation for those things. 
 These arguments, joined with the power that the 
 Queen had in his affections, were so much considered 
 by the King, that he gave order for setting about it 
 immediately. To whom that work was committed, 
 or how they proceeded in it, I know not. For the 
 account of these things has not been preserved, nor 
 conveyed to us, with that care that the importance of 
 the thing required. Yet it appears that the work was 
 carried on at a good rate: for three years after this
 
 of Queen 
 Anne. 
 
 31G BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 it was printed at Paris, which shews they made all 
 convenient haste in a thing that required so much 
 deliberation. 
 
 The fan But this was the last public good act of this unfor- 
 tunate Queen; who, the nearer she drew to her end, 
 grew more full of good works. She had distributed, 
 in the last nine months of her life, between fourteen 
 and fifteen thousand pounds to the poor, and was de- 
 signing great and public good things. And, by all 
 appearance, if she had lived, the money that was 
 raised by the suppression of religious houses had been 
 better employed than it was. In January she brought 
 forth a dead son. This was thought to have made 
 ill impressions on the King; and that, as he concluded 
 from the death of his sons by the former Queen that 
 the marriage was displeasing to God, so he might, 
 upon this misfortune, begin to make the like judgment 
 The whole o f this marriage. Sure enough the popish party were 
 
 popish , . i /-\ i i i i 
 
 party earnestly set against the Queen, looking on her as the 
 on? ve " great supporter of heresy. And at that time, Fox, 
 then bishop of Hereford, was in Germany, at Smalcald, 
 treating a league with the Protestant princes, who 
 insisted much on the Augsburg Confession. There 
 were many conferences between Fox and Dr. Barnes, 
 and some others, with the Lutheran divines, for ac- 
 commodating the differences between them, and the 
 thing was in a good forwardness. All which was 
 imputed to the Queen. Gardiner was then ambas- 
 sador in France, and wrote earnestly to the King, to 
 dissuade him from entering into any religious league 
 with these princes: for that would alienate all the 
 world from him, and dispose his own subjects to rebel. 
 The King thought the German princes and divines 
 should have submitted all things to his judgment, and 
 had such an opinion of his own learning, and was so 
 puffed up with the flattering praises that he daily 
 heard, that he grew impatient of any opposition, and 
 thought that his dictates should pass for oracles. And 
 because the Germans would not receive them so his 
 mind was alienated from them. 
 
 But the Duke of Norfolk, at court, and Gardiner,
 
 PART I. BOOK III. 317 
 
 beyond sea, thought there might easily be found 
 a mean to accommodate the King, both with the Em- 
 peror and the Pope, if the Queen were once out of 
 the way; for then he might freely marry any one 
 whom he pleased, and that marriage, with the male 
 issue of it, could not be disputed : whereas, as long 
 as the Queen lived, her marriage, as being judged 
 null from the beginning, could never be allowed by 
 the court of Rome, or any of that party. With these 
 reasons of state, others of affection concurred. The 
 Queen had been his wife three years ; but at this time 
 he entertained a secret love for Jane Seymour, who 
 had all the charms both of beauty and youth in her 
 person ; and her humour was tempered, between the 
 severe gravity of Queen Katherine, and the gay plea- 
 santness of Queen Anne. The Queen, perceiving 
 this alienation of the King's heart, used all possible 
 arts to recover that affection, of whose decay she was 
 sadly sensible. But the success was quite contrary 
 to what she designed : for the King saw her no more 
 with those eyes, which she had formerly captivated ; 
 but grew jealous, and ascribed those caresses to some 
 other criminal affections, of which he began to sus- 
 pect her. This being one of the most memorable 
 passages of this reign, I was at more than ordinary 
 pains to learn all I could concerning it, and have not 
 only seen a great many letters that were writ, by those 
 that were set about the Queen, and catched every 
 thing that fell from her, and sent it to court, but have 
 also seen an account of it, which the learned Spelman, 
 who was a judge at that time, writ with his own hand 
 in his common-place book ; and another account of 
 it writ by one Anthony Anthony, a surveyor of the 
 ordnance of the Tower. From all which I shall give 
 a just and faithful relation of it, without concealing 
 the least circumstance that may either seem favour- 
 able or unfavourable to her. 
 
 She was of a very cheerful temper, which was not T 
 always limited within the bounds of exact decency i 
 and discretion. She had rallied some of the King's 
 servants more than became her. Her brother, the
 
 318 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 Lord Rochford, was her friend as well as brother ; 
 but his spiteful wife was jealous of him : and being 
 a woman of no sort of virtue (as will appear after- 
 wards by her serving Queen Katlierine Howard in 
 her beastly practices, for which she was attainted 
 and executed), she carried many stories to the King, 
 or some about him, to persuade, that there was a fa- 
 miliarity between the Queen and her brother, beyond 
 what so near a relation could justify. All that could 
 be said for it was only this ; that he was once seen 
 leaning upon her bed, which bred great suspi- 
 cion. Henry Norris, that was groom of the stole, 
 Weston and Brereton, that were of the King's privy- 
 chamber, and one Mark Smeton, a musician, were all 
 observed to have much of her favour. And their 
 zeal in serving her, was thought too warm and dili- 
 gent to flow from a less active principle than love. 
 Many circumstances were brought to the King, which, 
 working upon his aversion to the Queen, together 
 with his affection to Mistress Seymour, made him 
 conclude her guilty. Yet somewhat which himself 
 observed, or fancied, at a tilting at Greenwich, is be- 
 lieved to have given a crisis to her ruin. It is said, 
 
 o ' 
 
 that he spied her let her handkerchief fall to one of 
 her gallants to wipe his face, being hot after a course. 
 Whether she dropped it carelessly, or of design ; or 
 whether there be any truth in that story, the letters 
 concerning her fall making no mention of it, I cannot 
 determine ; for Spelman makes no mention of it, and 
 gives a very different account of the discovery in these 
 words : " As for the evidence of this matter, it was 
 discovered by the Lady Wingfield, who had been a 
 servant to the Queen, and, becoming on a sudden 
 infirm some time before her death, did swear this 
 
 matter to one of her " and here unluckily the 
 
 rest of the page is torn off. By this it seems, there 
 was no legal evidence against the Queen, and that it 
 was but a witness at second hand, who deposed what 
 they heard the Lady Wingfield swear. Who this 
 person was we know not, nor in what temper of 
 mind the Lady Wingfield might be when she swore
 
 PART I. BOOK III. 319 
 
 it. The safest sort of forgery, to one whose conscience 
 can swallow it, is, to lay a thing on a dead person's 
 name, where there is no fear of discovery before the 
 great day : and when it was understood that the 
 Queen had lost the King's Jieart, many, either out of 
 their zeal to popery, or design to make their fortune, 
 might be easily induced to carry a story of this na- 
 ture. And this it seems was that which was brought 
 to the King at Greenwich, who did thereupon imme- 
 diately return to Whitehall, it being the 1st of May. 
 The Queen was immediately restrained to her cham- 
 ber ; the other five were also seized on ; but none of 
 them would confess any thing but Mark Smeton, 
 " as to any actual thing," so Cromwell writ. Upon iheieue 
 this they were carried to the Tower. The poor ^,t! 
 Queen was in a sad condition ; she must not only fall Otho - c - 
 under the King's displeasure, but be both defamed 
 and destroyed at once. At first she smiled and car- 
 ried it cheerfully ; and said, she believed the King 
 did this only to prove her. But when she saw it 
 was in earnest, she desired to have the sacrament in 
 her closet, and expressed great devotion, and seemed 
 to be prepared for death. 
 
 The surprise and confusion she was in raised fits 
 of the mother, which those about her did not seem 
 to understand : but three or four letters which were 
 writ by Sir William Kingston to Secretary Cromwell, 
 concerning her, to court, say, that she was at some 
 times very devout, and cried much ; and of a sudden 
 would burst out in laughter, which are evident signs 
 of vapours. When she heard that those who were 
 accused with her were sent to the Tower, she then 
 concluded herself lost ; and said, she should be sent 
 thither next ; and talked idly, saying, " that if her 
 bishops were about the King, they would all speak 
 for her." She also said, " that she would be a saint 
 in heaven, for she had done many good deeds ; and 
 that there should be no rain, but heavy judgments on 
 the land, for what they were now doing to her." Her 
 enemies had now gone too far not to destroy her. 
 Next day she was carried to the Tower, and some
 
 320 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 lords, that met her on the river, declared to her what 
 her offences were. Upon which she made deep pro- 
 testations of her innocence, and begged leave to see 
 she u put the King; but that was not to be expected. When 
 
 TO, and she was carried into the Tower, "she fell down on 
 
 pleads he 
 
 iniiocency 
 
 her ^ knees, and prayed God to help her, as she was 
 
 cy. L v i 
 
 not guilty of the thing for which she was accused." 
 That same day the King wrote to Cranmer, to come 
 to Lambeth ; but ordered him not to come into his 
 presence : which was procured by the Queen's ene- 
 mies, who took care, that one who had such credit 
 with the King, should not come at him, till they had 
 fully persuaded him that she was guilty. Her uncle's 
 lady, the Lady Boleyn, was appointed to lie in the 
 chamber with her, which she took very ill ; for, upon 
 what reason I know not, she had been in very ill 
 terms with her. She engaged her into much dis- 
 course, and studied to draw confessions from her. 
 Whatsoever she said was presently sent to the court. 
 And a woman full of vapours was like enough to tell 
 every thing that was true, with a great deal more ; 
 for persons in that condition, not only have no com- 
 mand of themselves, but are apt to say any thing that 
 comes in their fancy. 
 
 The Duke of Norfolk, and some of the King's 
 council, were with her ; but could draw nothing from 
 her, though they made her believe that Norris and 
 Mark had accused her. But when they were gone, 
 she fell down on her knees and wept, and prayed 
 often, " Jesu, have mercy on me ;" and then fell a 
 langhing : when that fit was over, she desired to have 
 the sacrament still by her, that she might cry for 
 mercy. And she said to the Lieutenant of the Tower, 
 she was as clear of the company of all men, as to sin, 
 as she was clear from him ; and that she was the 
 King's true wedded wife. And she cried out, " O 
 Norris, hast thou accused me ? thou art in the Tower 
 with me, and thou and I shall die together; and 
 Mark, so shalt thou too." She apprehended they 
 were to put her in a dungeon ; and sadly bemoaned 
 her own, and her mother's misery ; and asked them,
 
 PART I. BOOK III. 321 
 
 whether she must die without justice. But they told 
 her, the poorest subjects had justice, much more 
 would she have it. The same letter says, that Norris 
 had not accused her ; and that he said to her almoner, 
 that he could swear for her, she was a good woman. 
 But she being made believe that he had accused her, Butco 
 and not being then so free in her thoughts, as to ^J 
 consider that ordinary artifice for drawing out con- words< 
 fessions, told all she knew, both of him and Mark. 
 Which, though it was not enough to destroy her, yet 
 certainly wrought much on the jealous and alienated 
 King. She told him, " that she once asked Norris, 
 why he did not go on with his marriage ? who an 
 swered her, That he would yet tarry some time. To 
 which she replied, You look for dead men's shoes ; 
 for if aught come to the King but good, you would 
 look to have me. He answered, If he had any such 
 thought, he would his head were cut off. Upon 
 which she said, She could undo him if she pleased, 
 and thereupon she fell out with him." As for Mark, 
 who was then laid in irons, she said he was never in 
 her chamber but when the King was last at Win- 
 chester ; and then he came in to play on the virgi- 
 nals : she said, " that she never spoke to him after 
 that, but on Saturday before May-day, when she saw 
 him standing in the window, and then she asked him, 
 Why he was so sad ? he said, It was no matter : she 
 answered, You may not look to have me speak to 
 you, as if you were a nobleman, since you are an in- 
 ferior person. No, no, madam, said he ; a look suf- 
 ficeth me." She seemed more apprehensive of Wes- 
 ton, than of any body. For on Whitsun-Monday 
 last he said to her, " That Norris came more to her 
 chamber upon her account, than for any body else 
 that was there. She had observed, that he loved a 
 kinswoman of her's, and challenged him for it, and 
 for not loving his wife. But he answered her, That 
 there were women in the house whom he loved better 
 than them both : she asked, Who is that ? Yourself, 
 said he ; upon which, she said, she defied him." 
 This misery of the Queen's drew after it the com- 
 
 VOL. I. Y
 
 322 BURNET'S REFORMATION 
 
 mon effects that follow persons under such a disgrace; 
 for now all the court was against her, and every one 
 was courting the rising Queen. But Cranmer had 
 not learned these arts, and had a better soul in him 
 than to be capable of such baseness and ingratitude. 
 He had been much obliged by her, and had conceived 
 a high opinion of her, and so could not easily receive 
 ill impressions of her; yet he knew the King's temper, 
 and that a downright justification of her would pro- 
 voke him : therefore he wrote the following letter, on 
 the 3d of May, with all the softness that so tender a 
 point required ; in which he justified her, as far as 
 was consistent with prudence and charity. The let- 
 ter shews of what a constitution he was that wrote it ; 
 and contains so many things that tend highly to her 
 honour, that I shall insert it here, as I copied it from 
 the original. 
 
 crater's " Pleaseth it your most noble Grace to be adver- 
 the te King tised, that at your Grace's commandment by Mr. 
 about her. Secretary's letters, written in your Grace's name, I 
 
 Cott. Lib. Til i ill 
 
 otho. c. came to Lambeth yesterday, and do there remain to 
 know your Grace's farther pleasure. And forsomuch 
 as, without your Grace's commandment, I dare not, 
 contrary to the contents of the said letters, presume to 
 come unto your Grace's presence ; nevertheless, of 
 my most bounden duty, I can do no less than most 
 humbly to desire your Grace, by your great wisdom, 
 and by the assistance of God's help, somewhat to 
 suppress the deep sorrows of your Grace's heart, and 
 to take all adversities of God's hands both patiently 
 and thankfully,. I cannot deny but your Grace hath 
 great causes many ways of lamentable heaviness : and 
 also that, in the wrongful estimation of the world, 
 your Grace's honour of every part is so highly touched 
 (whether the things that commonly be spoken of be 
 true or not), that I remember not that ever Almighty 
 God sent unto your Grace any like occasion to try 
 your Grace's constancy throughout, whether your 
 Highness can be content to take of God's hand, as 
 well things displeasant as pleasant. And if he find
 
 PART I. BOOK III. 323 
 
 in your most noble heart such an obedience unto his 
 will, that your Grace without murmuration and over- 
 much heaviness, do accept all adversities, not less 
 thanking him than when all things succeed after your 
 Grace's will and pleasure, nor less procuring his glory 
 and honour ; then I suppose your Grace did never 
 thing more acceptable unto him, since your first go- 
 vernance of this your realm. And moreover, your 
 Grace shall give unto him occasion to multiply and 
 increase his graces and benefits unto your Highness, 
 as he did unto his most faithful servant Job ; unto 
 whom, after his great calamities and heaviness, for 
 his obedient heart, and willing acceptation of God's 
 scourge and rod, addidit ei Dominus cuncta du- 
 plicia. And if it be true, that is openly reported of 
 the Queen's Grace, if men had a right estimation of 
 things, they should not esteem any part of your 
 Grace's honour to be touched thereby, but her honour 
 only to be clearly disparaged. And I am in such a 
 perplexity, that my mind is clean amazed : for I never 
 had better opinion in woman than I had in her ; which 
 maketh me to think, that she should not be culpable. 
 And again, I think your Highness would not have 
 gone so far, except she had surely been culpable. Now 
 I think that your Grace best knoweth, that, next unto 
 your Grace, I was most bound unto her of all crea- 
 tures living. Wherefore, I most humbly beseech your 
 Grace, to suffer me in that, which both God's law, 
 nature, and also her kindness bindeth me unto ; that 
 is, that I may with your Grace's favour, wish and pray 
 for her, that she may declare herself inculpable and 
 innocent. And if she be found culpable, considering 
 your Grace's goodness towards her, and from what 
 condition your Grace of your only mere goodness took 
 her, and set the crown upon her head ; I repute him 
 not your Grace's faithful servant and subject, nor true 
 unto the realm, that would not desire the offence with- 
 out mercy to be punished, to the example of all other. 
 And as I loved her not a little, for the love which I 
 judged her to bear towards God and his gospel ; so, 
 if she be proved culpable, there is not one that loveth 
 
 Y 2
 
 324 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 God and his gospel that ever will favour her, but 
 must hate her above all other ; and the more they 
 favour the gospel, the more they will hate her : for 
 then there was never creature in our time that so 
 much slandered the gospel. And God hath sent her 
 this punishment, for that she feignedly hath professed 
 his gospel in her mouth, and not in heart and deed. 
 And though she have offended so, that she hath 
 deserved never to be reconciled unto your Grace's 
 favour ; yet Almighty God hath manifoldly declared 
 his goodness towards your Grace, and never offended 
 you. But your Grace, I am sure, acknowledgeth that 
 you have offended him. Wherefore, I trust that your 
 Grace will bear no less entire favour unto the truth of 
 the gospel than you did before : forsomuch as your 
 Grace's favour to the gospel was not led by affec- 
 tion unto her, but by zeal unto the truth. And thus 
 I beseech Almighty God, whose gospel he hath or- 
 dained your Grace to be defender of, ever to preserve 
 your Grace from all evil, and give you at the end the 
 promise of his gospel. From Lambeth, the 3d day 
 of May. 
 
 " After I had written this letter unto your Grace, 
 my Lord Chancellor, my Lord of Oxford, my Lord 
 of Sussex, and my Lord Chamberlain of your Grace's 
 house, sent for me to come unto the Star-Chamber ; 
 and there declared unto me such things as your 
 Grace's pleasure was they should make me privy unto. 
 For the which I am most bounden unto your Grace. 
 And what communication we had together, I doubt 
 not but they will make the true report thereof unto 
 your Grace. I am exceedingly sorry that such faults 
 can be proved by the Queen, as I heard of their re- 
 lation. But I am, and ever shall be, your faithful 
 subject. " Your Grace's 
 
 " Humble subject and chaplain, 
 "T. CANTUARIENSIS." 
 
 But jealousy and the King's new affection had 
 quite defaced all the remainders of esteem for his late 
 beloved Queen. Yet the ministers continued prac-
 
 PART I. BOOK III. 325 
 
 tising, to get further evidence for the trial ; which 
 was not brought on till the 12th of May ; and then 
 Norris, Weston, Brereton, and Smeton were tried, by 
 a commission of Oyer and Terminer, in Westminster 
 Hall. They were twice indicted, and the indictments 
 were found by two grand juries, in the counties of 
 Kent and Middlesex : the crimes with which they 
 were charged being said to be done in both these 
 counties. Mark Smeton* confessed he had known 
 the Queen carnally three times : the other three 
 pleaded Not guilty ; but the jury, upon the evidence 
 formerly mentioned, found them all guilty ; and 
 judgment was given, that they should be drawn to the 
 place of execution, and some of them to be hanged, 
 others to be beheaded, and all to be quartered, as 
 guilty of high treason. On the 15th of May, the she is 
 Queen and her brother, the Lord Rochford (who was aTiai'. 
 a peer, having been made a viscount when his father 
 was created Earl of Wiltshire), were brought to be 
 tried by their peers : the Duke of Norfolk being lord 
 high steward for that occasion. With him sat the 
 Duke of Suffolk, the Marquis of Exeter, the Earls of 
 Arundel, Oxford, Northumberland, Westmoreland, 
 Derby, Worcester, Rutland, Sussex, and Hunting- 
 ton ; and the Lords Audley, Delaware, Montague, 
 Morley, Dacres, Cobham, Maltravers, Powis, Mount- 
 eagle, Clinton, Sands, Windsor, Wentworth, Burgh, 
 and Mordaunt ; in all twenty-six. f Here the Queen 
 
 * Smeton's confession is very doubtful, as to the extent and credit of it at 
 least. Lord Herbert's silence as to the fact itself, led Collier to question the 
 latter. In the third volume of this History, more will be found upon the sub- 
 ject, and in Soames'i History of the Reformation under Henry VIII., vol. ii. 
 the different accounts are compared and ably discussed, Smeton's evidence 
 being judged to have had, at all events, little weight, as to the actual guilt of 
 the Queen. N. 
 
 t There is much to be attended to in this account of the Queen's trial. 
 Burnet, following Heylin, had not hesitated to write, that the Queen's own 
 father, and father of the Lord Rochford, the Earl of Wiltshire, was one of the 
 peers who sat in judgment upon them. Burnet had not then seen the record 
 of the Queen's trial ; but having afterwards obtained a sight of it, he was 
 glad to find this was not the fact, but that Heylin had heedlessly copied it 
 from Sanders (lying Sanders as it is quite common to call him). Burnet cor- 
 rected himself in a paper in his addenda to this volume, by which the present 
 text was amended in a former edition. Dr. Lingard, in his recent History 
 of England, having evinced a strong disposition to credit Sanders, supposing, 
 and even asserting, that the records of the Queen's trial, &c. had perished, 
 should have known, that Burnet had seen them, and knew how much they
 
 326 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 of England, by an unheard-of precedent, was brought 
 to the bar and indicted of high treason. The crimes 
 charged on her were, " That she had procured her 
 brother and the other four to lie with her, which they 
 had done often; that she had said to everyone of 
 them by themselves, that she loved them better than 
 any person whatsoever : which was to the slander of 
 the issue that was begotten between the King and 
 her." And this was treason, according to the sta- 
 tute made in the twenty-sixth year of this reign (so 
 that the law that was made for her, and the issue of 
 her marriage, is now made use of to destroy her). 
 It was also added in the indictment, that she and her 
 accomplices had conspired the King's death ; but 
 this it seems was only put in to swell the charge ; 
 for if there had been any evidence for it, there was 
 no need of stretching the other statute ; or if they 
 could have proved the violating of the Queen, the 
 known statute of the twenty-fifth year of the reign of 
 Edward III. had been sufficient. When the indict- 
 ment was read, she held up her hand and pleaded 
 Not guilty, and so did her brother ; and did answer 
 the evidence was brought against her discreetly. One 
 thing is remarkable, that Mark Smeton, who was the 
 only person that confessed any thing, was never con- 
 fronted with the Queen, nor was kept to be an evi- 
 dence against her ; for he had received his sentence 
 three days before, and so could be no witness in law : 
 but perhaps, though he was wrought on to confess, 
 yet they did not think that he had confidence enough 
 to aver it to the Queen's face; therefore the evidence 
 they brought, as Spelman says, was the oath of a 
 woman that was dead ; yet this, or rather the terror 
 of offending the King, so wrought on the Lords, that 
 
 contradicted Sanders. In Hargrave's State Trials, the records on which Bur- 
 net relied, are stated to have been a common-place book of Judge Spelman, 
 and an account of the trial by A. Anthony, a surveyor of the ordnance of the 
 Tower. From some of the Harleian MSS. since examined by Mr. Turner 
 (Mod. Hist. Henry VIII.), there would still appear to be some doubt upon, 
 the point. That the Earl of Wiltshire was named in the commission of inves- 
 tigation, cited by Mr. Turner, there can be no question ; but Burnet undoubt- 
 edly was convinced by the papers he saw, that he did not sit as one of the 
 judges. Her own father's conviction therefore of her guilt, often insisted upon 
 by writers on the other side, is not so well proved as has been pretended. N.
 
 PART I. BOOK III. 327 
 
 they found her and her brother guilty : and judg- 
 ment was given that she should be burnt or be- 
 headed, at the King's pleasure. Upon which Spel- 
 man observes, that whereas burning is the death 
 which the law appoints for a woman that is attainted 
 of treason, yet, since she had been Queen of Eng- 
 land, they left it to the King to determine, whether 
 she should die so infamous a death, or be beheaded ; 
 but the judges complained of this way of proceeding, 
 and said, such a disjunctive in a judgment of treason 
 had never been seen. The Lord Rochford was also 
 condemned to be beheaded and quartered. Yet all 
 this did not satisfy the enraged King; but the mar- 
 riage between him and her must be annulled, and 
 the issue illegitimated. The King remembered an 
 intrigue that had been between her and the Earl of 
 Northumberland, which was mentioned in the former 
 Book ; and that he, then Lord Percy, had said to the 
 Cardinal, " That he had gone so far before witnesses, 
 that it lay upon his conscience, so that he could not 
 go back :" this, it is like, might be some promise he 
 made to marry her, per verba defuturo, which, though 
 it was no pre-contract in itself, yet it seems the poor 
 Queen was either so ignorant, or so ill-advised, as to 
 be persuaded afterwards it was one ; though it is 
 certain that nothing but a contract, per verba de pr<z- 
 senti, could be of any force to annul the subsequent 
 marriage. The King and his council, reflecting 
 upon what it seems the Cardinal had told him, re- 
 solved to try what could be made of it, and pressed 
 the Earl of Northumberland to confess a contract 
 between him and her. But he took his oath before 
 the two Archbishops, that there was no contract nor 
 promise of marriage ever between them ; and re- 
 ceived the sacrament upon it, before the Duke of 
 Norfolk and others of the King's learned council in 
 the law spiritual, wishing it might be to his damna- 
 tion if there was any such thing (concerning which 
 I have seen the original declaration under his own 
 hand). Nor could they draw any confession from 
 the Queen before the sentence, for certainly if they
 
 is di- 
 vorced 
 
 328 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 could have done that, the divorce had gone before 
 the trial ; and then she must have been tried only as 
 Marchioness of Pembroke. But now, she lying under 
 so terrible a sentence, it is most probable that either 
 some hopes of life were given her, or at least she was 
 wrought on by the assurances of mitigating that cruel 
 part of her judgment of being burnt, into the milder 
 part of the sentence, of having her head cut off; so 
 that she confessed a pre-contract, and, on the 17th of 
 May, was brought to Lambeth; and in court, the 
 afflicted Archbishop sitting judge, some persons of 
 upon an quality being present, she confessed some just and 
 conSon lawful impediments ; by which it was evident, that 
 her marriage with the King was not valid. Upon 
 which confession, the marriage between the King 
 and her was judged to have been null and void. 
 The record of the sentence is burnt ; but these parti- 
 culars are repeated in the act that passed in the next 
 parliament, touching the succession to the crown. 
 It seems this was secretly done, for Spelman writes 
 of it thus : It was said, there was a divorce made 
 between the King and her, upon her confessing a 
 pre-contract with another before her marriage with 
 the King : so that it was then only talked of, but not 
 generally known. 
 
 The two sentences that were passed upon the 
 Queen, the one of attainder for adultery, the other of 
 divorce because of a pre-contract, did so contradict 
 one another, that it was apparent one, if not both of 
 them, must be unjust ; for if the marriage between 
 the King and her was null from the beginning, then, 
 since she was not the King's wedded wife, there 
 could be no adultery : and her marriage to the King 
 was either a true marriage or not : if it was true, 
 then the annulling of it was unjust; and if it was no 
 true marriage, then the attainder was unjust; for 
 there could be no breach of that faith which was 
 never given : so that it is plain, the King was resolved 
 to be rid of her, and to illegitimate her daughter, and 
 in that transport of his fury, did not consider that 
 the very method he took discovered the injustice of
 
 PART I. BOOK III. 329 
 
 his proceedings against her. Two days after this, 
 she was ordered to be executed in the green on 
 Tower-hill. How she received these tidings, and 
 how steadfast she continued in the protestations of 
 her innocence, will best appear by the following cir- 
 cumstances : The day before she suffered, upon a Her p re - 
 strict search of her past life, she called to mind, that K^b. 
 she had played the step-mother too severely to Lady 
 Mary, and had done her many injuries. Upon which, 
 she made the Lieutenant of the Tower's lady sit 
 down in the chair of state : which the other, after 
 some ceremony, doing, she fell down on her knees, 
 and with many tears, charged the lady, as she would 
 answer it to God, to go in her name, and do as she 
 had done, to the Lady Mary, and ask her forgiveness 
 for the wrongs she had done her. And she said, 
 she had no quiet in her conscience till she had done 
 that. But though she did in this what became a 
 Christian, the Lady Mary could not so easily pardon 
 these injuries ; but retained the resentments of them 
 her whole life. 
 
 This ingenuity and tenderness of conscience about 
 lesser matters, is a great presumption, that if she had 
 been guilty of more eminent faults, she had not con- 
 tinued to the last denying them, and making pro- 
 testations of her innocency. For that same night she 
 sent her last message to the King, and acknowledged 
 herself much obliged to him, that had continued still 
 to advance her. She said, he had, from a private 
 gentlewoman, first made her a marchioness, and then 
 a queen ; and now, since he could raise her no higher, 
 was sending her to be a saint in heaven : she pro- 
 tested her innocence, and recommended her daughter 
 to his care. And her carriage that day she died, 
 will appear from the following letter, writ by the 
 Lieutenant of the Tower, copied from the original, 
 which I insert, because the copier employed by the 
 Lord Herbert has not writ it out faithfully ; for I can- 
 not think that any part of it was left out on design. The Ueu . 
 
 "Sir, These shall be to advertise you, I have re- t * na " tof , 
 7 . iii *" T w r 
 
 ceived your letter, wherein you would have strangers ier.
 
 330 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 conveyed out of the Tower : and so they be by the 
 means of Richard Gressum, and William Locke, and 
 Wythspoll. But the number of strangers passed not 
 thirty, and not many hothe ; and the Ambassador of 
 the Emperor had a servant there, and honestly put out. 
 Sir, if we have not an hour certain, as it may be known 
 in London, I think here will be but few, and I think 
 a reasonable number were best ; for I suppose she will 
 declare herself to be a good woman, for all men but 
 for the King, at the hour of her death. For this 
 morning she sent for me, that I might be with her at 
 such time as she received the good Lord, to the intent 
 I should hear her speak as touching her innocency 
 alway to be clear. And in the writing of this, she 
 sent for me, and at my coming she said : Mr. Kingston. 
 T hear say I shall not die aforenoon, and I am very 
 sorry therefore, for I thought to be dead by this time, 
 and past my pain. I told her, it should be no pain, 
 it was so settle. And then she said, I heard say the 
 executioner was very good, and I have a little neck ; 
 and put her hands about it, laughing heartily. I have 
 seen many men, and also women executed ; and that 
 they have been in great sorrow, and to my knowledge 
 this lady has much joy and pleasure in death. Sir, 
 her almoner is continually with her, and had been since 
 two a clock after midnight. This is the effect of any 
 thing that is here at this time, and thus fare you well. 
 " Your's, 
 
 " WILLIAM KINGSTON." 
 
 iier' -^ little before noon, being the 19th of May, she 
 ecutioo. was brought to the scaffold, where -she made a short 
 speech to a great company that came to look on the 
 last scene of this fatal tragedy ; the chief of whom 
 were the Dukes of Suffolk and Richmond, the Lord 
 Chancellor, and Secretary Cromwell, with the Lord 
 Mayor, the Sheriffs, and Aldermen of London. She 
 said, " she was come to die, as she was judged by the 
 law ; she would accuse none, nor say any thing of the 
 ground upon which she was judged. She prayed 
 heartily for the King, and called him a most merciful
 
 PART I. BOOK III. 331 
 
 and gentle prince, and that he had been always to 
 her a good, gentle, sovereign lord: and if any would 
 meddle with her cause, she required them to judge 
 the best. And so she took her leave of them, and of 
 the world ; and heartily desired they would pray for 
 her." After she had been some time in her devotions, 
 her last words being, "To Christ I commend my soul," 
 her head was cut off by the hangman of Calais, who 
 was brought over as more expert at beheading than 
 any in England : her eyes and lips were observed to - 
 move after her head was cut off, as Spelman writes ; 
 but her body was thrown into a common chest of elm- 
 tree that was made to put arrows in, and was buried 
 in the chapel within the Tower before twelve o'clock. 
 Her brother, with the other four, did also suffer ; none 
 of them were quartered, but they were all beheaded 
 except Smeton, who was hanged. It was generally 
 said, that he was corrupted into that confession, and 
 had his life promised him ; but it was not fit to let him 
 live to tell tales. Norris had been much in the King's 
 favour, and an offer was made him of his life if he 
 would confess his guilt, and accuse the Queen. But 
 he generously rejected that unhandsome proposi- 
 tion, and said, " That in his conscience he thought 
 her innocent of these things laid to her charge ; but 
 whether she was or not, he would not accuse her of 
 any thing, and he would die a thousand times, rather 
 than ruin an innocent person." 
 
 These proceedings occasioned as great variety of x 
 censures, as there were diversity of interests. The !J?r e hat 
 popish party said, the justice of God was visible, that p^ r s e ed th e 
 she who had supplanted Queen Katherine met with *>* p~- 
 the like, and harder measure, by the same means. " 
 Some took notice of her faint justifying herself on the 
 scaffold, as if her conscience had then prevailed so 
 far, that she could no longer deny a thing for which 
 she was so soon to answer at another tribunal. But 
 others thought her care of her daughter made her 
 speak so tenderly ; for she had observed, that Queen 
 Katherine's obstinacy had drawn the King's indigna- 
 tion on her daughter ; and therefore, that she alone
 
 .Num'j. 4. 
 
 332 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 might bear her misfortunes, and derive no share of 
 them on her daughter, she spoke in a style that could 
 give the King no just offence ; and as she said enough 
 to justify herself, so she said as much for the King's 
 honour as could be expected. Yet, in a letter that 
 she wrote to the King from the Tower, (which will be 
 collect, found in the Collection,) she pleaded her innocence, 
 in a strain of so much wit and moving passionate elo- 
 quence, as perhaps can scarce be paralleled : certainly 
 her spirits were much exalted when she wrote it, for 
 it is a pitch above her ordinary style. Yet the copy 
 I take it from, lying among Cromwell's other papers, 
 makes me believe it was truly written by her. 
 
 Her carriage seemed too free, and all people 
 thought that some freedoms and levities in her had 
 encouraged those unfortunate persons to speak such 
 bold things to her; since few attempt upon the chas- 
 tity, or make declarations of love, to persons of so 
 exalted a quality, except they see some invitations, at 
 least in their carriage. Others thought that a free 
 and jovial temper might, with great innocence, though 
 with no discretion, lead one to all those things that 
 were proved against her; and therefore they con- 
 cluded her chaste, though indiscreet. Others blamed 
 the King, and taxed his cruelty in proceeding so se- 
 verely against a person whose chastity he had reason 
 to be assured of, since she had resisted his addresses 
 near five years, till he legitimated them by marriage.* 
 But others excused him. It is certain her carriage had 
 given just cause of some jealousy, and that being the 
 rage of a man, it was no wonder if a king of his temper, 
 conceiving it against one whom he had so signally 
 obliged, was transported into unjustifiable excesses. 
 
 * Andr6 Thevet, a French Franciscan, who wrote some years after this an 
 Universal Cosmography, says, lib. 16. c. 5, that he was assured, by divers 
 English gentlemen, that King Henry at his death, among his other sins, re- 
 pented in particular of the wrong he had done the Queen, in destroying her by 
 a. false accusation. And though Thuanus makes him an author of no credit, 
 yet there is no reason to suspect him in this particular, for writers seldom lie 
 against their interest ; and the Franciscan order had suffered so much for their 
 adhering to Queen Katherine's interests, in opposition to Anne Boleyn, that 
 it is not likely one of that order would have strained a point to tell an honour- 
 able story of her. This was made use of in Queen Elizabeth's time, to vindi- 
 cate her memory. See Saravia Tract, cont. Bezam. c. 2. versus finem.
 
 PART I. BOOK III. 333 
 
 Others condemned Cranmer, as a man that obsequi- 
 ously followed all the King's appetites ; and that he 
 had now divorced the King a second time, which 
 shewed that his conscience was governed by the King's 
 pleasure as his supreme law. But what he did was 
 unavoidable : for, whatever motives drew from her the 
 confession of that pre-contract, he was obliged to give 
 sentence upon it : and that which she confessed, being 
 such as made her incapable to contract marriage with 
 the King, he could not decline the giving of sentence 
 upon so formal a confession. Some loaded all that 
 favoured the Reformation : and said it now appeared 
 what a woman their great patroness and supporter 
 had been. But to those it was answered that her 
 faults, if true, being secret, could cast no reflection 
 on those, who, being ignorant of them, made use of 
 her protection. And the church of Rome thought not 
 their cause suffered by the enraged cruelty and ambi- 
 tion of the cursed Irene, who had convened thesecond 
 council of Nice, and set up the worship of images 
 again in the East; whom the popes continued to court 
 and magnify, after her barbarous murder of her son, 
 with other acts of unsatiated spite and ambition. 
 Therefore they had no reason to think the worse of 
 persons for claiming the protection of a Queen, whose 
 faults (if she was at all criminal) were unknown to 
 them when they made use of her. 
 
 Some have, since that time, concluded it a great 
 evidence of her guilt, that, during her daughter's long 
 and glorious reign, there was no full nor complete 
 vindication of her published. For the writers of that 
 time thought it enough to speak honourably of her ; 
 and in general, to call her innocent : but none of them 
 ever attempted a clear discussion of the particulars 
 laid to her charge. This had been much to her 
 daughter's honour ; and, therefore, since it was not 
 done, others concluded it could not be done ; and that 
 their knowledge of her guilt restrained their pens. 
 But others do not at all allow of that inference, and 
 think rather, that it was the great wisdom of that time 
 not to suffer such things to be called in question ;
 
 334 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 since no wise government will admit of a debate about 
 the clearness of the prince's title. For the very at- 
 tempting to prove it, weakens it more than any of the 
 proofs that are brought can confirm it; therefore it 
 was prudently done of that Queen, and her great mi- 
 nisters, never to suffer any vindication, or apology, to 
 be written. Some indiscretions could not be denied, 
 and these would all have been catched hold of, and 
 improved by the busy emissaries of Rome and Spain. 
 But nothing did more evidently discover the secret 
 cause of this Queen's ruin, than the King's marrying 
 Jane Seymour the day after her execution. She, of 
 all King Henry's wives, gained most on his esteem and 
 affection: but she was happy in one thing that she 
 did not outlive his love; otherwise she might have 
 fallen as signally as her predecessor had done. Upon 
 this turn of affairs a great change of counsels followed. 
 The Lady There was nothing now that kept the Emperor and 
 deavours a tne King at a distance, but the illegitimation of the 
 "oTw'lh Lady Mary; and if that matter had been adjusted, the 
 her father. King was in no more hazard of trouble from him: 
 therefore it was proposed, that she might be again re- 
 stored to the King;'s favour. She found this was the 
 
 O 
 
 best opportunity she could ever look for, and therefore 
 laid hold on it, and wrote an humble submission to 
 the King, and desired again to be admitted to his pre- 
 sence. But her submissions had some reserves in 
 them; therefore she was pressed to be more express 
 in her acknowledgments. At this she stuck long, 
 and had almost embroiled herself ao;ain with her fa- 
 
 O 
 
 ther. She freely offered to submit to the laws of the 
 land about the succession, and confessed the fault of 
 her former obstinacy. But the King would have her 
 acknowledge, that his marriage to her mother was in- 
 cestuous and unlawful; and to renounce the Pope's 
 authority, and to accept him as supreme head of the 
 church of England. These things were of hard di- 
 gestion with her, and she could not easily swallow 
 them; so she wrote to Cromwell, to befriend her at 
 the King's hands. Upon which many letters passed 
 between them. He wrote to her, that it was impos-
 
 PART I, BOOK III. 335 
 
 sible to recover her father's favour, without a full and 
 clear submission in all points. So in the end she 
 yielded ; and sent the following paper, all written with 
 her own hand, which is set down as it was copied 
 from the original, yet extant. 
 
 " The confession of me, the Lady Mary, made upon n i>. 
 certain points and articles under-written; in the Terher 
 which, as I do now plainly, and with all mine heart, " h ^ b d ; 
 confess and declare my inward sentence, belief, and 0*0. c. 
 judgment, with a due conformity of obedience to the 
 laws of the realm ; so, minding for ever to persist and 
 continue in this determination, without change, al- 
 teration, or variance, I do most humbly beseech the 
 King's Highness, my father, whom I have obsti- 
 nately and inobediently offended in the denial of the 
 same heretofore, to forgive mine offences therein, and 
 to take me to his most gracious mercy. 
 
 " First, I confess and knowledge the King's Ma- 
 jesty to be my sovereign Lord and King, in the im- 
 perial crown of this realm of England; and to submit 
 myself to his Highness, and to all and singular laws 
 and statutes of this realm, as becometh a true and 
 faithful subject to do; which I shall also obey, keep, 
 observe, advance, and maintain, according to my 
 bounden duty, with all the power, force, and quali- 
 ties, that God hath endued me with, during my life. 
 
 " Item, I do recognize, accept, take, repute, and 
 knowledge, the King's Highness to be supreme, head 
 in earth undei* Christ of the church of England; and 
 do utterly refuse the Bishop of Rome's pretended 
 authority, power, and jurisdiction within this realm 
 heretofore usurped, according to the laws and sta- 
 tutes made in that behalf, and of all the King's true 
 subjects humbly received, admitted, obeyed, kept, and 
 observed; and also do utterly renounce and forsake 
 all manner of remedy, interest, and advantage, which 
 I may by any means claim by the Bishop of Rome's 
 laws, process, jurisdiction, or sentence, at this present 
 time, or in anywise hereafter, by any manner of title, 
 colour, mean, or case, that is, shall, or can be devised 
 for that purpose. "MARY.
 
 336 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 " Item, I do freely, frankly, and for the discharge 
 of ray duty towards God, the King's Highness, and 
 his laws, without other respect, recognize and know- 
 ledge, that the marriage heretofore had between his 
 Majesty, and my mother, the late Princess Dowager, 
 was by God's law, and man's law, incestuous and 
 unlawful. " MARY." 
 
 she is re- Upon this she was a^ain received into favour. 
 
 stored t ,1. r . TIIIIII i i /* 
 
 his favour. One circumstance 1 shall add, that shews the fru- 
 gality of that time. In the establishment tlrat was 
 made for her family, there was only 40/. a quarter 
 assigned for her privy-purse. I have seen a letter of 
 her's to Cromwell, at the Christmas-quarter, desiring 
 him to let the King know, that she must be at some 
 extraordinary expense that season, that so he might 
 increase her allowance, since the 40/. would not de- 
 fray the charge of that quarter. 
 
 The Lady For the Lady Elizabeth, though the King divested 
 weinised her of the title of Princess of Wales, yet he continued 
 King he and s ^ to breed her up in the court, with all the care 
 Queen. an d tenderness of a father. And the new Queen, 
 what from the sweetness of her disposition, and what 
 out of compliance with the King, who loved her 
 much, was as kind to her as if she had been her mo- 
 ther. Of which I shall add one pretty evidence, 
 though the childishness of it may be thought below 
 the gravity of a history; yet by it the reader will see 
 both the kindness that the King and Queen had for 
 her, and that they allowed her to subscribe, daughter. 
 There are two original letters of her's yet remaining, 
 writ to the Queen when she was with child of King 
 Edward : the one in Italian, the other in English ; 
 both writ in a fair hand, the same that she wrote all 
 the rest of her life. But the conceits in that writ in 
 English are so pretty, that it will not be unacceptable 
 to the reader to see this first blossom of so great a 
 Princess, when she was not full four years of age ; 
 she being bora in September 1533, and this writ in 
 July 1537.
 
 PART I. BOOK III. 337 
 
 "Although your Highness' letters be most joyful Her utter 
 to me in absence, yet considering what pain it is to Q U een 
 you to write, your Grace being so great with child, ^ e r .^ s 
 and so sickly, your commendation were enough infag e - 
 my Lord's letter. I much rejoice at your health, 
 with the well liking of the country ; with my humble 
 thanks that your Grace wished me with you till I 
 were weary of that country. Your Highness were 
 like to be cumbered, if I should not depart till I were 
 weary being with you; although it were in the worst 
 soil in the world, your presence would make it plea- 
 sant. I cannot reprove my Lord for not doing your 
 commendations in his letter, for he did it; and al- 
 though he had not, yet I will not complain of him, 
 for that he shall be diligent to give me knowledge 
 from time to time, how his busy child doth ; and if 
 I were at his birth, no doubt I would see him beaten, 
 for the trouble he has put you to. Mr. Denny and 
 my Lady, with humble thanks prayeth most entirely 
 for your Grace, praying the Almighty God to send 
 you a most lucky deliverance. And my mistress 
 wisheth no less, giving your Highness most humble 
 thanks for her commendations. Writ with very little 
 leisure, this last day of July. 
 
 " Your humble daughter, 
 
 " ELIZABETH." 
 
 But to proceed to more serious matters. A par- A new par- 
 liament was summoned to meet the 8th of June. IfcduU! 
 full forty days be necessary for a summons, then the 
 writs must have been issued forth the day before the 
 late Queen's disgrace; so that it was designed before 
 the justs at Greenwich, and did not flow from any 
 thing that then appeared. When the parliament met, Journal 
 the Lord Chancellor Audley, in his speech, told them, Pr 
 " That when the former parliament was dissolved, the 
 King had no thoughts of summoning a new one so 
 soon. But for two reasons, he had now called them. 
 The one was, that he, finding himself subject to so 
 many infirmities, and considering that he was mortal, 
 (a rare thought in a prince,) he desired to settle an 
 
 VOL. i. z
 
 338 BURNETS REFORMATION. 
 
 apparent heir to the crown, in case he should die 
 without children lawfully begotten. The other was, 
 to repeal an act of the former parliament, concerning 
 the succession of the crown to the issue of the King 
 by Queen Anne Boleyn. He desired them to reflect 
 on the great troubles and vexation the King was in- 
 volved in by his first unlawful marriage, and the 
 dangers he was in by his second; which might well 
 have frighted any body from a third marriage. But 
 Anne, and her conspirators, being put to death, as 
 they well deserved ; the King, at the humble request 
 of the nobility, and not out of any carnal concupi- 
 scence, was pleased to marry again a Queen, by whom 
 there were very probable hopes of his having chil- 
 dren: therefore he recommended to them, to provide 
 an heir to the crown by the King's direction, who, if 
 the King died without children lawfully begotten, 
 might rule over them. He desired they would pray 
 God earnestly, that he would grant the King issue of 
 his own body ; and return thanks to Almighty God, 
 that preserved such a King to them out of so many 
 imminent dangers, who employed all his care and 
 endeavours, that he might keep his whole people in 
 quiet, peace, and perfect charity, and leave them so 
 to those that should succeed him." 
 
 The act But though this was the chief cause of calling the 
 parliament, it seems the ministers met with great dif- 
 ficulties, and therefore spent much time in preparing 
 men's minds. For the bill about the succession to 
 the crown was not brought into the House of Lords 
 before the 30th day of June, that the Lord Chancel- 
 lor offered it to the House. It went through both 
 Houses without any opposition. It contained first, 
 " A repeal of the former act of succession, and a con- 
 firmation of the two sentences of divorce, the issue of 
 both the King's former marriages being declared ille- 
 gitimate, and for ever excluded from claiming the in- 
 heritance of the crown, as the King's lawful heirs by 
 lineal descent. The attainder of Queen Anne and 
 her complices is confirmed. Queen Anne is said to 
 have been inflamed with pride, and carnal desires of 
 
 cession.
 
 PART I. BOOK III. 339 
 
 her body; and having confederated herself with her 
 complices, to have committed divers treasons, to the 
 danger of the King's royal person ; with other aggra- 
 vating words, for which she had justly suffered death, 
 and is now attainted by act of parliament. And all 
 things that had been said or done against her, or her 
 daughter, being contrary to an act of parliament then in 
 force, are pardoned ; and the inheritance of the crown 
 is established on the issue of Queen Jane, whether 
 male or female, or the King's issue by any other wife 
 whom he might marry afterwards. 
 
 " But since it was not fit to declare to whom the 
 succession of the crown belonged after the King's 
 death, lest the person, so designed, might be thereby 
 enabled to raise trouble and commotions; therefore 
 they, considering the King's wise and excellent go- 
 vernment, and confiding in the love and affection 
 which he bore to his subjects, did give him full power 
 to declare the succession to the crown, either by his 
 letters-patents under the great seal, or by his last will, 
 signed with his hand; and promised all faithful obe- 
 dience to the persons named by him. And if any, 
 so designed to succeed in default of others, should 
 endeavour to usurp upon those before them, or to ex- 
 clude them, they are declared traitors, and were to 
 forfeit all the right they might thereafter claim to the 
 crown. And if any should maintain the lawfulness 
 of the former marriages, or that the issue by them 
 was legitimate, or refused to swear to the King's issue 
 by Queen Jane, they were also declared traitors." 
 
 By this act it may appear how absolutely this King 
 reigned in England. Many questioned much the 
 validity of it, and (as shall afterwards appear) the 
 Scots said, that the succession to the crown was not 
 within the parliament's power to determine about it, 
 but must go by inheritance to their King, in default 
 of issue by this King. Yet by this the King was 
 enabled to settle the crown on his children, whom 
 he had now declared illegitimate, by which he 
 brought them more absolutely to depend upon him- 
 self. He neither made them desperate, nor gave 
 
 z 2
 
 340 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 them any further right than what they were to derive 
 purely from his own good pleasure. This did also 
 much pacify the Emperor, since his kinswoman was, 
 though not restored in blood, yet put in a capacity 
 to succeed to the crown. 
 
 The Pope At this time there came a new proposition from 
 dnfr Rome, to try if the King would accommodate matters 
 wuh'ihe w i tn the Pope. Pope Clement the Seventh died two 
 Kin s- years before this, in the year 1534, and Cardinal Far- 
 nese succeeded him, called Pope Paul the Third. He 
 had before this made one unsuccessful attempt upon 
 the King; but, upon the beheading of the Bishop 
 (and declared Cardinal) of Rochester, he had thun- 
 dered a most terrible sentence of deposition against 
 the King, and designed to commit the execution of 
 it to the Emperor : yet now, when Queen Katherine 
 and Queen Anne, who were the occasions of the rup- 
 ture, were both out of the way, he thought it was a 
 proper conjuncture to try if a reconciliation could be 
 effected. This he proposed to Sir Gregory Cassali, 
 who was no more the King's ambassador at Rome, 
 but was still his correspondent there. The Pope 
 desired he would move the King in it, and let him 
 know that he had ever favoured hts cause in the for- 
 mer Pope's time, and though he was forced to give 
 out a sentence against him, yet he had never any in- 
 tention to proceed upon it to further extremities. 
 But in But the King was now so entirely alienated from 
 vain * the court of Rome, that, to cut off all hopes of recon- 
 ciliation, he procured two acts to be passed in this 
 parliament. The one was for the utter extinguishing 
 the authority of the Bishop of Rome. It was brought 
 into the House of Lords on the 4th of July ; and was 
 read the first time the 5th, and the second time on the 
 6th of July, and lay at the committee till the 12th. 
 And on the 14th it was sent down to the Commons, 
 who, if there be no mistake in the Journal, sent it up 
 that same day : they certainly made great haste, for 
 the parliament was dissolved within four days. 
 
 " The preamble of this first act contains severe re- 
 flections on the Bishop of Rome (whom some called
 
 PART I. BOOK III. 341 
 
 the Pope), who had long darkened God's word, that 
 it might serve his pomp, glory, avarice, ambition, and 
 tyranny ; both upon the souls, bodies, and goods of 
 all Christians ; excluding Christ out of the rule of 
 man's soul, and princes out of their dominions ; and 
 had exacted in England great sums, by dreams, and 
 vanities, and other superstitious ways. Upon these 
 reasons, his usurpations had been by law put down 
 in this nation ; yet many of his emissaries were still 
 practising up and down the kingdom, and persuad- 
 ing people to acknowledge his pretended authority. 
 Therefore every person so offending after the last of 
 July next to come, was to incur the pains of a pre- 
 munire ; and aril officers, both civil and ecclesiastical, 
 were commanded to make inquiry about such of- 
 fences, under several penalties." 
 
 On the 12th of July, a bill was brought in, con- 
 cerning privileges obtained from the see of Rome, 
 and was read the first time. And on the 17th it was 
 agreed to, and sent down to the Commons, who sent 
 it up again the next day. It bears, that the popes 
 had, during their usurpation, " granted many immu- 
 nities to several bodies and societies in England, 
 which upon that grant had been now long in use : 
 therefore all these bulls, breves, and every thing de- 
 pending on, or flowing from them, were declared 
 void and of no force. Yet all marriages celebrated 
 by virtue of them, that were not otherwise contrary 
 to the law of God, were declared good in law ; and 
 all consecrations of bishops, by virtue of them, were 
 confirmed. And for the future, all who enjoyed any 
 privileges by bulls, were to bring them into the Chan- 
 cery, or to such persons as the King should appoint 
 for that end. And the Archbishop of Canterbury 
 was lawfully to grant anew the effects contained in 
 them, which grant was to pass under the great seal, 
 and to be of full force in law." 
 
 This struck at the abbots' rights. But they were 
 glad to bear a diminution of their greatness, so they 
 might save the whole, which now lay at stake. By 
 the thirteenth act, they corrected an abuse which had
 
 342 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 come in to evade the force of a statute made in the 
 twenty-first year of this king, about the residence of 
 all ecclesiastical persons in their livings. One qua- 
 lification that did excuse from residence, was their 
 staying at the university for the completing of their 
 studies. Now it was found that many dissolute cler- 
 gymen went and lived at the universities, not for 
 their studies, but to be excused from serving their 
 cures. So it was enacted, that none above the age 
 of forty, that were not either heads of houses, or pub- 
 lic readers, should have any exemption from their 
 residence, by virtue of that clause in the former act. 
 And those under that age should not have the be- 
 nefit of it, except they were present at the lectures, 
 and performed their exercises in the schools. 
 
 By another act, there was provision made against 
 the prejudice the King's heirs might receive, before 
 they were of age, by parliaments held in their non- 
 age : that whatsoever acts were made before they 
 were twenty- four years of age, they might, at any 
 time of their lives after that, repeal and annul, by 
 their letters-patents, which should have an equal force 
 with a repeal by act of parliament. From these acts 
 it appears, that the King was absolute master, both 
 of the affections and fears of his subjects ; when, in 
 a new parliament called on a sudden, and in a session 
 of six weeks, from the 8th of June to the 18th of July, 
 acts of this importance were passed without any pro- 
 test or public opposition. 
 
 The pro- But, having now opened the business of the par- 
 the ^n- m liament, as it relates to the state, I must next give an 
 ion. accoun t o f the convocation, which sat at this time, 
 and was very busy, as appears by the Journals of 
 the House of Lords ; in which this is given for a 
 reason of many adjournments, because the spiritual 
 lords were busy in the convocation. It sat down on 
 the 9th of June, according to Fuller's extract; it 
 being the custom of all this reign, for that court to 
 meet two or three days after the parliament. Hither 
 Cromwell came as the King's vicar-general ; but he 
 was not yet vicegerent. For he sat next the Arch- 
 
 vocati
 
 PART I. BOOK III. 343 
 
 bishop ; but when he had that dignity, he sat above 
 him. Nor do I find him styled in any writing vice- 
 gerent for some time after this; though the Lord 
 Herbert says, he was made vicegerent the 18th of 
 Jutythis year, the same day in which the parliament 
 was dissolved.* 
 
 Latimer, bishop of Worcester, preached the Latin 
 sermon, on these words : " The children of this world 
 are wiser in their generation than the children of 
 light." He was the most celebrated preacher of that 
 time. The simplicity and plainness of his matter, 
 with a serious and fervent action that accompanied 
 it, being preferred to more learned and elaborate 
 composures. On the 21st of June, Cromwell moved, 
 that they would confirm the sentence of the invalidity 
 of the King's marriage with Queen Anne, which was 
 accordingly done by both houses of Convocation. 
 But certainly Fuller was asleep when he wrote, 
 " That, ten days before that, the Archbishop had 
 passed the sentence of divorce, on the day before the 
 Queen was beheaded." Whereas, if he had consi- 
 dered this more fully, he must have seen that the 
 Queen was put to death a month before this, and 
 was divorced two days before she died. Yet, with 
 this animadversion, I must give him my thanks for 
 his pains in copying out of the Journals of Convo- 
 cation many remarkable things, which had been 
 otherwise irrecoverably lost. 
 
 On the 23d of June, the lower house of Convoca- 
 tion sent to the upper house a collection of many 
 opinions, that were then in the realm ; which, as they 
 thought, were abuses, and errors, worthy of special 
 reformation. But they began this representation with 
 a protestation: "That they intended not to do, or 
 speak, any thing which might be unpleasant to the 
 King ; whom they acknowledged their supreme head, 
 and were resolved to obey his commands, renouncing 
 the Pope's usurped authority, with all his laws and 
 
 * These titles, however, seem to have been used promiscuously. In Fuller's 
 History of Cambridge, Cromwell ifl styled Vicegerent in the year 1535, and 
 in a writ of summons, 1539 (in Dugdale), he is styled " Vicarut Generalit " 
 See, however, Mr. Lewis's remarks referred to before, p. 293.
 
 344 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 inventions, now extinguished and abolished; and did 
 addict themselves to Almighty God, and his laws, and 
 unto the King, and the laws made within this kingdom ." 
 There are sixty-seven opinions set down, and are 
 either the tenets of the old Lollards, or the new re- 
 formers, together with the Anabaptists' opinions. Be- 
 sides all which, they complained of many unsavoury 
 and indiscreet expressions, which were either feigned 
 on design to disgrace the new preachers, or were per- 
 haps the extravagant reflections of some illiterate and 
 injudicious persons ; who are apt, upon all occasions, 
 by their heat and folly, rather to prejudice than ad- 
 vance their party ; and affect some petulant jeers, 
 which they think witty, and are perhaps well enter- 
 tained by some others, who, though they are more 
 judicious themselves, yet, imagining that such jests 
 on the contrary opinions will take with the people, 
 do give them too much encouragement. Many of 
 these jests, about confession, praying to saints, holy- 
 water, and the other ceremonies of the church, were 
 complained of. And the last articles contained 
 sharp reflections on some of the bishops, as if they 
 had been wanting in their duty to suppress such 
 things. This was clearly levelled at Cranmer, Lati- 
 mer, and Shaxton, who were noted as the great pro- 
 moters of these opinions. The first did it prudently 
 and solidly: the second zealously and simply; and the 
 third with much indiscreet pride and vanity. But now 
 that the Queen was gone, who had either raised or 
 supported them, their enemies hoped to have advan- 
 tages against them, and to lay the growth of these opi- 
 nions to their charge. But this whole project failed, 
 and Cranmer had as much of the King's favour as 
 ever ; for instead of that which they had projected, 
 Cromwell, by the King's order, coming to the con- 
 vocation, declared to them, that it was the King's 
 pleasure, that the rites and ceremonies of the church 
 should be reformed by the rules of Scripture, and that 
 nothing was to be maintained which did not rest on 
 that authority ; for it was absurd, since that was ac- 
 knowledged to contain the laws of religion, that re
 
 PART I. BOOK III. 345 
 
 course should rather be had to glosses, or the decrees 
 of popes, than to these. There was at that time one 
 Alexander Alesse, a Scotchman, much esteemed for 
 his learning and piety, whom Cranmer entertained at 
 Lambeth. Him Cromwell brought with him to the 
 Convocation,* and desired him to deliver his opinion Antiq 
 about the sacraments. He enlarged himself much to vte 
 convince them, that only baptism and the Lord's sup- mer- 
 per were instituted by Christ. 
 
 Stokesley, bishop of London, answered him, in a 
 long discourse, in which he shewed he was better ac- 
 quainted with the learning of the schools, and the canon 
 law, than with the gospel ; he was seconded by the 
 Archbishop of York, and others of that party. 
 
 But Cranmer, in a long and learned speech, shewed 
 how useless these niceties of the schools were, and of 
 how little authority they ought to be ; and discoursed 
 largely of the authority of the Scriptures, of the use 
 of the sacraments, of the uncertainty of tradition, and 
 of the corruption which the monks and friars had 
 brought into the Christian doctrine. He was vigo- 
 rously seconded by the Bishop of Hereford, who told 
 them, the world would be no longer deceived with such 
 sophisticated stuff as the clergy had formerly vented : 
 the laity were now in all nations studying the Scrip- 
 tures, and that, not only in the vulgar translations, but 
 in the original tongues ; and therefore it was a vain 
 imagination to think they would be any longer go- 
 verned by those arts which, in the former ages of 
 ignorance, had been so effectual. Not many days 
 after this, there were several articles brought in to 
 the upper house of Convocation, devised by the King 
 himself, about which there were great debates among 
 them ; the two Archbishops heading two parties : 
 Cranmer was for a reformation, and with him joined 
 
 * An account of this conference was published by Alesse in Latin, and 
 translated into English by Edm. Alen. He was sent for into England by the 
 Lord Cromwell, sent to Cambridge, driven thence, withdrew to London, where 
 he studied and practised physic for several years, met by chance with the Lord 
 Cromwell, who took him with him to Westminster, where he found all the 
 bishops gathered together ; unto whom they all rose up and did obedience, as 
 to their vicar-general, and he sat him down in the highest place : then follows 
 an account of the debate, and how the bishops were divided. He places this 
 meeting in the year 1537.
 
 346 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 Thomas Goodrich, bishop of Ely ; Shaxton, of 
 Sarum ; Latimer, of Worcester ; Fox, of Hereford ; 
 Hilsey, of Rochester ; and Barlow, of St. David's. 
 
 But Lee, archbishop of York, was a known favourer 
 of the Pope's interests ; which, as it first appeared 
 in his scrupling so much, with the whole convocation 
 of York, the acknowledging the King to be the su- 
 preme head of the church of England ; so he had 
 since discovered it on all occasions, in which he durst 
 do it without the fear of losing the King's favour : so 
 he, and Stokesley, bishop of London ; Tonstal, of 
 Duresme ; Gardiner, of Winchester ; Longland, of 
 Lincoln; Sherburn, of Chichester; Nix, of Norwich; 
 and Kite, of Carlisle : had been still against all 
 changes. But the King discovered, that those did 
 in their hearts love the papal authority, though Gar- 
 diner dissembled it most artificially. Sherburn, bishop 
 of Chichester, upon what inducement I cannot un- 
 derstand, resigned his bishoprick, which was given 
 to Richard Sampson, dean of the chapel ; a pension 
 of 400/. being reserved to Sherburn for his life, which 
 was confirmed by an act of this parliament. Nix, 
 of Norwich, had also offended the King signally, by 
 some correspondence with Rome, and was kept long 
 in the Marshalsea, and was convicted and found in 
 a prtfmunire : the King, considering his great age, 
 had upon his humble submission discharged him out 
 of prison, and pardoned him. But he died the for- 
 mer year ; though Fuller, in his slight way, makes 
 Act 1T . him sit in this convocation : for by the seventeenth 
 7 Regni. &c t o f t h e ] ast parliament, it appears that the bishop- 
 rick of Norwich being vacant, the King had recom- 
 mended William Abbot of St. Bennet's to it ; but 
 took into his own hands all the lands and manors of 
 the bishoprick, and gave the Bishop several of the 
 priories in Norfolk in exchange, which was con- 
 firmed in parliament. 
 
 I shall next give a short abstract of the articles 
 about religion, which were, after much consultation 
 and long debating, agreed to. 
 
 " First, All bishops and preachers must instruct
 
 PART I. BOOK III. 347 
 
 the people to believe the whole Bible and the three Articles 
 creeds ; that made by the apostles, the Nicene, and ^ut 
 the Athanasian ; and interpret all things accord in g pH^ed by 
 to them, and in the very same words, and condemn FuUer - 
 all heresies contrary to them, particularly those con- 
 demned by the first four general councils. 
 
 " Secondly, Of baptism : the people must be in- 
 structed, that it is a sacrament instituted by Christ, 
 for the remission of sins, without which none could 
 attain everlasting life : and that, not only those of full 
 age, but infants may and must be baptized, for the 
 pardon of original sin, and obtaining the gift of the 
 Holy Ghost, by which they become the sons of God. 
 That none baptized ought to be baptized again. That 
 the opinions of the Anabaptists and Pelagians were 
 detestable heresies : and that those of ripe age, who 
 desired baptism, must with it join repentance and con- 
 trition for their sins, with a firm belief of the articles 
 of the faith. 
 
 " Thirdly, Concerning penance : they were to in- 
 struct the people, that it was instituted by Christ, and 
 was absolutely necessary to salvation. That it con- 
 sisted of contrition, confession, and amendment of life; 
 with exterior works of charity, which were the worthy 
 fruits of penance. For contrition, it was an inward 
 shame and sorrow for sin, because it is an offence 
 of God, which provokes his displeasure. To this 
 must be joined, a faith of the mercy and goodness 
 of God, whereby the penitent must hope, that God 
 will forgive him, and repute him justified, and of 
 the number of his elect children, not for the wor- 
 thiness of any merit or work done by him, but for 
 the only merits of the blood and passion of our Sa- 
 viour Jesus Christ. That this faith is got and con- 
 firmed by the application of the promises of the gos- 
 pel, and the use of the sacraments : and for that end, 
 confession to a priest is necessary, if it may be had, 
 whose absolution was instituted by Christ, to apply 
 the promises of God's grace to the penitent : there- 
 fore the people were to be taught, that the absolution 
 is spoken by an authority given by Christ in the gos-
 
 348 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 pel to the priest, and must be believed, as if it were 
 spoken by God himself, according to our Saviour's 
 words ; and therefore none were to condemn auricular 
 confession, but use it for the comfort of their con- 
 sciences. The people were also to be instructed, that 
 though God pardoned sin, only for the satisfaction 
 of Christ, yet they must bring forth the fruits of pe- 
 nance, prayer, fasting, almsdeeds, with restitution and 
 satisfaction for wrongs done to others, with other 
 works of mercy and charity, and obedience to God's 
 commandments, else they could not be saved ; and 
 that by doing these, they should both obtain ever- 
 lasting life, and mitigation of their afflictions in this 
 present life, according to the Scriptures. 
 
 " Fourthly, As touching the sacrament of the altar, 
 people were to be instructed, that under the forms of 
 bread and wine, there was truly and substantially 
 given the very same body of Christ that was born of 
 the Virgin Mary ; and therefore it was to be received 
 with all reverence, every one duly examining himself, 
 according to the words of St. Paul. 
 
 " Fifthly, The people were to be instructed, that 
 justification signifieth remission of sins, and accepta- 
 tion into the favour of God ; that is to say, a perfect 
 renovation in Christ. To the attaining which, they 
 were to have contrition, faith, charity, which were 
 both to concur in it, and follow it ; and that the good 
 works necessary to salvation, were not only outward 
 civil works, but the inward motions and graces of 
 God's Holy Spirit, to dread, fear, and love him, to 
 have firm confidence in God, to call upon him, and 
 to have patience in all adversities, to hate sin, and 
 have purposes and wills not to sin again ; with such 
 other motions and virtues, consenting and agreeable 
 to the law of God. 
 
 " The other articles were about the ceremonies of 
 the church. First, of images. The people were to 
 be instructed, that the use of them was warranted by 
 the Scriptures, and that they served to represent to 
 them good examples, and to stir up devotion ; and 
 therefore it was meet that they should stand in the
 
 PART I. BOOK II. 349 
 
 churches. But, that the people might not fall into such 
 superstition as it was thought they had done in time 
 past, they were to be taught to reform such abuses, 
 lest idolatry might ensue ; and that in censing, kneel- 
 ing, offering, or worshipping them, the people were 
 to be instructed, not to do it to the image, but to God 
 and his honour. 
 
 "Secondly, For the honouring of saints: they were 
 not to think to attain these things at their hands, which 
 were only obtained of God ; but that they were to 
 honour them as persons now in glory, to praise God 
 for them, and imitate their virtues, and not fear to die 
 for the truth, as many of them had done. 
 
 " Thirdly, For praying to saints : the people were 
 to be taught, that it was good to pray to them, to pray 
 for and with us. And to correct all superstitious 
 abuses in this matter, they were to keep the days ap- 
 pointed by the church for their memories, unless the 
 King should lessen the number of them, which if he 
 did, it was to be obeyed. 
 
 " Fourthly, Of Ceremonies. The people were to 
 be taught, that they were not to be condemned and 
 cast away, but to be kept as good and laudable, hav- 
 ing mystical significations in them, and being useful 
 to lift up our minds to God. Such were the vestments 
 in the worship of God : the sprinkling holy water, to 
 put us in mind of our baptism and the blood of Christ; 
 giving holy bread, in sign of our union in Christ, and 
 to remember us of the sacrament ; bearing candles on 
 Candlemas-day, in remembrance that Christ was the 
 spiritual light ; giving ashes on Ash-Wednesday, to 
 put us in mind of penance, and of our mortality; 
 bearing palms on Palm-Sunday, to shew our desire 
 to receive Christ in our hearts, as he entered into 
 Jerusalem ; creeping to the cross on Good-Friday, 
 and kissing it, in memory of his death, with the set- 
 ting up the sepulchre on that day ; the hallowing the 
 font, and other exorcisms and benedictions. 
 
 " And lastly, As to purgatory, they were to declare 
 it good and charitable to pray for the souls departed, 
 which was said to have continued in the church from
 
 350 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 the beginning; : and therefore the people were to be 
 instructed, that it consisted well with the due order 
 of charity, to pray for them, and to make others pray 
 for them, in masses and exequies, and to give alms to 
 them for that end. But since the place they were in, 
 and the pains they suffered, were uncertain by the 
 Scripture, we ought to remit them wholly to God's 
 mercy : therefore all these abuses were to be put away, 
 which, under the pretence of purgatory, had been 
 advanced, as if the Pope's pardons did deliver souls 
 out of it, or masses said in certain places, or before 
 certain images, had such efficiency : with other such- 
 like abuses."* 
 
 These articles being thus conceived, and in several 
 places corrected, and tempered by the King's own 
 hand, were signed by Cromwell, and the Archbishop 
 of Canterbury, and seventeen other bishops, forty 
 abbots and priors, and fifty archdeacons and proctors 
 of the lower house of Convocation. Among whom, 
 Polydore Virgil and Peter Vannes signed with the rest, 
 published as appears by the original, yet extant. They being 
 king's au- tendered to the King, he confirmed them, and ordered 
 thoiity. them to be published, with a preface, in his name. 
 " It is said in the preface, that he, accounting it the 
 chief part of his charge, that the word and command- 
 ments of God should be believed and observed, and 
 to maintain unity and concord in opinion ; and un- 
 derstanding, to his great regret, that there was great 
 diversity of opinion arisen among his subjects, both 
 about articles of faith and ceremonies, had, in his own 
 person, taken great pains and study about these things, 
 and had ordered also the bishops, and other learned 
 men of the clergy, to examine them ; who, after 
 
 * See Addenda to this vol. and the articles themselves in vol. iii. Addenda to 
 vol. i. part ii. No. I. with the subscriptions annexed. In Strype's Ecclesiastical 
 Memorials, vol. i. p. 588. Oxford Edit. 1822, these articles are referred to by 
 mistake, as the Institution of a Christian Man ; which did not appear till the fol- 
 lowing year, and which was certainly not reprinted by Burnet, as Strype says, 
 if he ever saw it, which is judged by some to be very doubtful. See Laurence's 
 Bampton Lectures, 190. The Christian Institution may be seen in Collier, vol. 
 ii. p. 139. and all the three Formularies of Faith put forth by authority during 
 the reign of Henry VIII. viz. The Articles of 1 536 ; the Institution of a Christian 
 Man, 1537 ; and the Necessary Doctrine and Erudition for any Christian Man, 
 1543 ; in avaluable publication by Bishop Lloyd, Oxford, 1825, the Institution 
 was turned into Latin verse for the use of St Paul's school, by Erasmus. N.
 
 PART I. BOOK III. 351 
 
 long deliberation, had concluded on the most special 
 points, which the King thought proceeded from a 
 good, right, and true judgment, according to the laws 
 of God ; these would also be profitable, for establish- 
 ing unity in the church of England : therefore he had 
 ordered them to be published, requiring all to accept 
 of them, praying God so to illuminate their hearts, 
 that they might have no less zeal and love to unity 
 and concord, in reading them, than he had in making 
 them to be devised, set forth, and published ; which 
 good acceptance should encourage him to take fur- 
 ther pains for the future, as should be most for the 
 honour of God, and the profit and the quietness of 
 his subjects." 
 
 This being published, occasioned great variety of 
 censures. Those that desired reformation, were glad s 
 to see so great a step once made ; and did not doubt, 
 but this would make way for further changes. They 
 rejoiced to see the Scriptures and the ancient creeds 
 made the standards of the faith, without mentioning 
 tradition or the decrees of the church. Then the 
 foundation of Christian faith was truly stated, and the 
 terms of the covenant between God and man in 
 Christ were rightly opened, without the niceties of 
 the schools of either side. Immediate worship of 
 images and saints was also removed, and purgatory 
 was declared uncertain by the Scripture. These 
 were great advantages to them ; but the establishing 
 the necessity of auricular confession, the corporal pre- 
 sence in the sacrament, the keeping up and doing 
 reverence to images, and the praying to saints, did 
 allay their joy ; yet they still counted it a victory, to 
 have things brought under debate, and to have some 
 grosser abuses taken away. 
 
 The other party were unspeakably troubled. Four 
 sacraments were passed over, which would encourage 
 ill-affected people to neglect them. The gainful 
 trade by the belief of purgatory was put down ; for, 
 though it was said to be good to give alms for pray- 
 ing for the dead, yet, since both the dreadful stories 
 of the miseries of purgatory, and the certainty of re-
 
 352 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 deeming souls out of them by masses, were made 
 doubtful, the people's charity and bounty that way 
 would soon abate. And, in a word, the bringing mat- 
 ters under dispute was a great mortification to them ; 
 for all concluded, that this was but a preamble to 
 what they might expect afterwards. 
 
 When these things were seen beyond sea, the papal 
 party made every where great use of it, to shew the 
 necessity of adhering to the Pope ; since the King of 
 England, though, w T hen he broke off from his obe- 
 dience to the apostolic see, he pretended he would 
 maintain the catholic faith entire, yet was now making 
 great changes in it. But others, that were more mo- 
 derate, acknowledged that there was great temper 
 and prudence in contriving these articles. And it 
 seems the Emperor, and the more learned divines 
 about him, both approved of the precedent, and liked 
 the particulars so well, that not many years after, the 
 Emperor published a work not unlike this, called 
 The Interim ; because it was to be in force in that 
 interim, till all things were more fully debated and 
 determined by a general council, which, in many par- 
 ticulars, agreed with these articles. Yet some stricter 
 persons censured this work much, as being a poli- 
 tical daubing ; in which, they said, there was more 
 pains taken to gratify persons, and serve particular 
 ends, than to assert truth in a free and unbiassed 
 way, such as became divines. This was again ex- 
 cused ; and it was said, that all things could not be 
 attained on a sudden : that some of the bishops and 
 divines, who afterwards arrived at a clearer under- 
 standing of some matters, were not then so fully con- 
 vinced about them ; and so it was their ignorance, 
 and not their cowardice or policy, that made them 
 compliant in some things. Besides, it was said, that 
 as our Saviour did not reveal all things to his dis- 
 ciples, till they were able to bear them ; and as the 
 apostles did not of a sudden abolish all the rites of 
 Judaism, but for some time, to gain the Jews, com- 
 plied with them, and went to the temple, and offered 
 sacrifices ; so the people were not to be overdriven
 
 PART I. BOOK III. 353 
 
 in this change. The clergy must be brought out of 
 their ignorance by degrees, and then the people were 
 to be better instructed ; but to drive furiously, and do 
 all at once, might have spoiled the whole design, 
 and totally alienated those who were to be drawn on 
 by degrees ; it might have also much endangered 
 the peace of the nation, the people being much dis- 
 posed by the practices of the friars to rise in arms : 
 therefore, these slow steps were thought the surer and 
 better method. 
 
 On the last day of the convocation, there was an- The . 
 other writing brought in by Fox, bishop of Hereford, d^iar 
 occasioned by the summons for a general council to ^ n n c *| 
 sit at Mantua, to which the Pope had cited the King called fa y 
 to appear. The King had made his appeal from the 
 Pope to a general council, but there was no reason 
 to expect any justice in an assembly so constituted as 
 this was like to be. Therefore it was thought fit to 
 publish somewhat of the reasons why the King could 
 not submit his matter to the decision of such a coun- 
 cil, as was then intended. And it was moved, that 
 the convocation should give their sense of it. 
 
 The substance of their answer (which the reader collect. 
 will find in the Collection) was, " That as nothing Namb ' 5 ' 
 was better instituted by the ancient fathers, for the 
 establishment of the faith, the extirpation of heresies, 
 the healing of schisms, and the unity of the Christian 
 church, than general councils, gathered in the Holy 
 Ghost, duly called to an indifferent place, with other 
 necessary requisites; so, on the other hand, nothing 
 could produce more pestiferous effects than a general 
 council called upon private malice, or ambition, or 
 other carnal respects; which Gregory Nazianzen so 
 well observed in his time, that he thought ' all as- 
 semblies of bishops were to be eschewed, for he never 
 saw good come of any of them, and they had in- 
 creased rather than healed the distempers of the 
 church. For the appetite of vain-glory, and a con- 
 tentious humour, bore down reason:' therefore they 
 thought Christian princes ought to employ all their 
 endeavours to prevent so great a mischief. And it 
 
 VOL. i. 2 A
 
 354 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 was to be considered, first, Who had authority to call 
 one. Secondly, If the reasons for calling one were 
 more weighty. Thirdly, Who should be the judges. 
 Fourthly, What should be the manner of proceeding. 
 Fifthly, What things should be treated of in it. And, 
 as to the first of these, they thought neither the Pope, 
 nor any one prince, of what dignity soever, had au- 
 thority to call one, without the consent of all other 
 Christian princes : especially such as had entire and 
 supreme government over all their subjects." This 
 was signed on the 20th of July, by Cromwell, and 
 the Archbishop of Canterbury, with fourteen bishops, 
 and forty abbots, priors, and clerks, of the convoca- 
 tion of Canterbury. Whether this and the former 
 articles were also signed by the convocation of the 
 province of York, does not appear by any record ; 
 The King but that I think is not to be doubted. This being 
 berets" obtained, the King published a long and sharp pro- 
 testation against the council now summoned to Man- 
 tua. In which he shews, that the Pope had no power 
 FOX. to call one ; " For, as it was done by the emperors of 
 old; so it pertained to Christian princes now. That 
 the Pope had no jurisdiction in England, and so could 
 summon none of this nation to come to any such 
 meeting. That the place was neither safe nor proper. 
 That nothing could be done in a council to any pur- 
 pose, if the Pope sat judge in chief in it; since one 
 of the true ends, why a council was to be desired, 
 was to reduce his power within its old limits. A 
 free general council was that which he much desired; 
 but he was sure this could not be such ; and the pre- 
 sent distractions of Christendom, and the wars be- 
 tween the Emperor and the French King, shewed 
 this was no proper time for one. The Pope, who had 
 long refused or delayed to call one, did now choose 
 this conjuncture of affairs, knowing that few would 
 come to it, and so they might carry things as they 
 pleased. But the world was now awake ; the Scrip- 
 tures were again in men's hands, and people would 
 not be so tamely cozened as they had been. Then 
 he shews, how unsafe it was for any Englishman to
 
 PART I. BOOK III. 355 
 
 go to Mantua, how little regard was to be had to the 
 Pope's safe-conduct, they having so oft broken their 
 oaths and promises. He also shews, how little reason 
 he had to trust himself to the Pope, how kind he had 
 been to that see formerly, and how basely they had 
 requited it: and that now, these three years past, they 
 had been stirring up all Christian princes against him, 
 and using all possible means to create him trouble : 
 therefore he declared, he would not go to any council 
 called by the Bishop of Rome; but when there was 
 a general peace among Christian princes, he would 
 most gladly hearken to the motion of a true general 
 council: and, in the mean while, he would preserve 
 all the articles of the faith in his kingdom, and sooner 
 lose his life and his crown, than suffer any of them 
 to be put down. And so he protested against any 
 council to be held at Mantua, or any where else, by 
 the Bishop of Rome's authority: that he would not 
 acknowledge it, nor receive any of their decrees." 
 
 At this time, Reginald Pole, who was of the royal cardinal 
 blood, being by his mother descended from the Duke *** 
 of Clarence, brother to King Edward IV. and in the ^M 
 same degree of kindred with the King by his father's 
 side, was in great esteem for his learning, and other 
 excellent virtues. It seems, the King had determined 
 to breed him up to the greatest dignity in the church; 
 and to make him as eminent in learning, and other 
 acquired parts, as he was for quality, and a natural 
 sweetness and nobleness of temper. Therefore, the 
 King had given him the deanery of Exeter, with se- 
 veral other dignities, towards his maintenance beyond 
 sea; and sent him to Paris, where he stayed several 
 years: there he first incurred the king's displeasure. 
 For, being desired by him to concur with his agents 
 in procuring the subscriptions and seals of the French 
 universities, he excused himself; yet it was in such 
 terms, that he did not openly declare himself against 
 the King: after that, he came over to England, and 
 as he writes himself, was present when the clergy 
 made their submission, and acknowledged the King 
 supreme head. In which, since he was then dean 
 2 A 2 
 
 King's pro- 
 ngs.
 
 356 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 of Exeter, and kept his deanery several years after 
 that, it is not to be doubted, but that, as he was by 
 his place obliged to sit in the convocation, so he con- 
 curred with the rest in making that submission. 
 From thence he went to Padua, where he lived long, 
 and was received into the friendship and society of 
 some celebrated persons, who gave themselves much 
 to the study of eloquence, and of the Roman au- 
 thors. These were Centareno, Bembo Caraflfa, Sa- 
 doletti, with a great many more, that became after- 
 wards well known over the world : but all those gave 
 Pole the pre-eminence, and that justly too, for he 
 was accounted one of the most eloquent men of his 
 time. 
 
 The King called him oft home to assist him in his 
 affairs, but he still declined it; at length, finding de- 
 lays could prevail no longer, he wrote the King word 
 that he did not approve of what he had done, nei- 
 ther in the matter of divorce, nor his separation from 
 the apostolic see. To this the King answered, de- 
 siring his reasons why he disagreed from him, and 
 sent him over a book which Dr. Sampson had writ in 
 And writes defence of the proceedings in England. Upon which, 
 agahTst'' ne wrote his book De Unitate Ecclesiastica, and sent 
 him - it over to the King ; and soon after printed it in this 
 year. In which book he condemned the King's ac- 
 tions, and pressed him to return to the obedience he 
 owed the see of Rome, with many sharp reflections; 
 but the book was more considered for the author, and 
 the wit and eloquence of it, than for any great learn- 
 ing or deep reasoning in it. He did also very much 
 depress the royal, and exalt the papal authority : he 
 compared the King to Nebuchadonosor, and ad- 
 dressed himself in the conclusion to the Emperor; 
 whom he conjured to turn his arms rather against the 
 King than the Turk. And, indeed, the indecencies 
 of his expressions against the King, not to mention 
 the scurrilous language he bestows on Sampson, 
 whose book he undertakes to answer, are such, that 
 it appears how much the Italian air had changed him ; 
 and that his converse at Padua had, for some time,
 
 PART I. BOOK III. 857 
 
 defaced that generous temper of mind, which was 
 otherwise so natural to him. 
 
 Upon this, the King desired him at first to come 
 over, and explain some passages in his book : but 
 when he could not thus draw him into his toils, he 
 proceeded severely against him, and divested him of 
 all his dignities; but these were plentifully made up 
 to him by the Pope's bounty, and the Emperor's. 
 He was afterwards rewarded with a cardinal's hat, but 
 he d id not rise above the d egree of a deacon . Some be- 
 lieve that the spring of this opposition he made to the 
 King was a secret affection he had for the Lady Mary. 
 The publishing of this book made the King set the 
 bishops on work to write vindications of his actions : Many 
 which Stokesley and Tonstal did, in a long and learned ^eiffor 
 letter that they wrote to Pole. And Gardiner published the Ca- 
 lais book of True Obedience : to which Bonner, who 
 was hot on the scent of preferment, added a preface. 
 But the King designed sharper tools for Pole's punish- 
 ment: yet an attainder in absence was all he could 
 do against himself. But his family and kindred felt 
 the weight of the King's displeasure very sensibly. 
 
 But now I must give an account of the dissolution 
 of the monasteries, pursuant to the act of parliament, 
 though I cannot fix the exact time in which it was 
 
 o 
 
 done. I have seen the original instructions, with the 
 commission given to those who were to visit the mo- 
 nasteries in and about Bristol. All the rest were of 
 the same kind : they bear date the 2Nth of April, after 
 the session of parliament was over; and the report 
 was to be made in the octaves of St. Michael the 
 archangel. But I am inclined to think that the great 
 concussion and disorder things were in by the Queen's 
 death, made the commissioners unwilling to proceed 
 in so invidious a matter, till they saw the issue of the 
 new parliament. Therefore I have delayed giving 
 any account of the proceedings in that matter till this 
 place. The instructions will be found in the Collec- 
 tion. The substance of them was as follows : 
 
 " The auditors of the court of Augmentations were ceiiect. 
 the persons that were employed. Four, or any three Nomb - 6 -
 
 358 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 instruc- of them, were commissioned to execute the instruc- 
 the dissou. tions in every particular visitation. One auditor, or 
 SwiT' rece iver, and one of the clerks of the former visitation, 
 were to call for three discreet persons in the county, 
 who were also named by the King. They were to 
 signify to every house the statute of dissolution, and 
 shew them their commission. Then they were to put 
 the governor, or any other officer of the house, to de- 
 clare upon oath the true state of it: and to require 
 him speedily to appear before the court of Augmen- 
 tations: and, in the mean time, not to meddle with 
 any thing belonging to the house. Then to examine 
 how many religious persons were in the house, and 
 what lives they led; how many of them were priests, 
 how many of them would go to other religious houses, 
 and how many of them would take capacities and go 
 into the world. They were to estimate the state and 
 fabric of the house, and the number of the servants 
 they kept : and to call for the covent-seal, and writ- 
 ings, and put them in some sure place, and take an 
 inventory of all their plate, and their moveable goods, 
 and to know the value of all that, before the 1st of 
 March last, belonged to the house, and what debts 
 they owed. They were to put the covent-seal, with 
 the jewels and plate, in safe keeping, and to leave the 
 rest (an inventory being first taken) in the governors' 
 hands, to be kept by them till further order. And 
 the governors were to meddle with none of the rents 
 of the house, except for necessary sustenance, till they 
 were another way disposed of. They were to try 
 what leases and deeds had been made for a whole 
 year before the 4th of February last. Such as would 
 still live in monasteries were to be recommended to 
 some of the great monasteries that lay next: and such 
 as would live in the world, must come to th Archbi- 
 shop of Canterbury, or the Lord Chancellor, to receive 
 capacities." (From which it appears, that Cromwell 
 was not at this time lord vicegerent, for he granted 
 these capacities when he was in that power.) "And 
 the commissioners were to give them a reasonable 
 allowance for their journey, according to the distance
 
 PART I. BOOK III. 359 
 
 they lived at. The governor was to be sent to the 
 court of Augmentations, who were to assign him a 
 yearly pension for his life." 
 
 What report those commissioners made, or how 
 they obeyed their instructions, we know not ; for the 
 account of it is razed out of the Records. The writ- 
 ers that lived near that time represent the matter very 
 odiously, and say about ten thousand persons were 
 set to seek for their livings ; only forty shillings in 
 money, and a gown, being given to every religious 
 man. The rents of them all rose to about thirty-two 
 thousand pounds : and the goods, plate, jewels, and 
 other moveables, were valued at a hundred thousand 
 pounds : and it is generally said, and not improbably, 
 that the commissioners were as careful to enrich 
 themselves, as to increase the King's revenue. The 
 churches and cloisters were for the most part pulled 
 down; and the lead, bells, and other materials were 
 sold; and this must needs have raised great discon- 
 tents every where. 
 
 The religious persons that were undone,went about Great dis 
 complaining of the sacrilege and injustice of this sup- a^glj 
 pression; that what the piety of their ancestors had ^ le t f 
 dedicated to God and his saints was now invaded and 
 converted to secular ends. They said, the King's seve- 
 rity fell first upon some particular persons of their or- 
 ders, who were found delinquents; but now, upon the 
 pretended miscarriages of some individual persons, to 
 proceed against their houses, and suppress them, was 
 an unheard-of practice. The nobility and gentry, 
 whose ancestors had founded orenriched these houses, 
 and who provided for their younger children, or im- 
 poverished friends, by putting them into these sanctu- 
 aries, complained much of the prejudice they sustained 
 by it. The people, that had been well entertained at 
 the abbots' tables, were sensible of their loss : for ge- 
 nerally, as they travelled over the country, the abbeys 
 were their stages, and were houses of reception to tra- 
 vellers and strangers. The devouter sort of people 
 of their persuasion thought their friends must now lie 
 in purgatory without relief, except they were at the
 
 300 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 charge to keep a priest, who should daily say mass 
 for their souls. The poor that fed on their daily alms 
 were deprived of that supply. 
 
 dea- But to compose these discontents, first, many books 
 Tto"* were published, to shew what crimes, cheats, and im- 
 iet these. p OS t U res, those religious persons were guilty of. Yet 
 that wrought not much on the people; for they said, 
 why were not these abuses severely punished and 
 reformed ? But must whole houses, and the succeed- 
 ing generations, be punished for the faults of a few? 
 Most of these reports were also denied, and even those 
 who before envied the ease and plenty in which the 
 abbots and monks lived, began now to pity them, 
 and condemned the proceedings against them. But 
 to allay this general discontent, Cromwell advised 
 the King to sell their lands at very easy rates to the 
 gentry in the several counties, obliging them, since 
 they had them upon such terms, to keep up the 
 wonted hospitality. This drew in the gentry apace 
 both to be satisfied with what was done, and to as- 
 sist the crown for ever in the defence of these laws , 
 their own interest being so interwoven with the rights 
 of the crown. The commoner sort, who, like those 
 of old that followed Christ for the loaves, were most 
 concerned for the loss of a good dinner on a holy-day, 
 or when they went over the country about their bu- 
 siness, were now also in a great measure satisfied, 
 when they heard that all to whom these lands were 
 given, were obliged under heavy forfeitures to keep 
 up the hospitality; and when they saw that put in 
 practice, their discontent, which lay chiefly in their 
 stomach, was appeased. 
 
 And to quiet other people, who could not be satis- 
 fied with such things, the King made use of a clause 
 in the act that gave him the lesser monasteries, which 
 empowered him to continue such as he should think 
 fit. Therefore on the 17th of August, he by his let- 
 ters-patents, did of new give back in perpetuam elee- 
 mosynam for perpetual alms, five abbeys. The first 
 of these was the abbey of St. Mary of Betlesden of 
 the Cistercian order in Buckinghamshire. Ten more 
 
 Numb. 3 
 Sect. 2.
 
 PART I. BOOK III. 361 
 
 were afterwards confirmed. Sixteen nunneries were 
 also confirmed : in all thirty-one houses. The patents 
 (in most of which some manors are excepted, that 
 had been otherwise disposed of), are all enrolled, and 
 yet none of our writers have taken any notice of this. 
 It seems these houses had been more regular than the 
 rest : so that in a general calamity they were rather 
 reprieved than excepted : for two years after this, in 
 the suppression of the rest of the monasteries, they 
 /ell under the common fate of other houses. By 
 these new endowments, they were obliged to pay 
 tenths and first-fruits, and to obey all the statutes 
 and rules that should be sent to them from the King, 
 as supreme head of the church. But it is not unlike, 
 that some presents, to the commissioners, or to Crom- 
 well, made these houses outlive this ruin : for I find 
 great trading in bribes at this time, which is not to be 
 wondered at, when there was so much to be shared. 
 
 But great disorders followed upon the dissolution Ye 
 of the other houses. People were still generally dis- fncun 
 contented. The suppression of religious houses oc- rebel 
 casioned much outcrying, and the articles then lately 
 published about religion increased the distaste they 
 had conceived at the government. The old clergy 
 were also very watchful to improve all opportunities, 
 and to blow upon every spark. And the Pope's power 
 of deposing kings had been for almost five hundred 
 years received as an article of faith. The same 
 council that established transubstantiation, had as- 
 serted it : and there were many precedents, not only 
 in Germany, France, Spain, and Italy, but also in 
 England, of kings that were deposed by popes, whose 
 dominions were given to other princes. This had 
 begun in the eighth century, in two famous depri- 
 vations. The one in France, of Childeric the Third, 
 who was deprived, and the crown given to Pepin ; 
 and, about the same time, those dominions in Italy, 
 which were under the eastern emperors, renounced 
 their allegiance to them. In both these the popes 
 had a great hand ; yet they rather confirmed and ap- 
 proved of those treasonable mutations, than gave the
 
 362 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 first rise to them. But after Pope Gregory the 
 Seventh's time, it was clearly assumed as a right and 
 prerogative of the papal crown to depose princes, and 
 absolve subjects from the oaths of allegiance, and set 
 up others in their stead. And all those emperors 
 or kings, that contested any thing with popes, sat very 
 uneasy and unsafe in their thrones ever after that 
 But if they were tractable to the demands of the 
 court X)f Rome, then they might oppress their sub- 
 jects, and govern as unjustly as they pleased ; for 
 they had a mighty support from that court. This 
 made princes more easily bear the popes' usurpations, 
 because they were assisted by them in all their other 
 proceedings. And the friars having the consciences 
 of people generally in their hands, as they had the 
 word given by their general at Rome, so they dis- 
 posed people either to be obedient or seditious, as 
 they pleased. 
 
 Now, not only their own interests, mixed with their 
 zeal for the ancient religion, but the Pope's authority, 
 gave them as good a warrant to incline the people to 
 rebel, as any had in former times, of whom some 
 were canonized for the like practices. For in August 
 the former year, the Pope had summoned the King to 
 appear within ninety days, and to answer for putting 
 away his Queen, and taking another wife ; and for 
 the laws he had made against the church, and putting 
 the Bishop of Rochester and others to death for not 
 obeying these laws : and if he did not reform these 
 faults, or did not appear to answer for them, the 
 Pope excommunicated him, and all that favoured 
 him; deprived the King, put the kingdom under an 
 interdict, forbade all his subjects to obey, and other 
 states to hold commerce with him ; dissolved all his 
 leagues with foreign princes, commanded all the 
 clergy to depart out of England, and his nobility to 
 rise in arms against him. But now, the force of those 
 thunders, which had formerly produced great earth- 
 quakes and commotions, was much abated ; yet some 
 storms were raised by this, though not so violent as 
 had been in former times.
 
 PART I. BOOK III. 363 
 
 The people were quiet till they had reaped their King's 
 
 i A i .1 I A.' i injunctions 
 
 harvest. And though some injunctions were pub- about - 
 lished a little before, to help it the better forward, IW80 - 
 most of the holy-days in harvest being abolished by 
 the King's authority, yet that rather inflamed them 
 the more. Other injunctions were published in the 
 King's name by Cromwell his vicegerent, which was 
 the first act of pure supremacy done by the King. 
 For in all that went before, he had the concurrence 
 of the two convocations. But these, it is like, were 
 penned by Cranmer. The reader is referred to the collect. 
 Collection of Papers for them, as I transcribed them N< 
 out of the Register. 
 
 " The substance of them was, that, first, all eccle- 
 siastical incumbents were for a quarter of a year after 
 that, once every Sunday, and ever after that, twice 
 every quarter, to publish to the people, that the Bi- 
 shop of Rome's usurped power, had no ground in 
 the law of God ; and therefore was on good reasons 
 abolished in this kingdom : and that the King's 
 power was by the law of God supreme over all per- 
 sons in his dominions. And they were to do their 
 uttermost endeavour, to extirpate the Pope's authority, 
 and to establish the King's. 
 
 " Secondly, They were to declare the articles lately 
 published, and agreed to, by the convocation : and 
 to make the people know which of them were articles 
 of faith, and which of them rules for the decent and 
 politic order of the church. 
 
 " Thirdly, They were to declare the articles lately 
 set forth, for the abrogation of some superfluous holy- 
 days, particularly in harvest-time. 
 
 " Fourthly, They were no more to extol images or 
 relics for superstition or gain ; nor exhort people to 
 make pilgrimages, as if blessings and good things 
 were to be obtained of this or that saint or image. But 
 instead of that, the people were to be instructed to 
 apply themselves to the keeping of God's command- 
 ments, and doing works of charity ; and to believe 
 that God was better served by them, when they stayed 
 at home and provided for their families, than when
 
 364 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 they went pilgrimages ; and that the monies laid out 
 on these were better given to the poor. 
 
 " Fifthly, They were to exhort the people to teach 
 their children the Lord's Prayer, the Creed, and the 
 Ten Commandments, in English : and every incum- 
 bent was to explain these, one article a day, till the 
 people were instructed in them. And to take great 
 care, that all children were bred up to some trade or 
 way of living. 
 
 " Sixthly, They must take care that the sacraments 
 and sacramentals be reverently administered in their 
 parishes ; from which when at any time they were 
 absent, they were to commit the cure to a learned 
 and expert curate, who might instruct the people in 
 wholesome doctrine : that they might all see that 
 their pastors did not pursue their own profits or in- 
 terests so much as the glory of God, and the good of 
 their souls under their cure. 
 
 " * Seventhly, They should not, except on urgent 
 occasion, go to taverns or ale-houses : nor sit too 
 long at any sort of games after their meals : but give 
 themselves to the study of the Scripture, or some 
 other honest exercise ; and remember that they must 
 excel others in purity of life, and be examples to all 
 others to live well and Christianly. 
 
 " Eighthly, Because the goods of the church were 
 the goods of the poor, every beneficed person that 
 had twenty pounds or above, and did not reside, was 
 yearly to distribute the fortieth part of his benefice 
 to the poor of the parish. 
 
 " Ninthly, Every incumbent that had a hundred 
 pounds a-year, must give an exhibition for one 
 scholar at some grammar-school, or university ; who, 
 after he had completed his studies, was to be partner 
 of the cure and charge, both in preaching and other 
 duties : and so many hundred pounds as any had, so 
 many students he was to breed up. 
 
 "Tenthly, Where parsonage or vicarage-houses 
 
 * The seventh article is wholly omitted, for providing a Bible in Latin and 
 English, and laying it in the quire. See Collection of Records, No. 7. Vol. 
 I. Part II. Book III.
 
 PART I. BOOK III. 365 
 
 were in great decay, the incumbent was every year 
 to give a fifth part of his profits to the repairing of 
 them, till they were finished ; and then to maintain 
 them in the state they were in. 
 
 " Eleventhly, All these injunctions were to be ob- 
 served, under pain of suspension and sequestration 
 of the mean profits till they were observed." 
 
 These were equally ungrateful to the corrupt clergy, which 
 and to the laity that adhered to the old doctrine. e u 
 The very same opinions, about pilgrimages, images, 
 and saints departed, and instructing the people in 
 the principles of Christian religion in the vulgar 
 tongue, for which the Lollards were, not long ago, 
 either burnt or forced to abjure them, were now set 
 up by the King's authority. From whence they con- 
 cluded, that whatsoever the King said of his main- 
 taining the old doctrine, yet he was now changing 
 it. The clergy also were much troubled at this pre- 
 cedent, of the King's giving such injunctions to them, 
 without the consent of the convocation : from which 
 they concluded, they were now to be slaves to the 
 lord vicegerent. The matter of these injunctions 
 was also very uneasy to them. The great profits they 
 made by their images and relics, and the pilgrimages 
 to them, were now taken away : and yet severe im- 
 positions and heavy taxes were laid on them ; a fifth 
 part for repairs, a tenth at least for an exhibitioner 
 and a fortieth for charity, which were cried out on 
 as intolerable burthens. Their labour was also in- 
 creased, and they were bound up to many severities 
 of life : all these things touched the secular clergy to 
 the quick, and made them concur with the regular 
 clergy in disposing the people to rebel. 
 
 This was secretly fomented by the great abbots. 
 For though they were not yet struck at, yet the way 
 was prepared to it ; and their houses were oppressed 
 with crowds of those who were sent to them from the 
 suppressed houses. There were some pains taken to 
 remove their fears. For a letter was sent to them 
 all in the King's name, to silence the reports that 
 were spread abroad, as if all monasteries were to be
 
 Their de- 
 
 mauds. 
 
 366 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 quite suppressed. This they were required not to 
 believe, but to serve God according to their order, to 
 obey the King's injunctions, to keep hospitality, and 
 to make no wastes nor dilapidations. Yet this gave 
 them small comfort ; and, as all such things do, rather 
 increased than quieted their jealousies and fears. So 
 many secret causes concurring, no wonder the people 
 fell into mutinous and seditious practices. 
 .A wwiion The first rising was in Lincolnshire in the begin- 
 sh,re" c n ning of October ; where a churchman, disguised into 
 a cobler, and directed by a monk, drew a great body 
 of men after him. About twenty thousand were ga- 
 thered together. They swore to be true to God, the 
 King, and the commonwealth, and digested their 
 grievances into a few articles, which they sent to 
 the King, desiring a redress of them. 
 
 "They complained of some things that related to 
 secular concerns, and some acts of parliament that 
 were uneasy to them : they also complained of the 
 suppression of so many religious houses : that the 
 King had mean persons in high places about him, 
 who were ill counsellors : they also complained of 
 some bishops who had subverted the faith : and they 
 apprehended the jewels and plate of their churches 
 should be taken away. Therefore they desired the 
 King would call to him the nobility of the realm, and 
 by their advice redress their grievances : concluding 
 with an acknowledgment of the King's being their 
 supreme head, and that the tenths and first-fruits of 
 all livings belonged to him of right." 
 n. e King's When the King heard of this insurrection, he pre- 
 sently sent the Duke of Suffolk with a commission 
 to raise forces for dispersing them : but with him he 
 sent an answer to their petition. He began with 
 that about his counsellors, and said, " It was never 
 before heard of that the rabble presumed to dictate 
 to their Prince what counsellors he should choose. 
 That was the Prince's work, and not their's. The 
 suppression of religious houses was done pursuant 
 to an act of parliament, and was not set forth by any 
 of his counsellors. The heads of these religious
 
 PART I. BOOK III. 3G7 
 
 houses had under their own hands confessed those 
 horrid scandals which made them a reproach to the 
 nation ; and in many houses there were not above 
 four or five religious persons. So it seemed they 
 were better pleased that such dissolute persons should 
 consume their rents in riotous and idle living, than 
 that their Prince should have them for the common 
 good of the whole kingdom. He also answered their 
 other demands in the same high and commanding 
 strain ; and required them to submit themselves to 
 his mercy, and to deliver their captains and lieute- 
 nants into the hands of his lieutenants ; and to dis- 
 perse, and carry themselves as became good and 
 obedient subjects, and to put a hundred of their 
 number into the hands of his lieutenants, to be or- 
 dered as they had deserved." 
 
 When this answer was brought to them, it raised 
 their spirits higher. The practising clergymen con- 
 tinued to inflame them ; they persuaded them that 
 the Christian religion would be very soon effaced, 
 and taken away quite, if they did not vigorously de- 
 fend it; that it would come to that, that no man 
 should marry a wife, receive any of the sacraments, 
 nor eat a piece of roast meat, but he should pay for 
 it ; that it were better to live under the Turk than 
 under such oppression. Therefore, there was no 
 cause in which they could with more honour and a 
 better conscience hazard their lives, than for the holy 
 faith. This encouraged and kept them together a 
 little longer : they had forced many of the gentry of 
 the country to go along with them. These sent a 
 secret message to the Duke of Suffolk, letting him 
 know what ill effects the King's rough answer had 
 produced : that they had joined with the people only 
 to moderate them a little, and they knew nothing that 
 would be so effectual as the offer of a general pardon. 
 So the Duke of Suffolk, as he moved towards them n is quiet- 
 with the forces which he had drawn together, sent to oakt-^" 
 the King to know his pleasure, and earnestly advised Suffolk - 
 a gentle composing of the matter without blood. At 
 that same time the King was advertised from the
 
 368 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 A new 
 
 north, that there was a general and formidable rising 
 rth!, there ; of which he had the greater apprehensions, 
 because of their neighbourhood to Scotland ; whose 
 King, being the King's nephew, was the heir pre- 
 sumptive of the crown, since the King had illegiti- 
 mated both his daughters : and though the King's 
 firm alliance with France made him less apprehensive 
 of trouble from Scotland, and their King was at this 
 time in France, to marry the daughter of Francis ; 
 yet he did not know how far a general rising might 
 invite that King, to send orders to head and assist 
 the rebels in the north. Therefore, he resolved first 
 to quiet Lincolnshire ; and as he had raised a great 
 force about London, with which he was marching in 
 person against them, so he sent a new proclamation, 
 requiring them to return to their obedience, with se- 
 cret assurances of mercy. By these means they were 
 melted away. Those who had been carried in the 
 stream submitted to the King's mercy, and promised 
 all obedience for the future ; others, that were obsti- 
 nate, and knew themselves unpardonable, fled north- 
 ward, and joined themselves to the rebels there : some 
 of their other leaders were apprehended, in particular 
 the cobler, and were executed. 
 
 But for the northern rebellion, as the parties con- 
 cerned, being at a greater distance from the court, 
 had larger opportunities to gather themselves into a 
 huge body ; so the whole contrivance of it was better 
 laid. One Ask commanded in chief; he was a gen- 
 tleman of an ordinary condition, but understood well 
 how to draw on and govern a multitude. Their 
 march was called the pilgrimage of grace ; and, to 
 inveigle the people, some priests marched before them 
 with crosses in their hands. In their banners they 
 had a crucifix, with the five wounds, and a chalice ; 
 and every one wore on his sleeve, as the badge of the 
 party, an emblem of the five wounds of Christ, with 
 the name Jesus wrought in the midst. All that 
 joined to them took an oath, " that they entered into 
 this pilgrimage of grace for the love of God, the pre- 
 servation of the King's person and issue, the purify-
 
 PART I. BOOK III. 369 
 
 ing the nobility, and driving away all base-born and 
 ill counsellors ; and for no particular profit of their 
 own, nor to do displeasure to any, nor to kill any for 
 envy ; but to take before them the cross of Christ, 
 his faith, the restitution of the church, and the sup- 
 pression of heretics and their opinions." These were 
 specious pretences, and very apt to work upon a 
 giddy and discontented multitude. So people flocked 
 about their crosses and standards in great numbers, fo 
 and they grew to be forty thousand strong. They 
 went over the country without any opposition. The 
 Archbishop of York and the Lord Darcy were in 
 Pomfret Castle; which they yielded to them, and 
 were made to swear their covenant. They were both 
 suspected of being secret promoters of the rebellion ; 
 the latter suffered for it : but how the former excused 
 himself, I cannot give any account. They also took 
 York and Hull ; but though they summoned the castle 
 of Skipton, yet the Earl of Cumberland, who would 
 not degenerate from his noble ancestors, held it out 
 against all their force ; and though many of the gen- 
 tlemen, whom he had entertained at his own cost, de- 
 serted him, yet he made a brave resistance. Scar- 
 borough Castle was also long besieged ; but there Sir 
 Ralph Evers, that commanded it, gave an unexam- 
 pled instance of his fidelity and courage ; for though 
 his provisions fell short, so that for twenty days he 
 and his men had nothing but bread and water, yet 
 they stood out till they were relieved. 
 
 This rising in Yorkshire encouraged those of Lan- 
 cashire, the bishoprick of Duresme and Westmore- 
 land to arm. Against these, the Earl of Shrewsbury, 
 that he might not fall short of the gallantry and loy- 
 alty of his renowned ancestors, made head, though 
 he had no commission from the King. But he knew 
 his zeal and fidelity would easily procure him a par- 
 don, which he modestly asked for the service he had 
 done. The King sent him not only that, but a com- 
 mission to command in chief all his forces in the 
 north. To his assistance he ordered the Earl of 
 Derby to march ; and sent Courtney, Marquis of 
 
 VOL. i. 2 B
 
 370 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 Exeter, and the Earls of Huntingdon and Rutland to 
 
 join him. He also ordered the Duke of Suffolk, 
 
 with the force that he had led into Lincolnshire, to 
 
 lie still there, lest they, being but newly quieted, 
 
 should break out again, and fall upon his armies 
 
 behind, when the Yorkshire men met them before. 
 
 TheDuke On the 20th of October he sent the Duke of Nor- 
 
 udothm folk with more forces to join the Earl of Shrewsbury; 
 
 the rebels were very numerous and desperate. 
 them. When the Duke of Norfolk understood their strength, 
 
 O ' 
 
 he saw great reason to proceed with much caution ; 
 for if they had got the least advantage of the King's 
 troops, all the discontents in England would upon 
 the report of that have broken out. He saw their 
 numbers were now such, that the gaining some time 
 was their ruin ; for such a great body could not sub- 
 sist long together without much provisions, and that 
 must be very hard for them to bring in. So he set 
 forward a treaty : it was both honourable for the 
 King to offer mercy to his distracted subjects, and of 
 great advantage to his affairs ; for as their numbers 
 did every day lessen, so the King's forces were still 
 increasing. He wrote to the King, that, considering 
 the season of the year, he thought the offering some 
 fair conditions might persuade them to lay down their 
 arms, and disperse themselves ; yet when the Earl 
 of Shrewsbury sent a herald with a proclamation, 
 ordering them to lay down their arms and submit to 
 the King's mercy, Ask received him sitting in state, 
 with the Archbishop on the one hand, and the Lord 
 Darcy on the other ; but would not suffer any pro- 
 clamation to be made till he knew the contents of it. 
 And when the herald told what they were, he sent 
 him away without suffering him to publish it ; and 
 then the priests used all their endeavours to engage 
 the people to a firm resolution of not dispersing 
 themselves, till all matters about religion were fully 
 settled. 
 
 As they went forward, they every where repos- 
 sessed the ejected monks of their houses ; and this 
 -encouraged the rest, who had a great mind to be in
 
 PART I. BOOK III. 371 
 
 their old nests again. They published also many 
 stories among them of the growing burdens of the 
 King's government, and made them believe that im- 
 positions would be laid on every thing that was either 
 bought or sold. But the King, hearing how strong 
 they were, sent out a general summons to all the 
 nobility to meet him at Northampton the 7th of No- 
 vember. And the forces sent against the rebels ad- They ad- 
 vanced to Doncaster, to hinder them from coming DonTaster. 
 further southward ; and took the bridge, which they 
 fortified, and laid their forces along the river to main- 
 tain that pass. 
 
 The writers of that time say, that the day of battle 
 was agreed upon ; but that, the night before, exces- 
 sive rains falling, the river swelled so, that it was un- 
 passable next day, and they could not force the bridge. 
 Yet it is not likely the Earl of Shrewsbury, having 
 in all but five thousand men about him, would agree 
 
 ' O 
 
 to a pitched battle with those who were six times 
 his number, being then thirty thousand. Therefore 
 it is more likely that the rebels only intended to pass 
 the river the next day, which the rain that fell hin- 
 dered : but the Duke of Norfolk continued to press 
 a treaty, which was hearkened to by the other side, 
 who were reduced to great straits ; for their captain 
 would not suffer them to spoil the country, and they 
 were no longer able to subsist without doing that. 
 The Duke of Norfolk directed some that were secretly 
 gained, or had been sent over to them as deserters, 
 to spread reports among them, that their leaders were 
 making terms for themselves, and would leave the 
 rest to be undone. This, joined to their necessities, 
 made many fall off every day. The Duke of Nor- The Dnke 
 
 r 11 J- I.' L U J J TJ of Norfolk 
 
 tolk, finding his arts had so good an operation, ottered breaks 
 to go to court with any whom they would send with ^7 
 their demands, and to intercede for them. This he 
 knew would take up some time, and most of them 
 would be dispersed before he could return. So they 
 sent two gentlemen, whom they had forced to go with 
 them, to the King, to Windsor. Upon this, the King- 
 discharged the rendezvous at Northampton, and c!e- 
 2 B 2
 
 372 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 layed the sending an answer as much as could be ; 
 but at last, hearing that, though most of them were 
 dispersed, yet they had engaged to return upon warn- 
 ing, and that they took it ill that no answer came ; he 
 sent the Duke of Norfolk to them with a general 
 pardon, six only excepted by name, and four others 
 that were not named. But in this the King's coun- 
 sels were generally censured, for every one was now 
 in fear, and so the rebels rejected the proposition. The 
 King also sent them word by their own messenger, 
 " that he took it very ill at their hands, that they had 
 chosen rather to rise in arms against him, than to pe- 
 tition him about these things which were uneasy to 
 them." And to appease them a little, the King, by 
 new injunctions, commanded the clergy to continue 
 the use of all the ceremonies of the church. This, 
 it is like, was intended for keeping up the four sacra- 
 ments, which had not been mentioned in the former 
 articles. The clergy that were with the rebels met 
 at Pomfret, to draw up articles to be offered at the 
 treaty that was to be at Doncaster ; where three hun- 
 dred were ordered to come from the rebels to treat 
 with the King's commissioners. So great a number 
 was called, in hopes that they would disagree about 
 their demands, and so fall out among themselves. On 
 the 6th of December they met to treat, and it seems 
 had so laid their matter before, that they agreed upon 
 these following demands. 
 Their de- "A general pardon to be granted : a parliament to 
 
 mands. i i i ? -17- i i r 11 
 
 be held at York ; and courts ot justice to be there, 
 that none on the north of Trent might be brought to 
 London upon any law-suit. They desired a repeal 
 of some acts of parliament ; those for the last subsidy, 
 for uses, for making words misprision of treason, and 
 for the clergy paying their tenths and first-fruits to 
 the King. They desired the Princess Mary might be 
 restored to her right of succession ; the Pope to his 
 wonted jurisdiction, and the monks to their houses 
 again : that the Lutherans might be punished ; that 
 Audley, the lord-chancellor, and Cromwell, the lord 
 privy-seal, might be excluded from the next parlia-
 
 PART I. BOOK III. 373 
 
 merit ; and Lee and Leighton, that had visited the 
 monasteries, might be imprisoned for bribery and 
 extortion." 
 
 But the lords, who knew that the King would by 
 no means agree to these propositions, rejected them. 
 Upon which the rebels took heart again, and were 
 growing more enraged and desperate ; so that the 
 Duke of Norfolk wrote to the King, that if some con- 
 tent were not given them, it might end very ill, for 
 they were much stronger than his forces were : and 
 both he and the other commanders of the King's 
 forces, in their hearts wished, that most of their de- 
 mands were granted ; being persons, who, though 
 they complied with the King, and were against that 
 rebellion, yet were great enemies to Lutheranism, 
 and wished a reconciliation with Rome ; of which 
 the Duke of Norfolk was afterwards accused by the 
 Lord Darcy, as if he had secretly encouraged them 
 to insist on these demands. The King, seeing the 
 humour was so obstinate, resolved to use gentler re- 
 medies ; and so sent to the Duke of Norfolk a gene- 
 ral pardon, with a promise of a parliament, ordering 
 him not to make use of these except in extremity. 
 This was no easy thing to that Duke ; since he might 
 be afterwards made to answer for it, whether the ex- 
 tremity was really such as to justify his granting these 
 things. But the rebels were become again as nume- 
 rous as ever, and had resolved to cross the river, and 
 to force the King's camp, which was still much in- 
 ferior to theirs in number. But rains falling the se- 
 cond time, made the fords again unpassable. This 
 was spoken of by the King's party as little less than 
 a miracle ; that God's providence had twice so op- 
 portunely interposed for the stopping of the progress 
 of the rebels ; and it is very probable, that, on the 
 other side, it made great impression on the supersti- 
 tious multitude, and both discouraged them and dis- 
 posed them to accept of the offer of pardon, and a 
 parliament to be soon called, for considering their 
 other demands. The King signed the pardon at 
 Richmond, the 9th of December ; by which all their
 
 374 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 treasons and rebellion to that day were pardoned, pre- 
 vided they made their submission to the Duke of 
 Norfolk and the Earl of Shrewsbury, and lived in 
 The King's due obedience for the future. The King sent like- 
 t a h c S m! rt wise a long answer to their demands. " As to what 
 they complained about the subversion of the faith : 
 he protested his zeal for the true Christian faith, and 
 that he would live and die in the defence and preser- 
 vation of it. But the ignorant multitude were not to 
 instruct him what the true faith was, nor to presume 
 to correct what he and the whole convocation had 
 agreed on. That as he had preserved the church of 
 England in her true liberties, so he would do still ; 
 and that he had done nothing that was so oppressive, 
 as many of his progenitors had done upon lesser 
 grounds. But that he took it very ill of them, who 
 had rather one churl or two should enjoy the profits 
 of their monasteries, to support them in their disso- 
 lute and abominable course of living, than that their 
 King should have them for defraying the great charge 
 he was at for their defence against foreign enemies. 
 For the laws, it was high presumption in a rude mul- 
 titude to take on them to judge what laws were good, 
 and what not. They had more reason to think, that 
 he, after twenty-eight years' reign, should know it 
 better than they could. And for his government, he 
 had so long preserved his subjects in peace and jus- 
 tice, had so defended them from their enemies, had 
 so secured his frontier, had granted so many general 
 pardons, had been so unwilling to punish his subjects, 
 and so ready to receive them into mercy ; that they 
 could shew no parallel to his government among all 
 their former kings. And whereas it was said, that 
 he had many of the nobility of his council in the be- 
 ginning of his reign, and few now ; he shewed them, 
 in that one instance, how they were abused by the 
 lying slanders of some disaffected persons ; for when 
 he came to the crown, there were none that were born 
 noble of his council, but only the Earl of Surrey and 
 the Earl of Shrewsbury ; whereas now, the Dukes of 
 Norfolk and Suffolk, the Marquis of Exeter, the Lord
 
 PART I. BOOK III. 375 
 
 Steward, the Earls of Oxford and Sussex, and the 
 Lord Sands, were of the privy-council ; and for the 
 spirituality, the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Bi- 
 shops of Winchester, Hereford, and Chichester, were 
 also of it : and he and his whole council judging it 
 necessary to have some at the board who understood 
 the law of England, and the treaties with foreign 
 princes ; he had by their unanimous advice brought 
 in his Chancellor and the Lord Privy-Seal. He 
 thought it strange, that they, who were but brutes, 
 should think they could better judge who should be 
 his counsellors than himself and his whole council : 
 therefore he would bear no such thing at their hands ; 
 it being inconsistent with the duty of good subjects 
 to meddle in such matters. But if they, or any of his 
 other subjects, could bring any just complaint against 
 any about him, he was ready to hear it ; and if it 
 were proved, he would punish it according to law. 
 As for the complaints against some of the prelates, for 
 preaching against the faith, they could know none of 
 these things but by the report of others ; since they 
 lived at such a distance, that they themselves had not 
 heard any of them preach. Therefore he required 
 them not to give credit to lies, nor be misled by those 
 who spread such calumnies and ill reports : and he 
 concluded all with a severe expostulation ; adding, 
 that such was his love to his subjects, that imputing 
 this insurrection, rather to their folly and lightness, 
 than to any malice or rancour, he was willing to pass 
 it over more gently, as they would perceive by his 
 proclamation." 
 
 Now the people were come to themselves again, 16y i. 
 
 lit fr ! 11 11 1 i-ii The rebel- 
 
 and glad to get on so easily ; and they all cheerfully iu.n is 
 accepted the King's offers, and went home again to quieled * 
 their several dwellings. Yet the clergy were no way 
 satisfied, but continued still to practise amongst them, 
 and kept the rebellion still on foot ; so that it broke 
 out soon after. The Duke of Norfolk and the Earl 
 of Shrewsbury, were ordered to lie still in the coun- 
 try with their forces, till all things were more fully 
 composed. They made them all come to a full sub-
 
 376 BTJRNET'S REFORMATION, 
 
 mission : and, first, To revoke all oaths and promises 
 made during the rebellion, for which they asked the 
 King's pardon on their knees. Secondly, To swear 
 to be true to the King and his heirs and successors. 
 Thirdly, To obey and maitnain all the acts of parlia- 
 ment made during the King's reign. Fourthly, Not 
 to take arms again but by the King's authority. 
 Fifthly, To apprehend all seditious persons. Sixthly, 
 To remove all the monks, nuns, and friars, whom they 
 had placed again in the dissolved monasteries. There 
 were also orders given to send Ask, their captain, and 
 the Lord Darcy, to court. Ask was kindly received, 
 and well used by the King. He had shewed great 
 conduct in commanding the rebels ; and it seems the 
 King had a mind, either to gain him to his service, 
 or, which I suspect was the true cause, to draw from 
 him a discovery of all those, who, in the other parts 
 of the kingdom, had favoured or relieved them. For 
 he suspected, not without cause, that some of the 
 great abbots had given secret supplies of money to 
 the rebels ; for which many of them were afterwards 
 tried and attainted. The Lord Darcy was under great 
 apprehensions, and studied to purge himself, that he 
 was forced to a compliance with them ; but pleaded, 
 that the long and important services he had done the 
 crown for fifty years, he being then fourscore, toge- 
 ther with his great age and infirmity, might mitigate 
 the King's displeasure. But he was made prisoner. 
 Whether this gave those who had been in arms new 
 jealousies, that the King's pardon would not be in- 
 violably observed ; or whether the clergy had of new 
 prevailed on them to rise in arms, I cannot determine; 
 but it broke out again, though not so dangerously as 
 before. Two gentlemen of the north, Musgrave and 
 Tilby, raised a body of eight thousand men, and 
 thought to have surprised Carlisle ; but were repulsed 
 by those within. And, in their return, the Duke of 
 Norfolk fell upon them, and routed them. He took 
 many prisoners, and by martial law hanged up all 
 their captains, and seventy other prisoners on the 
 walls of Carlisle. Others at that same time thought
 
 PART I. BOOK HI. 377 
 
 to have surprised Hull : but it was prevented, and 
 the leaders of that party were also taken and executed. 
 Many other risings were in several places of the 
 country, which were all soon repressed : the ground 
 of them all was, that the parliament which was pro- 
 mised, was not called : but the King said, they had 
 not kept conditions with him, nor would he call a 
 parliament till all things were quieted. But the Duke 
 of Norfolk's vigilance every where prevented their ga- 
 thering together in any great body. And after several 
 unsuccessful attempts, at length the country was ab- 
 solutely quieted in January following. And then the 
 Duke of Norfolk proceeded according to the martial 
 law against many whom he had taken. Ask had also 
 left the court without leave, and had gone amongst 
 them, but was quickly taken. So he and many others 
 were sent to several places, to be made public exam- 
 ples. He suffered at York, others at Hull, and in 
 other towns in Yorkshire. But the Lord Darcy and 
 the Lord Hussy were arraigned at Westminster, and 
 attainted of treason ; the former for the northern, and 
 the other for the Lincolnshire insurrection. The Lord The chief 
 Darcy was beheaded at Tower-hill ; and was much l[\fl^' 
 lamented. Every body thought, that, considering cated - 
 his merits, his age, his former services, he had hard 
 measure. The Lord Hussy was beheaded at Lincoln. 
 The Lord Darcy, in his trial, accused the Duke of 
 Norfolk, that, in the treaty at Doncaster, he had en- 
 couraged the rebels to continue in their demands. 
 This the Duke denied, and desired a trial by combat, 
 and gave some presumptions to shew that the Lord 
 Darcy bore him ill-will, and said this out of malice. 
 The King either did not believe this, or would not 
 seem to believe it ; and the Duke's great diligence in 
 the suppression of these commotions set him beyond 
 all jealousies. But after those executions, the King 
 wrote to the Duke in July next, to proclaim an abso- 
 lute amnesty over all the north ; which was received 
 with great joy, every body being in fear of himself: 
 and so this threatening storm was dissipated without 
 the effusion of much blood, save what the sword of
 
 378 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 justice drew. At the same time the King of Scotland 
 returning from France with his Queen, and touching 
 on the coast of England, many of the people fell down 
 at his feet, praying him to assist them, and he should 
 have all. But he was, it seems, bound up by the 
 French King : and so went home without giving 
 them any encouragement. And thus ended this re- 
 bellion, which was chiefly carried on by the clergy 
 under pretence of religion. 
 
 And now the King was delivered of all his appre- 
 hensions, that he had been in for some years, in fear 
 of stirs at home. But, they being now happily com- 
 posed, as he knew it would so overawe the rest of his 
 discontented subjects, that he needed fear nothing 
 from them for a great while; so it encouraged him to 
 go on in his other designs of suppressing the rest of 
 the monasteries, and reforming some other points of 
 religion. Therefore there was a new visitation ap- 
 pointed for all the monasteries of England. And the 
 visitors were ordered to examine all things that re- 
 lated either to their conversation, to their affection to 
 the King, and the supremacy, or to their superstition 
 in their several houses : to discover what cheats and 
 impostures there were, either in their images, relics, 
 or other miraculous things, by which they had drawn 
 people to their houses on pilgrimages, and gotten 
 from them any great presents. Also to try how they 
 were affected during the late commotions, and to dis- 
 cover every thing that was amiss in them, and report 
 it to the Lord Vicegerent. In the Records of the 
 whole twenty-eighth year of the King's reign, I find 
 but one original surrender of any religious house: 
 the Abbot of Furnese in Lincolnshire, valued at 
 960 lib. with thirty monks, resigning up that house to 
 the King on the 9th of April, which was very near 
 the end of the year of the King's reign; for it com- 
 menced on the 22d of April. Two other surrenders 
 are enrolled that year. The one was of Bermondsey 
 in Surrey, the 1st of June, in the twenty-eighth of the 
 King's reign. The preamble was, that they surren- 
 dered in hopes of greater benevolence from the King.
 
 PART I. BOOK III. 379 
 
 But this was the effect of some secret practice, and 
 not of the act of parliament. For it was valued at 
 548 lib. and so fell not within the act. The other 
 was of Bushlisham, or Bishtam, in Berkshire, made 
 by Barlow, bishop of St. David's, that was com- 
 mend ator of it, and a great promoter of the Reforma- 
 tion. It was valued at 327 lib. But in the following 
 year they made a quicker progress, and found strange 
 enormities in the greater houses. It seems all the 
 houses under 200 lib. of rent were not yet suppressed. 
 For I find many within that value afterwards resign- 
 ing their houses. So that I am inclined to believe, 
 that the first visitation being made towards the sup- 
 pression of the lesser monasteries, and that (as ap- 
 pears by their instructions) being not to be finished 
 till they had made a report of what they had done to 
 the court of Augmentations, who were after the report 
 made to determine what pensions were to be reserved 
 to the abbot and other officers; (which report was to 
 be made in the octaves of St. Michael; and, after 
 that, a new commission was to be given for their sup- 
 pression;) when that was done, they went no further 
 at that time. So that I cannot think there were many 
 houses suppressed when these stirs began : and, after 
 their first rising, it is not likely that great progress 
 would be made in a business that was like to inflame 
 the people more, and increase the number of the 
 rebels. Neither do I find any houses suppressed by 
 virtue of the former act of parliament till the twenty- 
 ninth year of the King's reign. 
 
 And yet they made no great haste this year. For 1638 , 
 
 J J O 11 1 Some of 
 
 there are but twenty-one surrenders all this year, the great 
 either in the Rolls, or Augmentation Office. And ^er iur 
 now, not only small abbeys, but greater ones, were J^ s 
 surrendered to the King. The abbots were brought 
 to do it upon several motives. Some had been faulty 
 during the late rebellion, and were liable to the King's 
 displeasure: and these, to redeem themselves, com- 
 pounded the matter by a resignation of their house. 
 Others began to like the Reformation, and that made 
 them the more willing to surrender their houses ;
 
 380 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 sucli as Barlow, bishop of St. David's, who not only 
 surrendered up his own house of Bushlisham, but 
 prevailed on many others to do the like. Others were 
 convicted of great disorders in their conversation; 
 and these, not daring to stand a trial, were glad to 
 accept of a pension for life, and deliver up their house. 
 Others were guilty of making great wastes and dila- 
 pidations. For they all saw the dissolution of their 
 houses approaching, and so every one was induced 
 to take all the care he could to provide for himself 
 and his kindred : so that the visitors found in some 
 of the richest abbeys of England, as St. Albans and 
 Battel, such depredations made, that at St. Albans 
 an abbot could not subsist any longer, the rents were 
 so low; and in Battel, as all their furniture was old 
 and torn, not worth 100 lib. so both in house and 
 chapel they had not 400 marks' worth of plate. In 
 other houses they found not above twelve or fifteen 
 ounces of plate, and no furniture at all, but only such 
 things as they could not embezzle ; as the walls, and 
 windows, bells, and lead. In other houses, the abbot 
 and monks were glad to accept of a pension for 
 themselves during life : and so being only concerned 
 for their own particular interest, resigned their house 
 to the King. Generally, the monks had eight marks 
 a year pension, till they were provided for. The 
 abbots' pensions were proportioned to the value of 
 their house, and to their innocence. The Abbots of 
 St. Albans and Tewksbury, had 400 marks a year 
 a-piece. The Abbot of St. Edmundsbury was more 
 innocent ; for the visitors wrote from thence, that they 
 could find no scandals in that house : so he (it seems) 
 was not easily brought to resign his house, and had 
 500 marks pension reserved to him. And for their 
 inferior officers, some had 30, some 10 or 8, and the 
 lowest 6 lib. pension. 
 
 In other places, upon a vacancy, either by death 
 or deprivation, they did put in an abbot only to re- 
 sign up the house. For after the King's supremacy 
 was established, all those abbots, that had been for- 
 merly confirmed by the Pope, were placed in this
 
 PART I. BOOK III. 381 
 
 manner. The King granted a conge d'&lire to the 
 prior and convent, with a missive letter, declaring the 
 name of the person whom they should choose : then 
 they returned an election to the King, who upon that 
 gave his assent to it by a warrant under the great 
 seal, which was certified to the Lord Vicegerent; 
 who thereupon confirmed the election, and returned 
 him back to the King, to take the oaths : upon which, 
 the temporalities were restored. Thus all the abbots 
 were now placed by the King, and were generally 
 picked out to serve this turn. Others, in hope of ad- 
 vancement to bishopricks, or to be suffragan bishops, 
 as the inferior sort of them were made generally, 
 were glad to recommend themselves to the King's 
 favour, by a quick and cheerful surrender of their 
 monastery. Upon some of these inducements it was, 
 that the greatest number of the religious houses were 
 resigned to the King, before there was any act of 
 parliament made for their suppression. In several 
 nouses, the visitors, who were generally either masters 
 of chancery or auditors of the court of Augmenta- 
 tions, studied not only to bring them to resign their 
 houses, but to sign confessi'ons of their past lewd and 
 dissolute lives. Of these, there is only one now ex- 
 tant, which (it is like) escaped the general razure and 
 destruction of all papers of that kind in Queen Mary's 
 time. But from the letters, that I have seen, I per- 
 ceive there were such confessions made by many 
 other houses. That confession of the Prior and Be- c nf - 
 nedictines of St. Andrews in Northampton is to be hoTr*d 
 seen in the Records of the Court of Augmentations : ^"^ 
 in which, with the most aggravating expressions that" 6 ""* 1 
 could be devised, they acknowledged their past ill 
 life, " for which the pit of hell was ready to swallow 
 them up. They confessed that they had neglected 
 the worship of God, lived in idleness, gluttony, and 
 sensuality;" with many other woful expressions to 
 that purpose. 
 
 Other houses, as the monastery of Betlesden, re- collect. 
 signed with this preamble; "That they did pro- S^.*" 
 foundly consider, that the manner and trade of living,
 
 382 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 which they, and others of their pretended religion, had 
 for a long time followed, consisted in some dumb ce- 
 remonies, and other constitutions of the bishops of 
 Rome, and other foreign potentates, as the Abbot of 
 Cisteaux ; by which they were blindly led, having no 
 true knowledge of God's laws; procuring exemptions 
 from their ordinary and diocesan, by the power of the 
 Bishop of Rome, and submitting themselves wholly 
 to a foreign power, who never came hither, to reform 
 their abuses, which were now found among them. 
 
 ' O 
 
 But that now, knowing the most perfect way of living 
 is sufficiently declared by Christ and his apostles ; and 
 that it was most fit for them to be governed by the 
 King 1 , who was their supreme head on earth ; they 
 submitted themselves to his mercy, and surrendered 
 up their monastery to him on the 25th of September, 
 in the thirtieth year of his reign." This writing was 
 signed by the Abbot, the Sub-prior, and nine monks. 
 There are five other surrenders to the same purpose ; 
 by the Gray and White friars of Stamford, the Gray 
 friars of Coventry, Bedford, and Aylesbury, yet to be 
 seen. Some are resigned upon this preamble, "That 
 they hoped the King would of new found their house; 
 which was otherwise like to be ruined, both in spi- 
 rituals and temporals." So did the Abbot of Chert- 
 sey in Surrey, with fourteen monks, on the 14th of 
 July, in the twenty-ninth year of this reign ; whose 
 house was valued at 744 lib. I have reason to think 
 that this Abbot was for the Reformation, and intended 
 to have had his house new founded, to be a house of 
 true and well regulated devotion: and so I find the 
 Prior of Great Malverine in Worcestershire offered 
 such a resignation. He was recommended by Bishop 
 Latimer to Cromwell, with an earnest desire that his 
 house might stand, "not in monkery, but so as to be 
 converted to preaching, study, and prayer." And 
 the good Prior was willing to compound for his house 
 by a present of 500 marks to the King, and of 200 
 to Cromwell. He is commended for being an old 
 worthy man, a good housekeeper, and one that daily 
 fed many poor people. To this Latimer adds : "Alas,
 
 PART I. BOOK III. 383 
 
 my good Lord ! shall we not see two or three in every 
 shire changed to such remedy ?" 
 
 But the resolution was taken once to extirpate all. 
 And therefore, though the visitors interceded earnestly 
 for one nunnery in Oxfordshire, Godstow, where there 
 was great strictness of life ; and to which most of the 
 young gentlewomen of the county were sent to be 
 bred; so that the gentry of the country desired the 
 King would spare the house; yet all was ineffectual. 
 
 The general form, in which most of these resigna- The form 
 tions begins, is, "That the abbot and brethren, ttpea *!!* 
 full deliberation, certain knowledge of their own ^""'"j 
 proper motion, for certain just and reasonable causes, s^ 1 - l - 
 specially moving them in their souls and consciences, 
 did freely, and of their own accord, give and grant 
 their houses to the King." Others, it seems, did not 
 so well like this preamble; and therefore did, without 
 any reason or preamble, give away their houses to the 
 visitors, as feoffees in trust for the King's use. And 
 thus they went on, procuring daily more surrenders. 
 So that in the thirtieth year of the King's reign there 
 were one hundred and fifty-nine resignations enrolled, 
 of which the originals of one hundred and fifty-five 
 do yet remain. And for the reader's further satisfac- 
 tion, he shall find, in the Collection at the end of this collect. 
 Book, the names of all those houses so surrendered, sectfs. 3 ' 
 with other particulars relating to them, which would 
 too much weary him, if inserted in the thread of this 
 work. But there was no law to force any to make 
 such resignations. So that many of the great abbots 
 would not comply with the King in this matter, and 
 stood it out till after the following parliament, that 
 was in the thirty-first year of his reign. 
 
 It was questioned by many, whether these surren- *>';* 
 ders could be good in law, since the abbots were but XT'* 
 trustees and tenants for life. It was thought they could ""** 
 not absolutely alienate and give away their house for 
 ever. But the parliament afterwards declared the 
 resignations were good in law : for, by their founda- 
 tions, all was trusted to the abbot and the senior bre- 
 thren of the house; who putting the covent-seal to
 
 of 
 
 384 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 any deed, it was of force in law. It was also said, 
 that they, thus surrendering, had forfeited their char- 
 ters and foundations ; and so the King might seize and 
 possess them with a good title, if not upon the resigna- 
 tion, yet upon forfeiture. But others thought, that, 
 whatsoever the nicety of law might give the King, 
 yet there was no sort of equity in it, that a few trus- 
 tees, who were either bribed, or frightened, should 
 pass away that which was none of their's, but only 
 given them in trust and for life. Other abbots were 
 more roughly handled. The Prior of Wooburn was 
 suspected of favouring the rebels, of being against 
 treason, the King's supremacy and for the Pope's, and of being 
 for the general council then summoned to Mantua. 
 And he was dealt with to make a submission and 
 acknowledgment. In an account of a long confer- 
 ence which he had with a privy-counsellor, under his 
 own hand, I find that the great thing which he took 
 offence at, was, that Latimer and some other bishops 
 preached against the veneration of the blessed Virgin, 
 and the other saints : and that the English Bible, then 
 set out, differed in many things from the Latin : with 
 several lesser matters. So that they looked on their 
 religion as changed, and wondered that the judgments 
 of God upon Queen Anne had not terrified others 
 from going on to subvert the faith : yet he was pre- 
 vailed with, and did again submit to the King, and 
 acknowledge his supremacy ; but he afterwards joined 
 himself to the rebels, and was taken with them, to- 
 gether with the Abbot of Whaley, and two monks of 
 his house; and the Abbot of Gervaux, with a monk 
 of his house; and the Abbot of Sawley, in Lanca- 
 shire, with the Prior of that house; and the Prior of 
 Burlington; who were all attainted of high treason, 
 and executed. The Abbots of Glastenbury and Read- 
 ing were men of great power and wealth: the one 
 was rated at 3508 lib. and the other at 2 1 1 6 lib. They, 
 seeing the storm like to break out on themselves, sent a 
 great deal of the plate and money that they had in their 
 house to the rebels in the north; which being after- 
 wards discovered, they were attainted of high treason
 
 PART I. BOOK III. 385 
 
 a year after this; but I mention it here for the affinity 
 of the matter. Further particulars about the Abbot 
 of Reading I have not yet discovered. But there is 
 an account given to Cromwell of the proceedings 
 against the Abbot of Glastenbury in two letters which 
 I have seen : the one was writ by the Sheriff of the 
 county ; the other by Sir John Russell, who was pre- 
 sent at his trial, and was reputed a man of as great 
 integrity and virtue as any in that time ; which he 
 seems to have left as an inheritance to that noble 
 family that has descended from him. These inform, 
 that he was indicted of burglary, as well as treason, 
 for having broken the house in his monastery where 
 the plate was kept, and taken it out; which, as Sir 
 William Thomas says, was sent to the rebels. The 
 evidence being brought to the jury, who (as Sir John 
 Russell writes) were as good and worthy men as had 
 ever been on any jury in that county, they found him 
 guilty. He was carried to the place of execution, 
 near his own monastery ; where (as the Sheriff writes) 
 he acknowledged his guilt, and begged God and the 
 King pardon for it. The Abbot of Colchester was 
 also attainted of high treason. What the particulars 
 were I cannot tell ; for the record of their attainders 
 is lost. But some of our own writers deserve a severe 
 censure, who write, it was for denying the King's 
 supremacy ; whereas, if they had not undertaken to 
 write the history without any information at all, they 
 must have seen that the whole clergy, but most par- 
 ticularly the Abbots, had over and over again ac- 
 knowledged the King's supremacy. 
 
 For clearing which and discovering the impudence 
 of Sanders's relation of this matter, I shall lay before 
 the reader the evidences that I find of the submission 
 of these and all the other abbots to the King's supre- 
 macy. First, in the convocation, in the twenty-second 
 year of this reign, they all acknowledged the King 
 supreme head of the church of England. They did 
 also swear to maintain the act of the succession of the 
 crown, made in the twenty-fifth year of his reign, in 
 which the Pope's power was plainly condemned. 
 
 VOL. i. 2 c
 
 38G BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 For, in the proceedings against More and Fisher, it 
 was frequently repeated to them, that all the clergy 
 had sworn it. It is also entered in the Journal of the 
 House of Lords, that all the members of both Houses 
 swore it at their breaking up ; and the same Journals 
 inform us, that the Abbots of Colchester and Reading 
 sat in that parliament ; and as there was no protesta- 
 tion made against any of the acts passed in that ses- 
 sion, so it is often entered, that the acts were agreed 
 
 7 O 
 
 to by the unanimous consent of the Lords. It appears 
 also by several original letters, that the heads of all 
 the religious houses in England had signed that posi- 
 tion, " That the Pope had no more jurisdiction in this 
 kingdom than any foreign bishop whatsoever :" and 
 it was rejected by none but some Carthusians, and 
 Franciscans of the Observance, who were proceeded 
 against for refusing to acknowledge it : when they 
 were so pressed in it, none can imagine that a parlia- 
 mentary Abbot would have been dispensed with. 
 And in the last parliament, in which the second oath 
 about the succession to the crown was enacted, it was 
 added, that they should also swear the King to be 
 supreme head of the church. The Abbots of Glasten- 
 bury and Reading were then present, as appears by 
 the Journals, and consented to it: so little reason there 
 is for imagining that they refused that, or any other 
 compliance that might secure them in their abbeys. 
 In particular, the Abbot of Reading had so got into 
 Cromwell's good opinion, that in some differences be- 
 tween him and Shaxton, bishop of Salisbury, that was 
 Cromwell's creature; he had the better of the Bishop. 
 Upon which Shaxton, who was a proud ill-natured 
 man, wrote a high expostulating letter to Cromwell, 
 "complaining of an injunction he had granted against 
 him at the Abbot's desire. He also shewed him that 
 in some contests between him and his residentiaries, 
 and between him and the Mayor of Salisbury, Crom- 
 well was always against him : he likewise challenged 
 him for not answering his letters. He tells him, God 
 will judge him for abusing his power as he did ; he 
 prays God to have pity on him, and to turn his heart;"
 
 PART I. BOOK IH. 887 
 
 with a great deal more provoking language. He also 
 adds many insolent praises of himself; and his whole 
 letter is as extravagant a piece of vanity and insolence 
 as ever I saw. To this Cromwell wrote an answer, 
 that shews him to have been indeed a great man : the 
 reader will find it in the Collection, and see from it collect. 
 how modestly and discreetly he carried his greatness. N ' 
 
 But how justly soever these abbots were attainted, 
 the seizing on their abbey lands, pursuant to those 
 attainders, was thought a great stretch of law ; since 
 the offence of an ecclesiastical incumbent is a personal 
 thing, and cannot prejudice the church, no more than 
 a secular man, who is in office, does, by being at- 
 tainted, bring any diminution of the rights of his 
 office on his successors. It is true there were some 
 words cast into the thirteenth act of the parliament, 
 in the twenty-sixth year of this reign, by which divers 
 offences were made treason, that seemed to have been 
 designed for such a purpose. The words are, that 
 whatsoever lands any traitor had " of any estate of 
 inheritance in use or possession, by any right, title, or 
 means," should be forfeited to the King. By which, 
 as it is certain, estates in tail were comprehended, so 
 the lands that any traitor had in possession or use 
 seem to be included ; and that the rather, because by 
 some following words their heirs and successors are 
 for ever excluded. This either was not thought on 
 when the Bishop of Rochester was attainted, or 
 perhaps was not claimed, since the King intended 
 not to lessen the number of bishopricks, but rather to 
 increase them. Besides, the words of the statute seem 
 only to belong to an " estate of inheritance ;" within 
 which, church-benefices could not be included, with- 
 out a great force put upon them. It is true, the word 
 " successor" favoured these seizures ; except that be 
 thought an expletory word put in out of form, but still 
 to be limited to an estate of inheritance : that word 
 does also import that such criminals might have suc- 
 cessors. But if the whole abbey was forfeited, these 
 abbots could have no successors. Yet it seems the 
 seizures of these abbeys were founded on that statute, 
 
 2c2
 
 388 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 and this stretch of the law occasioned that explanation 
 which was added of the words " estate of inheritance," 
 in the statute made in Edward the Sixth's reign about 
 treasons, where it is expressed, that traitors should 
 forfeit to the crown what lands they had of any 
 " estate of inheritance ;" to which is added, " in their 
 own right ;" it seems, on design to cut off all pretence 
 for such proceedings for the future, as had been in 
 this reign. But if there were any illegality in these 
 seizures, the following parliament did at least tacitly 
 justify them : for they excepted out of the provisos 
 made concerning the abbeys that were suppressed, 
 such as had been " forfeited and seized on by any at- 
 tainders of treason." 
 
 Another surrender is not unlike these, but rather 
 less justifiable. Many of the Carthusian monks of 
 London were executed for their open denying of the 
 King's supremacy, and for receiving books from 
 foreign parts against his marriage, and other proceed- 
 ings ; divers also of the same house, that favoured 
 them, but so secretly, that clear proof could not be 
 found to convict them, were kept prisoners in their 
 cells till they died. But the Prior was a worthy man, 
 of whom, Thomas Bedyl, one of the visitors, writes, 
 that " he was a man of such charity that he had not 
 seen the like, and that the eyes of the people were 
 much on that house ; and therefore he advised, that 
 the house might be converted to some good use." 
 But the Prior was made to resign, with this preamble, 
 " That many of that house had offended the King, so 
 that their goods might be justly confiscated, and them- 
 selves adjudged to a severe death : which they desired 
 to avoid, by a humble submission and surrender of 
 their house to the King." But there were great com- 
 plaints made of the visitors, as if they had practised 
 with the abbots and priors to make these surrenders ; 
 and that they had conspired with them to cheat the 
 King, and had privately embezzled most of the plate 
 and furniture. The Abbess of Cheapstow complained 
 in particular of Dr. London, one of the visitors, that 
 he had been corrupting her nuns; and generally it
 
 PART I. BOOK III. 389 
 
 was cried out on, that underhand and ill practices 
 were used. Therefore, to quiet these reports, and to 
 give some colour to justify what they were about, all 
 the foul stories that could be found out were published 
 to defame these houses. Battel Abbey was repre- 
 sented to be a little Sodom ; so was Christ Church 
 in Canterbury, with several other houses. But for 
 whoredom and adultery they found instances without 
 number ; and of many other unnatural practices and 
 secret lusts, with arts to hinder conceptions and make 
 abortions. But no story became so public as a dis- 
 covery made of the Prior of the Crossed friars in Lon- 
 don ; who, on a Friday, at eleven o'clock in the day, 
 was found in bed with a whore : he fell down on his 
 knees, and prayed those who surprised him not to 
 publish his shame; but they had a mind to make some 
 advantage by it, and asked him money. He gave 
 them 30 lib. which he protested was all he had, but 
 he promised them 30 lib. more ; yet, failing in the 
 payment, a suit followed on it ; and in a bill which 
 I have seen, given to Cromwell, then master of the 
 rolls, the case is related. 
 
 But all stories of this kind served only to disgrace The u 
 those abbots or monks that were so faulty. And the ^dXtw 
 people generally said these were personal crimes f o ^" e 
 which ought to be punished ; but they were no way discovered. 
 satisfied with the justice of the King's proceedings 
 against whole houses for the faults of a few. There- 
 fore another way was thought on, which indeed 
 proved more effectual, both for recovering the people 
 out of the superstitious fondness they had for their 
 images and relics, and for discovering the secret 
 impostures that had been long practised in these 
 houses. And this was, to order the visitors to ex- 
 amine well all the relics, and feigned images, to 
 which pilgrimages were wont to be made. In this, 
 Dr. London did great service. From Reading he 
 writes, " That the chief relics of idolatry in the na- 
 tion were there : an angel with one wing, that brought 
 over the spear's head that pierced our Saviour's side. 
 To which he adds a long inventory of their other
 
 390 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 relics, and says, there were as many more as would 
 fill four sheets of paper. He also writes from other 
 places that he had every where taken down their 
 images and trinkets." At St. Edmundsbury, as John 
 ap Rice informed, they found some of the coals that 
 roasted St. Lawrence, the parings of St. Edmund's 
 toes, St. Thomas Becket's penknife and boots, with 
 as many pieces of the cross of our Saviour, as would 
 make a large whole cross. They had also relics 
 against rain, and for hindering weeds to spring. But 
 to pursue this further were endless, the relics were 
 so innumerable. And the value which the people 
 had of them may be gathered from this ; that a piece 
 of St. Andrew's finger, set in an ounce of silver, was 
 laid to pledge by the house of Wastacre for 40 lib. 
 but the visitors, when they suppressed that house, did 
 not think fit to redeem it at so high -a rate. 
 
 For their images, some of them were brought to 
 London, and were there, at St. Paul's Cross, in the 
 sight of all the people, broken; that they might be 
 fully convinced of the juggling impostures of the 
 monks. And in particular, the crucifix of Boxley in 
 Kent, commonly called the " rood of grace;" to which 
 many pilgrimages had been made, because it was 
 observed sometimes to bow, and to lift itself up, to 
 shake and to stir head, hands, and feet, to roll the 
 eyes, move the lips, and bend the brows ; all which 
 were looked on by the abused multitude as the effects 
 of a Divine power. These were now publicly dis- 
 covered to have been cheats ; for the springs were 
 shewed by which all these motions were made. 
 Upon which John Hilsey, then bishop of Rochester, 
 made a sermon, and broke the rood in pieces. There 
 was also another famous imposture discovered at 
 Hales in Gloucestershire ; where the blood of Christ 
 was shewed in a vial of crystal, which the people 
 sometimes saw, but sometimes they could not see it : 
 e so they were made believe, that they were not ca- 
 . p a ki e Q f so s ig na } a favour, as long as they were in 
 mortal sin ; and so they continued to make presents 
 till they bribed Heaven to give them the sight of so
 
 PART I. BOOK III. 391 
 
 blessed a relte. This was now discovered to have 
 been the blood of a duck, which they renewed every 
 week : and the one side of the vial was so thick that 
 there was no seeing through it, but the other was 
 clear and transparent ; and it was so placed near the 
 altar, that one in a secret place behind could turn 
 either side of it outward. So when they had drained 
 the pilgrims that came thither of all they had brought 
 with them, then they afforded them the favour of 
 turning the clear side outward ; who upon that went 
 home very well satisfied with their journey and the 
 expense they had been at. There was brought out 
 of Wales a huge image of wood, called Darvel Ga- 
 theren, of which one Ellis Price, visitor of the dio- 
 cese of St. Asaph, gave this account, on the 6th of 
 April, 1537 : "That the people of the country had 
 a great superstition for it, and many pilgrimages were 
 made to it ; so that, the day before he wrote, there 
 were reckoned to be above five or six hundred pil- 
 grims there : some brought oxen and cattle, and some 
 brought money ; and it was generally believed that 
 if any offered to that image, he had power to deliver 
 his soul from hell." So it was ordered to be brought 
 to London, where it served for fuel to burn Friar 
 Forest. There was a huge image of our Lady at 
 Worcester, that was had in great reverence ; which, 
 when it was stripped of some veils that covered it, 
 was found to be the statue of a bishop. 
 
 Barlow, bishop of St. David's, did also give many 
 advertisements of the superstition of his country, and 
 of the clergy and monks of that diocese, who were 
 guilty of heathenish idolatry, gross impiety and ig- 
 norance, and of abusing the people with many evi- 
 dent forgeries ; about which, he said, he had good 
 evidence when it should be called for. But that 
 which drew most pilgrims and presents in those parts, 
 was an image of our Lady with a taper in her hand ; 
 which was believed to have burnt nine years, till one 
 forswearing himself upon it, it went out ; and was 
 then much reverenced and worshipped. He found 
 all about the cathedral so full of superstitious conceits,
 
 392 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 that there was no hope of working on them ; there- 
 fore he proposed the translating the episcopal seat 
 from St. David's to Caermarthen ; which he pressed 
 by many arguments, and in several letters, but with 
 no success. Then many rich shrines of our Lady of 
 Walsingham, of Ipswich, and Islington, with a great 
 many more, were brought up to London, and burnt 
 by Cromwell's orders. 
 
 But the richest shrine, of England was that of 
 Thomas Becket, called St. Thomas of Canterbury, 
 ^ mar |y rj w ho, being raised up by King Henry II. 
 to the archbishoprick of Canterbury, did afterwards 
 give that King much trouble, by opposing his autho- 
 rity, and exalting the Pope's. And though he once 
 consented to the articles agreed on at Clarendon, for 
 
 O ' 
 
 bearing down the papal, and securing the regal 
 power ; yet he soon after repented of that only piece 
 of loyalty of which he was guilty all the while he was 
 archbishop. He fled to the Pope, who received him 
 as a confessor for the dearest article of the Roman 
 belief: the King and kingdoms were excommuni- 
 cated, and put under an interdict upon his account. 
 But afterwards, upon the intercession of the French 
 King, King Henry and he were reconciled, and the 
 interdict was taken off. Yet his unquiet spirit could 
 take no rest ; for he was no sooner at Canterbury 
 than he began to embroil the kingdom again : and 
 was proceeding by censures against the Archbishop 
 of York, and some other bishops, for crowning the 
 King's son in his absence. Upon the news of that, 
 the King being then in Normandy, said, " If he had 
 faithful servants he would not be so troubled with 
 such a priest ;" whereupon some zealous or officious 
 courtiers came over and killed him : for which, as the 
 King was made to undergo a severe penance, so the 
 monks were not wanting in their ordinary arts to 
 give out many miraculous stories concerning his 
 blood. This soon drew a canonization from Rome ; 
 and he, being a martyr for the papacy, was more ex- 
 tolled than all the apostles or primitive saints had 
 ever been. So that, for three hundred years, he was
 
 PART I. BOOK III. 393 
 
 accounted one of the greatest saints in heaven, as may 
 appear from the accounts in the ledger-books of the 
 offerings made to the three greatest altars in Christ's 
 church in Canterbury. The one was to Christ, the 
 other to the Virgin, and the third to St. Thomas. In 
 one year there was offered at Christ's altar, 3/. 2*. 6d. ; 
 to the Virgin's altar, 63/. 5*. 6d.; but to St. Thomas's 
 altar, S32/. 12*. 3d. But the next year the odds grew 
 greater ; for there was not a penny offered at Christ's 
 altar, and at the Virgin's only 4/. Is. Sd. ; but at St. 
 Thomas's, 954/. 6y. 3d. By such offerings it came, 
 that his shrine was of inestimable value. There was 
 one stone offered there by Lewis VII. of France, who 
 came over to visit it in a pilgrimage, that was believed 
 the richest in Europe. Nor did they think it enough 
 to give him one day in the calendar, the 29th of De- 
 cember ; but unusual honours were devised for this 
 martyr of the liberties of the church, greater than any 
 that had been given to the martyrs for Christianity. 
 The day of raising his body, or, as they called it, of 
 his translation, being the 7th of July, was not only a 
 holy-day, but every fiftieth year there was a jubilee 
 for fifteen days together, and indulgence was granted 
 to all that came to visit his shrine : as appears from 
 the record of the sixth jubilee after his translation, of 
 anno 1420 ; which bears, that there were then about bary 
 a hundred thousand strangers come to visit his tomb. 
 The jubilee began at twelve o'clock on the vigil of 
 the feast, and lasted fifteen days. By such arts they 
 drew an incredible deal of wealth to his shrine. The 
 riches of that, together with his disloyal practices, 
 made the King resolve both to unshrine and unsaint 
 him at once. And then his skull, which had been 
 much worshipped, was found an imposture. For the 
 true skull was lying with the rest of his bones in his 
 grave. The shrine was broken down, and carried 
 away ; the gold that was about it filling two chests, 
 which were so heavy that they were a load to eight 
 strong men to carry them out of the church. And 
 his bones were, as some say, burnt ; so it was under- 
 stood at Rome : but others say, they were so mixed
 
 3.04 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 with other dead bones, that it would have been a 
 miracle indeed to have distinguished them afterwards. 
 The King also ordered his name to be struck out of 
 the calendar, and the office for his festivity to be 
 dashed out of all breviaries. And thus was the su- 
 perstition of England to images and relics extirpated. 
 w arti- Yet the King took care to qualify the distaste which 
 H g *,.n m the articles published the former year had given. And 
 published, though there was no parliament in the year 1537, yet 
 there was a commission; upon the conclusion of which, 
 there was printed an explanation of the chief points 
 of religion, signed by both the archbishops, seventeen 
 bishops, eight archdeacons, and seventeen doctors of 
 divinity and law. In which there was an exposition of 
 the Creed, the seven Sacraments, the Ten Command- 
 ments, the Lord's Prayer, and the salutation of the 
 Virgin, with an account of justification and purgatory. 
 But this work was put in a better form afterwards, 
 where the reader will find a more particular account of 
 it. When all these proceedings of the King's were 
 known at Rome, all the satirical pens there were em- 
 ployed to paint him out as the most infamous sacrile- 
 invectives gious tyrant that ever was. They represented him as 
 IheKing one th at ma de war with heaven and the saints that 
 primed at were there : that committed outrages on the bodies of 
 the saints, which the heathenish Romans would have 
 punished severely upon any that committed the like 
 on those that were dead, how mean or bad soever 
 they had been. All his proceedings against the priests 
 or monks that were attainted and executed for high 
 treason, were represented as the effects of savage and 
 barbarous cruelty. His suppressing the monasteries, 
 and devouring what the devotion of former ages had 
 consecrated to God and his saints, was called ravenous 
 and impious sacrilege ; nor was there any thing 
 omitted that could make him appear to posterity the 
 blackest tyrant that ever wore a crown. They com- 
 pared him to Pharaoh, Nebuchadonosor, Belshazzar, 
 Nero, Domitian, and Diocletian ; but chiefly to Julian 
 the apostate. This last parallel liked them best; 
 and his learning, his apostacy, and pretence of re-
 
 PART I. BOOK III. 395 
 
 forming, were all thought copied from Julian ; only 
 they said his manners were worse. These things 
 were every day printed at Rome, and the informations 
 that were brought out of England were generally 
 addressed to Cardinal Pole, whose style was also 
 known in some of them : all which possessed the 
 King with the deepest and most implacable hatred 
 to him that ever he bore to any person ; and did 
 provoke him to all those severities that followed on 
 his kindred and family. 
 
 But the malice of the court of Rome did not stop 
 there. For now the Pope published all those thun- 
 ders which he had threatened three years before. The 
 bull of deposition is printed in Cherubin's Bulla re- 
 rum Romanarum ; which, since many have the con- 
 fidence to deny matters of fact, though most publicly 
 acted, shall be found in the Collection of Papers, collect. 
 The substance of it is as follows : " The Pope, being nTp 
 God's vicar on earth, and according to Jeremy's, pro- ^'* st 
 phecy, set over nations and kingdoms, ' to root out 11 "^" 
 and destroy ;' and having ' the supreme power over 
 all the kings in the whole world ;' was bound to pro- 
 ceed to due correction, when milder courses were 
 ineffectual : therefore, since King Henry, who had 
 been formerly a defender of the faith, had fallen from 
 it; had, contrary to an inhibition made, put away 
 his Queen, and married one Anne Boleyn, and had 
 made impious and hurtful laws, denying the Pope 
 to be the supreme head of the church, but assuming 
 that title to himself; and had required all his sub- 
 jects under pain of death to swear it ; and had put 
 the Cardinal of Rochester to death, because he would 
 not consent to these heresies; and by all these things 
 had rendered himself unworthy of his regal dignity; 
 and had hardened his heart (as Pharaoh did) against 
 all the admonitions of Pope Clement VII. : therefore, 
 since these his crimes were so notorious, he, in imi- 
 tation of what the apostle did to Ely mas the magician, 
 proceeds to such censures as he had deserved; and, 
 with the advice of his cardinals, does first exhort him 
 and all his complices to return from their errors, to
 
 396 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 annul the acts lately made, and to proceed no farther 
 upon them : which he requires him and them to do, 
 under the pains of excommunication and rebellion, 
 and of the King's losing his kingdom ; whom he re- 
 quired within ninety days to appear at Rome, by him- 
 self or proxy, and his complices within sixty days, to 
 give an account of their actions ; otherwise he would 
 then proceed to a further sentence against them. And 
 declares, that if the King and his complices do not 
 appear, he has fallen from the right to his crown, and 
 they from the right to their estates ; and when they 
 die, they were to be denied Christian burial. He puts 
 the whole kingdom under an interdict ; and declares 
 all the King's children by the said Anne, and the 
 children of all his complices, to be under the same 
 pains, though they be now under age, and incapaci- 
 tates them for all honours or employments ; and de- 
 clares all the subjects or vassals of the King or his 
 complices, absolved from all oaths or obligations to 
 them, and requires them to acknowledge them no 
 more. And declares him and them infamous, so that 
 they might neither be witnesses nor make wills. He 
 requires all other persons to have no dealings with 
 him or them, neither by trading, nor any other way, 
 under the pain of excommunication ; the annulling 
 their contracts, and the exposing goods so traded in, 
 to all that should catch them. And that all clergy- 
 men should, within five days after the expiration of 
 the time prefixed, go out of the kingdom, (leaving only 
 so many priests as would be necessary for baptizing 
 infants, and giving the sacrament to such as died in 
 penitence,) under the pains of excommunication and 
 deprivation. And charges all noblemen and others in 
 his dominions, under the same pains, to rise up in 
 arms against him, and to drive him out of his king- 
 dom; and that none should take arms for him, or any 
 way assist him : and declares all other princes ab- 
 solved from any confederacies made, or to be made, 
 with him ; and earnestly obtests the emperor and all 
 kings, and requires other princes, under the former 
 pains, to trade no more with him ; and in case of
 
 PART I. BOOK III. 397 
 
 their disobedience, he puts their kingdoms under an 
 interdict. And requires all princes and military per- 
 sons, in the virtue of holy obedience, to make war 
 upon him, and to force him to return to the obedience 
 of the apostolic see ; and to seize on all goods or 
 merchandizes belonging to the King or his complices, 
 wherever they could find them ; and that such of his 
 subjects that were seized on, should be made slaves. 
 And requires all bishops, three days after the time 
 that was set down was clasped, to intimate this sen- 
 tence, in all their churches with putting out of can- 
 dles, and other ceremonies that ought to be used, in 
 the most solemn and public manner that might be. 
 And all who hindered the publication of this sentence, 
 are put under the same pains. He ordained this sen- 
 tence to be affixed at Rome, Tournay, and Dunkirk, 
 which should stand for a sufficient publication ; and 
 concludes, that if any should endeavour to oppose, or 
 enervate any of the premises, he should incur the in- 
 dignation of Almighty God, and the holy apostles, 
 St. Peter and Paul. Dated at Rome the 30th of 
 August, 1535." But the Pope found the princes of 
 Christendom liked the precedent, of using a King in 
 that manner so ill, that he suspended the execution of 
 this bull till this time, that the suppression of abbeys, 
 and the burning of Thomas Becket's bones, did so in- 
 flame the Pope, that he could forbear no longer ; and 
 therefore, by a new sentence, he did all he could to 
 shake him in his throne. 
 
 The preamble of it was, " That as our Saviour had 
 pity on St. Peter after his fall, so it became St. Peter's 
 successors to imitate our Saviour in his clemency ; 
 and that therefore, though he, having heard of King 
 Henry's crimes, had proceeded to a sentence against 
 him, (here the former bull was recited,) yet some other 
 princes who hoped he might be reclaimed by gentler 
 methods, had interposed for a suspension of the sen- 
 tence : and he, being easy to believe what he so 
 earnestly desired, had upon their intercession sus- 
 pended it. But now he found they had been deceived 
 in their hopes, and that he grew worse and worse ;
 
 3,98 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 and had done such dishonour to the saints, as to raise 
 St. Thomas of Canterbury's body, to arraign him of 
 high treason, and to burn his body, and sacrilegiously 
 to rob the riches that had been offered to his shrine : 
 as also to suppress St. Austin's Abbey in Canterbury; 
 and that, having thrust out the monks, he had put in 
 wild beasts into their grounds, having transformed 
 himself into a beast. Therefore he takes off' the sus- 
 pension, and publishes the bull, commanding it to be 
 executed ; declaring that the affixing it at Dieppe or 
 Bulloign in France, at St. Andrews or Callistren (that 
 is, Callstream, a town near the border of England) 
 in Scotland, or Tuam or Artifert in Ireland, or any two 
 of these, should be a sufficient publication. Dated 
 the 17th of December, anno Dom. 1538." 
 
 No man can read these bulls, but he must conclude, 
 that if the pope be the infallible and universal pastor 
 of the church, whom all are bound to obey, he has a 
 full authority over all kings, to proceed to the highest 
 censures possible : and since the matters of fact, enu- 
 merated in the sentence as the grounds of it, were 
 certainly true, then the Pope is either clothed with 
 the power of deposing princes ; or, if otherwise, he 
 lied to the world when he pretended to it thus, and 
 taught false doctrine, which cannot stand with infal- 
 libility : and the pretended grounds of the sentence, 
 as to matter of fact, being evidently true, this must 
 be a just sentence ; and therefore all that acknow- 
 ledged the infallibility of that see were bound to obey 
 it ; and all the rebellions that followed, during the 
 reign of the King or his children, were founded on 
 this sentence, and must be justified by it ; otherwise 
 the Pope's infallibility must fall to the ground. But 
 this was to be said for the Pope that though he had' 
 raised the several branches of this sentence higher 
 than any of his predecessors had ever done ; yet, as 
 to the main, he had very good and authentic prece- 
 dents for what he did, from the depositions of empe- 
 rors or kings, that were made by former popes, for 
 about five hundred years together. This I thought 
 needful to be more fully opened, because of the pre-
 
 PART I. BOOK III. 399 
 
 sent circumstances we are now in ; since hereby every 
 one that will consider things, must needs see, that the 
 belief of the Pope's infallibility does necessarily infer 
 the acknowledgment of their power of deposing here- 
 tical kings. For it is plain, the pope did this ex cathe- 
 dra, and as a pastor feeding and correcting his flock. 
 But, not content with this, he also wrote to other 
 princes, inflaming them against the King ; particu- 
 larly to the kings of France and Scotland. To the last Le>iey, 
 of these he sent a breve ; declaring King Henry a "' 
 heretic, a schismatic, a manifest adulterer, a public 
 murderer, a rebel, and convict of high treason against 
 him, the Pope, his lord ; for which crimes he had de- 
 posed him, and offered his dominions to him, if he 
 would go and invade them. And thus the breach be- 
 tween him and the Pope was past reconciling ; and 
 at Rome it was declared equally meritorious to fight 
 against him, as against the Turk. But Cardinal Pole 
 made it more meritorious in his book. Yet the thun- 
 ders of the Vatican had now lost their force ; so that 
 these had no other effect but to enrage the King more 
 against all such as were suspected to favour their in- 
 terests, or to hold any correspondence with Cardinal 
 Pole. Therefore he first procured a declaration 
 against the Pope's pretensions, to be signed by all the 
 bishops of England: in which, after they declared The cler sy 
 against the Pope's ecclesiastical jurisdiction, upon the d^u^T 
 grounds formerly touched, they concluded, "That the JJJU^* 1 
 people ought to be instructed, that Christ did ex- 
 pressly forbid his apostles, or their successors, to take 
 to themselves the power of the sword, or the authority 
 of kings. And that, if the Bishop of Rome, or any 
 other bishop, assumed any such power, he was a ty- 
 rant and usurper of other men's rights, and a subverter 
 of the kingdom of Christ." This was subscribed by 
 nineteen bishops, (all that were then in England,) 
 and twenty-five doctors of divinity and law. It was 
 at some time before May, 1538 : for Edward Fox, 
 bishop of Hereford, who was one that signed it, died 
 the 8th of May that year. There was no convocation 
 called by writ for doing this : for as there is no men-
 
 Collect. 
 ^Numb. 10. 
 
 400 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 tion of any such writ in the registers, so, if it had been 
 done by convocation, Cromwell had signed it first ; 
 but his hand not being at it, it is more probable that 
 a meeting of the clergy was called by the King's mis- 
 sive letters; or that, as was once done before, the paper 
 was drawn at London, and sent over the kingdom, to 
 the episcopal sees, for the bishops' hands to it. 
 
 There is another original paper extant, signed at 
 this time by eight bishops : from which I conjecture, 
 those were all that were then about London. It was 
 to shew, " That, by the commission which Christ 
 gave to churchmen, they were only ministers of his 
 gospel, to instruct the people in the purity of the 
 faith : but that by other places of Scripture, the au- 
 thority of Christian princes over all their subjects, as 
 well bishops and priests as others, was also clear. 
 And that the bishops and priests have charge of souls 
 within their cures, power to administer sacraments, 
 and to teach the word of God : to the which word of 
 God, Christian princes acknowledge themselves sub- 
 ject ; and that, in case the bishops be negligent, it is 
 the Christian princes' office to see them do their duty." 
 This being signed by John Hilsey, bishop of Roches- 
 ter, must be after the year 1537, in which he was con- 
 secrated ; and Latimer and Shaxton also signing, it 
 must be before the year 1539, in which they resigned. 
 But I believe it was signed at the same time that the 
 other was : and the design of it was to refute those 
 calumnies spread at Rome, as if the King had wholly 
 suppressed all ecclesiastical offices, and denied them 
 any Divine authority, making them wholly dependent 
 on the civil power, and acting by commission only 
 from him. And therefore they explained the limits 
 of both these powers, in so clear and moderate a way, 
 that it must have stopped the mouth of all opposers. 
 But whether there was any public use made of this 
 paper, I can by no means discover.* 
 
 ^e ^ n S did. also set forward the printing of the 
 English Bible, which was finished this year, at Lon- 
 don, by Grafton the printer, who printed one thou- 
 
 See addenda at the end of the volume. N.
 
 PART I. BOOK III. 401 
 
 sand five hundred of them at his own charge. This 
 Bible Cromwell presented to the King, and procured 
 his warrant, allowing all his subjects in all his domi- 
 nions to read it, without control or hazard. For 
 which the Archbishop wrote Cromwell a letter of 
 most hearty thanks, dated the 13th of August: "Who 
 did now rejoice that he saw this day of reformation, 
 which he concluded was now risen in England, since 
 the light of God's word did shine over it without any 
 cloud." The translation had been sent over to France 
 to be printed at Paris, the workmen in England not 
 being judged able to do it as it ought to be. There- 
 fore, in the year 1537, it was recommended to Bon- 
 ner's care, who was then ambassador at Paris, and 
 was much in Cromwell's favour, who was setting him 
 up against Gardiner. He procured the King of 
 France's leave to print it at Paris, in a large volume ; 
 but, upon a complaint made by the French clergy, 
 the press was stopped, and most of the copies were 
 seized on and publicly burnt ; but some copies were 
 conveyed out of the way, and the workmen and forms 
 were brought over to England ; where it was now 
 finished and published. And injunctions were given Newm 
 out in the King's name, by Cromwell, to all incum- ^"mby 
 bents, " to provide one of these Bibles, and set it up ^ u ^ t " E - 
 publicly in the church, and not to hinder or discou- Numb. H. 
 rage the reading of it, but to encourage all persons 
 to peruse it, as being the true lively word of God, 
 which every Christian ought to believe, embrace, and 
 follow, if he expected to be saved. Arid all were 
 exhorted, not to make contests about the exposition 
 or sense of any difficult place, but to refer that to men 
 of higher judgment in the Scriptures. Then some 
 other rules were added, about the instructing the 
 people in the principles of religion, by teaching the 
 Creed, the Lord's Prayer, and Ten Commandments 
 in English : and that in every church there should 
 be a sermon, made every quarter of a year, at least, 
 to declare to the people the true gospel of Christ, and 
 to exhort them to the works of charity, mercy, and 
 faith ; and not to trust in other men's works, or pil- 
 
 VOL. I. 2 D
 
 402 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 grimages to images, or relics, or saying over beads, 
 which they did not understand ; since these things 
 tended to idolatry and superstition, which of all of- 
 fences did most provoke God's indignation. They 
 were to take down all images, which were abused by 
 pilgrimages, or offerings made to them, and to suffer 
 no candles to be set before any image ; only there 
 might be candles before the cross, and before the sa- 
 crament, and about the sepulchre : and they were to 
 instruct the people, that images served only as the 
 books of the unlearned, to be remembrances of the 
 conversations of them whom they represented ; but 
 if they made any other use of images, it was idolatry: 
 for remedying whereof, as the King had already done 
 in part, so he intended to do more for the abolishing 
 such images, which might be a great offence to God, 
 and a danger to the souls of his subjects. And if any 
 of them had formerly magnified such images, or pil- 
 grimages, to such purposes, they were ordered openly 
 to recant, and acknowledge, that in saying such things 
 they had been led by no ground in Scripture ; but 
 were deceived by a vulgar error, which had crept into 
 the church through the avarice of those who had 
 profit by it. They were also to discover all such as 
 were letters of the reading of God's word in English, 
 or hindered the execution of these injunctions. Then 
 followed orders for keeping of registers in their pa- 
 rishes : for reading all the King's injunctions once 
 every quarter at least : that none were to alter any of 
 the holy-days without directions from the King : and 
 all the eves of the holy-days formerly abrogated, 
 were declared to be no fasting-days : the commemo- 
 ration of Thomas Becket was to be clean omitted : the 
 kneeling for the Ave's after sermon was also forbidden, 
 which were said in hope to obtain the Pope's pardon. 
 And whereas in their processions they used to say so 
 many suffrages, with an or a pro nobis to the saints, by 
 which they had not time to say the suffrages to God 
 himself, they were to teach the people,that it were bet- 
 ter to omit the ora pro nobis, and to sing the other suf- 
 frages, which were most necessary and most effectual."
 
 PART I. BOOK III. 403 
 
 These injunctions struck at three main points of 
 popery : containing encouragements to the vulgar to 
 read the Scriptures in a known tongue, and putting 
 down all worship of images, and leaving it free for 
 any curate to leave out the suffrages to the saints. 
 So that they were looked on as a deadly blow to that 
 religion. But now those of that party did so artifi- 
 cially comply with the King, that no advantages could 
 be found against any of them for their disobedience. 
 The King was master at home, and no more to be 
 disobeyed. He had not only broken the rebellion of 
 his own subjects, and secured himself by alliance from 
 the dangers threatened him by the Pope ; but all their 
 expectations from the Lady Mary were now clouded : 
 for, on the 12th of October, 1537, Queen Jane hadj^ 
 born him a son, who was christened Edward; thebom. 
 Archbishop of Canterbury being one of his godfa- 
 thers. This very much encouraged all that were for 
 reformation, and disheartened those who were against 
 it. But the joy for this young Prince was qualified 
 by the Queen's death, two days after ;* which afflicted 
 the King very much : for of all his wives, she was the 
 dearest to him. And his grief for that loss is given 
 as the reason, why he continued two years a widower. 
 But others thought he had not so much tenderness 
 in his nature, as to be much or long troubled for any 
 thing. Therefore the slowness of his marrying was 
 ascribed to some reasons of state. But the birth of 
 the Prince was a great disappointment to all those 
 whose hopes rested on the Lady Mary's succeeding 
 her father : therefore they submitted themselves with 
 more than ordinary compliance to the King. 
 
 Gardiner was as busy as any in declaiming against Gretco 
 the religious houses; and took occasion in many of {JJ^J 
 his sermons to commend the King for suppressing p" 1 *- 
 them. The Archbishop of York had recovered him- 
 self at court : and I do not find that he interposed in 
 the suppression of any of the religious houses, except 
 Hexham, about which he wrote to Cromwell, that it 
 
 * See below, vol. ii. p. 1, note. It is probable that the Queen survived 
 the birth of the Prince, as many as twelve days. N. 
 
 2 D2
 
 404 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 was a great sanctuary when the Scots made inroads : 
 and so he thought that the continuing of it might be 
 of great use to the King. He added in that letter, 
 " That he did carefully silence all the preachers of 
 novelties. But some of these boasted, that they would 
 shortly have licenses from the King, as he heard they 
 had already from the Archbishop of Canterbury; but 
 he desired Cromwell to prevent that mischief." This 
 is all that I find of him. 
 
 There is a pardon granted to Stokesley, bishop of 
 London, on the 3d of July, in the thirtieth year of his 
 reign, being this year, for having acted by commis- 
 sion from Rome, and sued out bulls from thence. If 
 these crimes were done before the separation from 
 Rome, they were remitted by the general pardon. If 
 he took a particular pardon, it seems strange that it 
 was not enrolled till now. But I am apt to believe it 
 was rather the omission of a clerk, than his being 
 guilty of such a transgression about this time; for I 
 see no cause to think the King would have pardoned 
 such a crime in a bishop in those days. All that 
 party had now, by their compliance and submission, 
 gained so much on the King, that he began to turn 
 more to their counsels than he had done of late years. 
 Gardiner was returned from France, where he had 
 been ambassador for some years : he had been also in 
 the Emperor's court, and there were violent presump- 
 tions that he had secretly reconciled himself to the 
 Pope, and entered into a correspondence with him. 
 For one of the legate's servants discoursed of it at 
 Ratisbone, to one of Sir Henry Knevet's retinue (who 
 was joined in the embassy with Gardiner), whom he 
 took to be Gardiner's servant, and with whom he had 
 an old acquaintance. The matter was traced, and 
 Knevet spoke with the Italian that had first let it fall, 
 and was persuaded of the truth of the thing: but 
 Gardiner smelling it out, said, that Italian, upon 
 whose testimony the whole matter depended, was cor- 
 rupted to ruin him ; and complained of it to the Em- 
 peror's chancellor, Granvel: upon which Ludovico 
 (that was the Italian's name) was put in prison. And
 
 PART I. BOOK III. 405 
 
 it seems the King either looked on it as a contrivance 
 of Gardiner's enemies, or at least seemed to do so, for 
 he continued still to employ him. Yet, on many oc- 
 casions, he expressed great contempt of him, and used 
 him not as a counsellor, but as a slave. But he was 
 a man of great cunning, and had observed the King's 
 temper exactly, and knew well to take a fit occasion 
 for moving the King in any thing, and could improve 
 it dexterously. He therefore represented to the King, Gardiner 
 that nothing would so secure him, both at home and l^ 
 abroad, against all the mischief the Pope was con- a s ainst , 
 triving, as to shew great zeal against heretics, chiefly eaiua 
 the sacramentaries (by that name they branded all t^" s en " 
 that denied the corporal presence of Christ in the 
 eucharist). And the King, being all his life zealous 
 for the belief of the corporal presence, was the more 
 easily persuaded to be severe on that head: and the 
 rather, because the princes of Germany, whose friend- 
 ship was necessary to him, being all Lutherans, his 
 proceedings against the sacramentaries would give 
 them no offence. 
 
 An occasion at that time presented itself as oppor- And Lm- 
 tunely as they could have wished; one John Nichol- ^ c ^ ; pa 
 son, alias Lambert, was then questioned by the Arch- 
 bishop of Canterbury for that opinion. He had been 
 minister of the English company at Antwerp; where, 
 being acquainted with Tindal and Frith, he improved 
 that knowledge of religion, which was first infused in 
 him by Bilney: but Chancellor More ordered the 
 merchants to dismiss him; so he came over to Eng- 
 land, and was taken by some of Archbishop War- 
 ham's officers, and many articles were objected to him. 
 But Warham died soon after, and the change of coun- 
 sels that followed occasioned his liberty. So he kept 
 a school at London; and hearing Dr. Taylor, after- 
 wards bishop of Lincoln, preach of the presence of 
 Christ in the sacrament, he came to him upon it, and 
 offered his reasons, why he could not believe the doc- 
 trine he had preached: which he put in writing, di- 
 gesting them into ten arguments. Taylor shewed this 
 to Dr. Barnes, who, as he was bred among the Lu-
 
 appealed 
 to the 
 
 406 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 therans, so had not only brought over their opinions, 
 but their temper with him : he thought, that nothing 
 would more obstruct the progress of the Reformation 
 than the venting that doctrine in England. There- 
 fore Taylor and he carried the paper to Cranmer, who 
 was, at that time, also of Luther's* opinion, which he 
 had drunk in from his friend Osiander. Latimer was 
 of the same belief. So Lambert was brought before 
 , had them, and they studied to make him retract his paper : 
 but all was in vain; for Lambert, by a fatal resolu- 
 tion, appealed to the King. 
 
 This Gardiner laid hold on, and persuaded the 
 King to proceed solemnly and severely in it. The 
 King was soon prevailed with, and both interest and 
 vanity concurred to make him improve this opportu- 
 nity for shewing his zeal and learning. So letters 
 were written to many of the nobility and bishops, to 
 come and see this trial; in which the King intended 
 to sit in person, and to manage some part of the ar- 
 gument. In November, on the day that was prefixed, 
 there was a great appearance in Westminster Hall of 
 the bishops and clergy, the nobility, judges, and the 
 King's council ; with an incredible number of spec- 
 tators. The King's guards were all in white, and so 
 was the cloth of state. 
 And was When the prisoner was brought to the bar, the trial 
 was opened by a speech of Dr. Dayes, which was to 
 this effect: " That this assembly was not at all con- 
 vened to dispute about any point of faith ; but that 
 the King, being supreme head, intended openly to 
 condemn and confute that man's heresy in all their 
 presence." Then the King commanded him to de- 
 clare his opinion about the sacrament. To which 
 Lambert began his answer, with a preface, acknow- 
 ledging the King's great goodness, that he would 
 thus hear the causes of his subjects, and commending 
 his great judgment and learning. In this the King 
 interrupted him, telling him, in Latin, that he came 
 
 * Cranmer, at his trial, being asked what doctrine he taught concerning this 
 sacrament, when he condemned Lambert the sacramentary, expressly says, 
 " I maintained then the papists' doctrine." Fox, vol. iii. p. 656. Nor could 
 he well otherwise have argued against Lambert as he then did.
 
 PART I. BOOK III. 407 
 
 not there to hear his own praises set forth ; and 
 therefore commanded him to speak to the matter. 
 This he uttered with a stern countenance; at which 
 Lambert being a little disordered, the King asked him 
 again, Whether was Christ's body in the sacrament A 
 or not ? He answered in the words of St. Austin, " It b 
 was his body in a certain manner." But the King hi 
 bade him answer plainly, Whether it was Christ's 
 body or not? So he answered, " That it was not his 
 body." Upon which the King urged him with the 
 words of Scripture, "This is my body;" and then he 
 commanded the Archbishop to confute his opinion, 
 who spoke only to that part of it which was grounded 
 on the impossibility of a body's being in two places 
 at once. And that he confuted from Christ's appear- 
 ing to St. Paul; shewing, that though he is always 
 in heaven, yet he was seen by St. Paul in the air. 
 But Lambert affirmed, that he was then only in 
 heaven ; and that St. Paul heard a voice, and saw a 
 vision, but not the very body of Christ. Upon this 
 they disputed for some time : in which, it seems, the 
 Bishop of Winchester thought Cranmer argued but 
 faintly, for he interposed in the argument. 
 
 Tonstal's arguments run all upon God's omnipo- 
 tency, that it was not to be limited by any appearances 
 of difficulties, which flowed from our want of a right 
 understanding of things; and our faculties being weak, 
 our notions of impossibilities were proportioned to 
 these. But Stokesley thought he had found out a de- 
 monstration that might put an end to the whole con- 
 troversy; for he shewed, that in nature we see one sub- 
 stance changed into another, and yet the accidents re- 
 main. So, when water is boiled till it evaporates into 
 air, one substance is changed into another; and mois- 
 ture that was the accident remains, it being still moist. 
 This (as one of the eye-witnesses relates) was received 
 with great applause ; and much joy appeared in the 
 Bishop's looks upon it. But whether the spectators 
 could distinguish well between laughter for joy, and 
 a scornful smile, I cannot tell: for certainly this 
 crotchet must have provoked the latter rather, since
 
 408 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 it was a sophism not to be forgiven any above a ju- 
 nior sophister; thus from an accidental conversion, 
 where the substance was still the same, only altered 
 in its form and qualities (according to the language 
 of that philosophy which was then most in vogue), 
 to infer a substantial mutation, where one substance 
 was annihilated, and anew one produced in its place. 
 But these arguments it seems disordered Lambert 
 somewhat; and either the King's stern looks, the 
 variety of the disputants, ten, one after another, en- 
 gaging with him, or the greatness of the presence, 
 with the length of the action, which continued five 
 hours, put him in some confusion: it is not improbable 
 but they might, in the end, bring him to be quite 
 silent. This, one that was present, said, flowed from 
 his being spent and wearied ; and that he saw what 
 he said was little considered : but others ascribed it 
 to his being confounded with the arguments that were 
 brought against him. So the general applause of the 
 hall gave the victory on the King's side. When he 
 was thus silent, the King asked him, If he was con- 
 vinced by these arguments, and whether hewould live 
 or die? He answered, "That he committed his soul 
 to God, and submitted his body to the King's cle- 
 mency.' 5 But the King told him, if he did not recant 
 he must die, for he would not be a patron of heretics; 
 and since he would not do that, the King ordered 
 Cromwell to read the sentence (which he, as the 
 King's vicegerent, did), declaring him an incorrigible 
 He is con- heretic, and condemning him to be burnt. Which was 
 
 demned, ' 1 . _, i / i i i * 
 
 soon after executed in bmithneld, in a barbarous man- 
 ner; for, when his legs and thighs were burnt to the 
 stumps, there not being fire enough to consume the 
 rest of him suddenly, two of the officers raised up his 
 body on their halberds, he being yet alive, and crying 
 out, " None but Christ, none but Christ!" and then 
 they let him fall down into the fire, where he was 
 And umt. quickly consumed to ashes. He was a learned and 
 good man. His answers to the articles objected to 
 him by Warham, and a book, which in his imprison- 
 ment he wrote for justifying his opinion, which he
 
 PART I. BOOK III. 409 
 
 directed to the King, do shew both great learning for 
 those times, and a very good judgment. 
 
 This being done, the party that opposed the Re- 
 formation persuaded the King, that he had got so 
 much reputation to himself by it, that it would ef- 
 fectually refute all aspersions which had been cast on 
 him, as if he intended to change the faith: neither 
 did they forget to set on him in his weak side, and 
 magnify all that he had said, as if the oracle had ut- 
 tered it; by which, they said, it appeared he was in- 
 deed a defender of the faith, and the supreme head 
 of the church. And he had so good a conceit of what 
 was then done, that he intended to pursue these se- 
 verities further; and therefore, soon after, he resolved 
 on summoning a parliament, partly for confirming 
 what he had done, and completing what remained to 
 be done further, in the suppression of the monaste- 
 ries ; and likewise for making a new law for punishing 
 some opinions, which were then spreading, about the 
 sacrament, and some other articles, as will soon appear. 
 
 Now the Archbishop of Canterbury's interest at ne pp isl > 
 court suffered a great diminution. His chief friend grom^a" 
 among the bishops was Fox, bishop of Hereford, who conrt< 
 was much esteemed and employed by the King. He 
 was a privy-counsellor, and had been employed in a 
 negotiation with the princes of Germany, to whom 
 he was a very acceptable minister. They proposed 
 that the King would receive the Augsburg Confession, 
 except in such things as should be altered in it by 
 common consent, and defend it in a free council, if 
 any such were called; and that neither of them should 
 acknowledge any council called by the Pope : that 
 the King should be called the patron of their league, 
 and they should mutually assist one another, the King 
 giving one hundred thousand crowns a year towards 
 the defence of the league. 
 
 The Bishop of Winchester, being then in France, 
 did much dissuade the King from making a religious 
 league with them; against which he gave some plausi- 
 ble politic reasons, for his conscience never struggled 
 with a maxim of state. But the King liked most of
 
 410 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 The King's the propositions ; only he would not accept the title 
 spondence of defender of their league, till some differences in 
 with the t ne d oc trine were agreed. So they were to have sent 
 
 German . O . lli/ri i 
 
 princes, over Sturmius as their agent; and Melancthon, 
 Bucer, and George Draco, to confer with the King's 
 divines. But, upon Queen Anne's fall, this vanished ; 
 and though the King entered into a civil league with 
 them, and had frequently a mind to bring over Me- 
 lancthon, for whom he had a great value, yet it never 
 took effect. There were three things in which the 
 Germans were more positive than in any other point 
 of reformation : these were, the communion in both 
 kinds, the worship in a known tongue, and an allow- 
 ance for the marriage of the clergy. All the people 
 had got these things in their heads ; so that it was 
 generally believed, that if the Pope had in time con- 
 sented to them, the progress of the Reformation had 
 been much stopped. The express words of the in- 
 stitution, and the novelty of the contrary practice, had 
 engaged that nation very early for communion in both 
 kinds. Common sense made them all desire to un- 
 derstand what they did and said in the worship of 
 God ; and the lewd and dissolute practices of the un- 
 married clergy were so public, that they thought the 
 honour of their families, of which that nation is ex- 
 tremely sensible, could not be secured, unless the 
 clergy might have wives of their own. But at these 
 the King stuck more than at other things that were 
 more disputable: for in all other points that were ma- 
 terial, he had set up the doctrine of the Augsburg 
 Confession ; and there was good ground to hope that 
 the evidence of at least two of these would have 
 brought over the King to a fuller agreement, and 
 firmer union, with them.* But the Bishop of Here- 
 Bonner's ford's death gave a great blow to that design. For 
 i^ion. a though that party thought they had his room well 
 filled, when they had got Bonner to be his successor; 
 yet they found afterwards what a fatal mistake they 
 committed, in raising him now to Hereford, and trans- 
 lating him, within a few months, to London, vacant 
 
 * See addenda at the end of this volume.
 
 PART I. BOOK III. 411 
 
 by Stokesley's death. But during the vacancy of the collect, 
 see of Hereford, Cranmer held a visitation in it, Nnmb> "' 
 where he left some injunctions (to be found in the 
 Collection), which chiefly related to the encouraging 
 of reading the Scriptures, and giving all due obedi- 
 ence to the King's injunctions. For the other bishops 
 that adhered to Cranmer, they were rather clogs than 
 helps to him. Latimer's simplicity and weakness 
 made him be despised : Shaxton's proud and litigious 
 humour- drew hatred on him : Barlow was not very 
 discreet; and many of the preachers whom they che- 
 rished, whether out of an unbridled forwardness of 
 temper, or a true zeal, that would not be managed 
 and governed by politic and prudent measures, were 
 flying at many things that were not yet abolished. 
 Many complaints were brought of these to the King. 
 Upon which, letters were sent to all the bishops, in 
 the King's name, to take care, that as the people 
 should be instructed in the truth, so they should not 
 be unwarily charged with too many novelties ; since 
 the publishing these, if it was not tempered with 
 great discretion, would raise much contention, and 
 other inconveniences, that might be of dangerous con- 
 sequence. But it seems this caveat did not produce 
 what was designed by it ; or, at least, the opposite 
 party were still bringing in new complaints: for I 
 have seen an original letter of Cromwell's to the 
 Bishop of Landaff, bearing date the 6th of January, coii*. 
 in which he makes mention of the King's letters,* sent Numb ' 1S 
 to that purpose, and requires him to look to the exe- 
 cution of them, both against the violence of the new 
 preachers, and against those that secretly carried on 
 the pretended authority of the Bishop of Rome ; 
 otherwise he threatens to proceed against him in an- 
 other manner. All these things concurred to lessen 
 Cranmer's interest in the court; nor had he any firm 
 friend there but Cromwell, who was also careful to 
 preserve himself: there was not a queen now in the 
 King's bosom to favour their motions. Queen Jane 
 had been their friend, though she came in Anne Bo- 
 
 See addenda at the end of the volume.
 
 412 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 leyn's room, that had supported them most. The 
 King was observed to be much guided by his wives, 
 as long as they kept their interest with him. There- 
 fore Cromwell thought the only way to retrieve a de- 
 sign that was almost lost, was to engage the King in 
 an alliance with some of the princes of Germany ; 
 from whence he had heard much of the beauty of 
 the Lady Anne of Cleves, the Duke of Cleves' sister, 
 whose eldest sister was married to the Duke of Saxony. 
 1538. But while he was setting this on foot, a parliament 
 ptrha" was summoned to met the 28th of April : to which 
 mem. Q}\ t ne parliamentary abbots had their writs. The 
 Abbots of Westminster, St. Albans, St. Mary, York, 
 Glastenbury, Glocester, Ramsey, Evesham, Peter- 
 borough, Reading, Malmesbury, Croyland, Selby, 
 Thorny, Winchelcomb, Waltham, Cirencester, 
 Tewkesbury, and Colchester sat in it. On the 5th 
 of May, the Lord Chancellor acquainted them, that 
 the King, being most desirous to have all his subjects 
 of one mind in religion, and to quiet all controversies 
 about it, had commanded him to move to them, that 
 a committee might be appointed for examining these 
 different opinions, and drawing up articles for an 
 agreement, which might be reported and considered 
 by the House. To this the Lords agreed ; and named 
 for a committee, Cromwell, the vicegerent, the two 
 Archbishops, the Bishops of Duresme, Bath and 
 Wells, Ely, Bangor, Carlisle, and Worcester : who 
 were ordered to go about it with all haste, and were 
 dispensed with for their attendance in the House, till 
 they had ended their business. But they could come 
 to no agreement ; for the Archbishop of Canterbury, 
 having the Bishops of Ely and Worcester to second 
 him, and being favoured by Cromwell, the other five 
 could carry nothing against them : nor would either 
 party yield to the other ; so that eleven days passed 
 in these debates. 
 
 The su On the 16th of May the Duke of Norfolk told the 
 
 ar7 pro- Lords, that the committee that was named had made 
 
 posed ' no progress, for they were not of one mind ; which 
 
 some of the Lords had objected, when they were first
 
 PART I. BOOK III. 413 
 
 named. Therefore he offered some articles to the 
 Lords' consideration, that they might be examined 
 by the whole House, and that there might be a per- 
 petual law made for the observation of them, after the 
 Lords had freely delivered their minds about them. 
 The articles were : 
 
 " First, Whether in the eucharist Christ's real body 
 was present without any transubstantiation ?" (so it 
 is in the Journal, absque transubstantiatione.} It 
 seems, so the corporal presence had been established, 
 they would have left the manner of it indefinite. 
 
 " Secondly, Whether that sacrament was to be 
 given to the laity in both kinds ? 
 
 "Thirdly, Whether the vows of chastity, made 
 either by men or women, ought to be observed by 
 the law of God ? 
 
 " Fourthly, Whether, by the law of God, private 
 masses ought to be celebrated ? 
 
 " Fifthly, Whether priests, by the law of God, 
 might marry ? 
 
 " Sixthly, Whether auricular confession were ne- 
 cessary, by the law of God ?" 
 
 Against these the Archbishop of Canterbury argued 
 long. For the first, he was then in his opinion a Lu- 
 theran, so he was not like to say much against it. But 
 certainly he opposed the second much ; since there 
 was not any thing for which those with whom he 
 held correspondence were more earnest, and seemed 
 to have greater advantages, both from Christ's own 
 words in the institution, and the constant practice of 
 the church for twelve years. 
 
 For the third, it seemed very hard to suppress so 
 many monasteries, and set the religious persons at 
 liberty, and yet bind them up to chastity. That same 
 parliament, by another act, absolved them from their 
 vow of poverty, giving them power to purchase lands : 
 now it was not reasonable to bind them up to some 
 parts of their vows, when they absolved them from 
 the rest. And it was no ways prudent to bind them 
 up from marriage, since, as long as they continued in 
 that state, they were still capable to re-enter into their
 
 414 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 monasteries, when a fair occasion should offer; whereas 
 they, upon their marrying, did effectually lay down 
 all possible pretensions to their former houses. 
 
 For the fourth, the asserting the necessity of pri- 
 vate masses was a plain condemnation of the King's 
 proceedings, in the suppression of so many religious 
 houses, which were societies chiefly dedicated to that 
 purpose. For if these masses did profit the souls 
 departed, the destroying so many foundations could 
 not be justified. And for the living, these private 
 masses were clearly contrary to the first institution, 
 by which that which was blessed and consecrated 
 was to be distributed : and it was to be a communion, 
 and so held by the primitive church, which admitted 
 none, so much as to see the celebration of the sacra- 
 ment, but those who received it; laying censures 
 upon such as were present at the rest of that office, 
 and did not stay and communicate. 
 
 For the fifth, it touched Cranmer to the quick, for 
 he was then married. The Scripture did in no place 
 enjoin the celibate of the clergy. On the contrary, 
 Scripture speaks of their wives, and gives the rules 
 of their living with them. And St. Paul, in express 
 words, condemns all men's leaving their wives, with- 
 out exception ; saying, " That the man hath not 
 power over his own body, but the wife." In the pri- 
 mitive church, though those that were in orders did 
 not marry, yet such as were married before orders 
 kept their wives ; of which there are many instances : 
 and when some moved, in the council of Nice, that 
 all that had been married, when they entered into 
 orders, should put away their wives, it was rejected ; 
 and ever since the Greek churches have allowed their 
 priests to keep their wives : nor was it ever com- 
 manded in the western church, till the popes began 
 their usurpation. Therefore, the prohibition of it 
 being only grounded on the papal constitutions, it 
 was not reasonable to keep it up, since that authority 
 on which it was built was now overthrown. 
 
 What was said concerning auricular confession,* 
 
 * See Addenda at the end of this volume.
 
 PART I. BOOK III. 415 
 
 I cannot so easily recover. For though Cranmer ar- 
 gued three days against these articles, I can only ga- 
 ther the substance of his arguments from what him- 
 self wrote on some of these heads afterwards : for 
 nothing remains of what passed there, but what is 
 conveyed to us in the Journal, which is short and 
 defective. 
 
 On the 24th of May the parliament was prorogued 
 to the 30th ; upon what reason it does not appear. 
 It was not to set any of the bills backward ; for it was 
 agreed, that the bills should continue in the state in 
 which they were then, till their next meeting. When 
 they met again, on the 30th of May, being Friday, 
 the Lord Chancellor intimated to them, that not only 
 the spiritual lords, but the King himself, had taken 
 much pains to bring things to an agreement, which 
 was eifected. Therefore he moved, in the King's name, 
 that a bill might be brought in for punishing such as 
 offended against these articles. So the Lords ap- 
 pointed the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Bishops 
 of Ely and St. David's, and Dr. Petre, a master of 
 Chancery (afterwards secretary of state), to draw one 
 bill ; and the Archbishop of York, the Bishops of 
 Duresme and Winchester, and Dr. Tregonnel, an- 
 other master of Chancery, to draw another bill about 
 it ; and to have them both ready, and to offer them to 
 the King by Sunday next. But the bill that was 
 drawn by the Archbishop of York, and those with him, 
 was best liked : yet it seems the matter was long 
 contested, for it was not brought to the House before 
 the 7th of June ; and then the Lord Chancellor of- 
 fered it, and it was read the first time. On the 9th 
 of June it had the second reading, and on the 10th it 
 was engrossed, and read the third time. But when 
 it passed, the King desired the Archbishop of Can- 
 terbury to go out of the House, since he could not 
 give his consent to it ; but he humbly excused him- 
 self, for he thought he was bound in conscience to 
 stay and vote against it. It was sent down to the 
 House of Commons, where it met with no great op- 
 position ; for on the 14th it was agreed to, and sent
 
 416 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 up again : and on the 28th it had the force of a law 
 by the royal assent. 
 AD act The title of it was, " An act for abolishing diversity 
 
 passed for ,, . . . . . -, . / ~, 1 . . J 
 
 them. ot opinions m certain articles concerning Christian 
 religion." It is said in the preamble, "That the 
 King, considering the blessed effects of union, and 
 the mischiefs of discord, since there were many dif 
 ferent opinions, both among the clergy and laity, 
 about some points of religion, had called this parlia- 
 ment, and a synod at the same time, for removing 
 these differences, where six articles were proposed, 
 and long debated by the clergy : and the King him- 
 self had come in person to the parliament and coun- 
 cil, and opened many things of high learning and 
 great knowledge about them : and that he, with the 
 assent of both houses of parliament, had agreed on 
 the following articles : First, That in the sacrament 
 of the altar, after the consecration, there remained no 
 substance of bread and wine, but under these forms 
 the natural body and blood of Christ were present. 
 Secondly, That communion in both kinds was not 
 necessary to salvation to all persons by the law of 
 God ; but that both the flesh and blood of Christ 
 were together in each of the kinds. Thirdly, That 
 priests, after the order of priesthood, might not marry 
 by the law of God. Fourthly, That vows of chastity 
 ought to be observed by the law of God. Fifthly, 
 That the use of private masses ought to be continued ; 
 which, as it was agreeable to God's law, so men re- 
 ceived great benefit by them. Sixthly, That auricular 
 confession was expedient and necessary, and ought 
 to be retained in the church. The parliament thanked 
 the King for the pains he had taken in these articles : 
 and enacted, That if any, after the 12th of July, did 
 speak, preach, or write against the first article, they 
 were to be judged heretics, and to be burnt without 
 any abjuration, and to forfeit their real and personal 
 estates to the King. And those who preached, or 
 obstinately disputed against, the other articles, were 
 to be judged felons ; and to suffer death as felons, 
 without benefit of clergy. And those who, either in
 
 PART vl. BOOK III. 417 
 
 word or writing, spake against them, were to be pri- 
 soners during the King's pleasure, and forfeit their 
 goods and chattels to the King, for the first time : 
 and if they offended so the second time, they were to 
 suffer as felons. All the marriages of priests are de- 
 clared void ; and if any priest did still keep any such 
 woman, whom he had so married, and lived familiarly 
 with her, as with his wife, he was to be judged a 
 felon : and if a priest lived carnally with any other 
 woman, he was, upon the first conviction, to forfeit his 
 benefices, goods, and chattels, and to be imprisoned 
 during the King's pleasure ; and upon the second 
 conviction was to suffer as a felon. The women so 
 offending, were also to be punished in the same man- 
 ner as the priests ; and those who contemned, or ab- 
 stained from confession, or the sacrament, at the 
 accustomed times, for the first offence were to forfeit 
 their goods and chattels, and be imprisoned ; and for 
 the second, were to be adjudged of felony. And for 
 the execution of this act, commissions were to be 
 issued out to all archbishops and bishops, and their 
 chancellors and commissaries, and such others in the 
 several shires, as the King should name, to hold their 
 sessions quarterly, or oftener ; and they were to pro- 
 ceed upon presentments, and by a jury. Those com- 
 missioners were to swear, that they should execute 
 their commission indifferently, without favour, affec- 
 tion, corruption, or malice. All ecclesiastical incum- 
 bents were to read this act in their churches once a 
 quarter. And in the end, a proviso was added, con- 
 cerning vows of chastity : that they should not oblige 
 any, except such as had taken them at or above the 
 age of twenty-one years ; or had not been compelled 
 to take them." 
 
 This act was received, by all that secretly favoured which 
 popery, with great joy ; for now they hoped to be 1*^ 
 revenged on all those who had hitherto set forward a 
 reformation. It very much quieted the bigots ; who 
 were now persuaded that the King would not set up 
 heresy, since he passed so severe an act against it ; 
 and it made the total suppression of monasteries go the 
 
 VOL. 1. 2 E
 
 418 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 more easily through. The popish clergy liked all the 
 act very well, except that severe branch of it against 
 their unchaste practices. This was put in by Crom- 
 well to make it cut with both edges. (Some of our 
 inconsiderate writers, who never perused the statutes, 
 tell us that it was done by a different act of parlia- 
 ment ; but greater faults must be forgiven them who 
 write upon hearsay.) There was but one comfort that 
 the poor reformers could pick out of the whole act 
 that they were not left to the mercy of the clergy, 
 and their ecclesiastical courts, but were to be tried by 
 a jury; where they might expect more candid and 
 gentle dealing. Yet the denying them the benefit of 
 abjuration, was a severity beyond what had ever been 
 put in practice before : so now they began to prepare 
 for new storms and a heavy persecution. 
 An act The other chief business of this parliament was the 
 
 about . ., . T i i 
 
 the sup. suppression ot monasteries. It is said in the preamble 
 of e the n of that act, " That divers abbots, priors, and other 
 greater: heads of religious houses, had, since the 4th of Fe- 
 
 IQODtlStC" " 
 
 ne. bruary, in the twenty-seventh year of the King's reign, 
 without constraint, of their own accord, and accord- 
 ing to the due course of the common law, by sufficient 
 writings of record, under their covent-seals, given up 
 their houses, and all that belonged to them, to the 
 King. Therefore, all houses that were, since that 
 time, suppressed, dissolved, relinquished, forfeited, or 
 given up, are confirmed to the King and his succes- 
 sors for ever : and all monasteries that should there- 
 after be suppressed, forfeited, or given up, are also 
 confirmed to the King and his successors. And all 
 these houses, with the rents belonging to them, were 
 to be disposed of by the court of Augmentations, for 
 the King's profit ; excepting only such as were come 
 into the King's hands by attainders of treason, which 
 belonged to the Exchequer : reserving to all persons, 
 except the patrons, founders, and donors of such 
 houses, the same right to any parts of them, or juris- 
 diction in them, which they could have claimed if 
 that act had never been made. Then followed many 
 clauses for annulling all deeds and leases, made
 
 PART I. BOOK III. 419 
 
 within one year before the suppression of any reli- 
 gious house, to the prejudice of it, or different from 
 what had been granted formerly. And all churches or 
 chapels, which belonged to these monasteries, and 
 were formerly exempted from the visitation or juris- 
 diction of their ordinary, are declared to be within 
 the jurisdiction of the bishop of the diocess, or of any 
 other that should be appointed by the King." 
 
 This act passed in the House of Peers, without 
 any protestation made by any of the abbots, though 
 it appears by the Journal, that, at the first reading of 
 it, there were eighteen abbots present ; at the second 
 reading twenty, and seventeen at the third reading ; 
 and the Abbots of Glastenbury, Colchester, and Read- 
 ing, were among those who were present : so little 
 reason there is to think they were attainted for any 
 open withstanding of the King's proceedings, when 
 they did not protest against this act, which was so 
 plainly levelled at them. It was soon dispatched by 
 the Commons, and offered to the royal assent. By 
 it, no religious houses were suppressed, as is gene- 
 rally taken for granted ; but only the surrenders, that 
 either had been, or were to be, made were confirmed. 
 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 im- 
 propriated 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 these churches, which, not 
 falling within the bishop's jurisdiction, are thought 
 not liable to his censures ; so that the incumbents in 
 them, being under no restraints, have often been scan- 
 dalous to the church, and given occasion to those 
 who were disaffected to the hierarchy, to censure the 
 prelates for these offences, which they could not pu- 
 nish ; since the offenders were thus excepted out 
 of their jurisdiction. This abuse, which first sprang 
 2 E 2
 
 420 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 from the ancient exemptions that were confirmed or 
 granted by the see of Rome, has not yet met with an 
 effectual remedy. 
 
 Upon the whole matter, this suppression of abbeys 
 was universally censured ; and, besides the common 
 exceptions which those that favoured the old super- 
 stition made, it was questioned, whether the lands 
 that formerly belonged to religious houses, ought to 
 have returned to the founders and donors, by way of 
 revertir, or to have fallen to the lords of whom the 
 lands were holden, by the way of escheat, or to have 
 come to the crown ? It is true, by the Roman law, 
 or at least by a judgment of the senate in Theodo- 
 sius's time, the endowments of the heathenish temples 
 were, upon a full debate, whether they should return 
 to the right heirs or be confiscated ? in the end ad- 
 judged to the fisc, or the Emperor's exchequer ; upon 
 this reason, that, by the will of the donors, they were 
 totally alienated from them and their heirs. But in 
 England it went otherwise. And when the order 
 of the knights templars was dissolved, it was then 
 judged in favour of the lord by escheat.* For, 
 though the founders and donors had totally alienated 
 these lands from themselves and their heirs, yet there 
 was no reason, from thence, to conclude any thing 
 that might wrong the superior lord of his right in the 
 case of an escheat. And this must have held good, 
 if those alienations and endowments had been abso- 
 lute without any condition. But the endowments 
 being generally rather of the nature of covenants and 
 contracts, and made in consideration of so many 
 masses to be said for their souls, then it was most 
 just, that, upon a non-performance of the condition, 
 and when that public error and cheat, which the 
 monks had put upon the world, was discovered, the 
 land should have returned to the founders and pa- 
 trons, and their heirs and successors. Nor was there 
 any grounds for the lords to pretend to them by es- 
 
 By the statute de Terris Templariorum, neither the king nor the lords were 
 to have by escheat the lands that were the templars' ; but those lands were 
 to remain to the prior and brethren of the order of the hospital of St. John of 
 Jerusalem.
 
 PART I. BOOK III. 421 
 
 cheat, especially where their ancestors had consented 
 to, and confirmed those endowments. Therefore, 
 there was no need of excluding them by any special 
 proviso. But, for the founders and donors, certainly, 
 if there had not been a particular proviso made against 
 them, they might have recovered the lands which 
 their ancestors had superstitiously given away ; and 
 the surrenders which religious persons made to the 
 crown, could not have cut off that title. But this act 
 did that effectually. It is true, many of the greatest 
 of them were of royal foundation, and these would 
 have returned to the crown without dispute. 
 
 On the 23d of May, in this session of parliament, Another 
 a bill was brought in by Cromwell, for giving the "rating 6 
 King power to erect new bishopricks, by his letters- 
 patents. It was read that day for the first, second, 
 and third time ; and sent down to the Commons. 
 The preamble of it was, " That it was known what 
 slothful and ungodly life had been led by those who 
 were called religious. But that these houses might 
 be converted to better uses ; that God's word might 
 be better set forth, children brought up in learning, 
 clerks nourished in the universities, and that old de- 
 cayed servants might have livings; poor people might 
 have alms-houses to maintain them ; readers of Greek, 
 Hebrew, and Latin, might have good stipends; daily 
 alms might be ministered, and allowance might be 
 made for mending of the highways, and exhibitions 
 for ministers of the church ; for these ends, if the 
 King thought fit to have more bishopricks or cathe- 
 dral churches erected out of the rents of these houses, 
 full power was given to him to erect, and found 
 them ;* and to make rules and statutes for them, and 
 such translations of sees, or divisions of them, as he 
 thought fit." But on this act I must add a singular 
 remark. The preamble and material parts of it, were 
 drawn by the King himself, and the first draught of 
 it, under his hand, is yet extant; which shews his 
 extraordinary application and understanding of busi- 
 ness. But in the same paper there is a list of the 
 
 * See Addenda at the end of the volume.
 
 422 
 
 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 The King's 
 design 
 about 
 these. 
 
 sees which he intended to found ; of which, what 
 was done afterwards came so far short, that I know 
 nothing to which it can be so reasonably imputed, as 
 the declining of Cranmer's interest at court ; who 
 had proposed the erecting of new cathedrals and sees, 
 with other things mentioned in the preamble of the 
 statute, as a great mean for reforming the church. 
 The sees which the King .then designed, with the 
 abbeys out of which they were to be erected, follow, 
 as it is in the paper under the King's own hand : 
 
 Essex, 
 
 Hartford, 
 
 Bedfordshire and 
 Buckinghamshire, 
 
 Oxford and Berk- 
 shire, 
 
 Northampton and 
 Huntington, 
 
 Middlesex, 
 
 Leicester and Rut- 
 land, 
 
 Gloucestershire, 
 
 Lancashire, 
 
 Suffolk, 
 
 Stafford and Salop, 
 Nottingham and 
 Derby, 
 
 Cornwall, 
 
 Waltham. 
 St. Alban's. 
 
 Dunstable, Newenham, 
 Clowston. 
 
 > Osnay and Tame. 
 
 > Peterborough. 
 Westminster. 
 
 > Leicester. 
 
 St. Peter's. 
 
 7 Fountains and the arch- 
 3 deaconry of Richmond. 
 
 Edmundsbury. 
 
 Shrewsbury. 
 7 Welbeck, Werksop, 
 3 Thurgarton. 
 } Lanceston, Bedmynne, 
 \ Wardreth. 
 
 Over these is written, " The bishopricks to be 
 made." In another corner of the page he writes as 
 follows : 
 
 " Places to be altered according to our device, 
 which have sees in them. Christ's Church in Can- 
 terbury, St. Swithin's, Ely, Duresme, Rochester, with 
 a part of Leeds, Worcester, and all others having 
 the same." Then a little below : " Places to be al- 
 tered into colleges and schools : Burton super Trent." 
 More is not written in that paper. But I wonder
 
 PART I. BOOK III. 423 
 
 much, that in this list Chester was forgotten. Yet 
 it was erected before any of them. For I have seen 
 a commission under the privy-seal, to the Bishop of 
 Chester, to take the surrender of the monastery of 
 Hammond in Shropshire, bearing date the 24th of 
 August, this year. So it seems, the see of Chester 
 was erected and endowed before the act passed, 
 though there is among the rolls a charter for endow- 
 ing and founding of it afterwards. Bristol is not 
 mentioned in this paper, though a see was afterwards 
 erected there. It was not before the end of the next 
 year that these sees were founded ; and there was in 
 that interval so great a change made, both of the 
 counsels and ministers, that no wonder the things 
 now designed were never accomplished. 
 
 Another act passed in this parliament, concerning An * 
 the obedience due to the King's proclamations. There ^K i 
 had been great exceptions made to the legality of the P l 
 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. 
 Upon which an act passed, which sets forth in the 
 preamble, " the contempt and disobedience of the 
 King's proclamations, by some who did not consider 
 what a king by his royal power might do ; which, if 
 it continued, would tend to the disobedience of the 
 laws of God, and the dishonour of the King's Majesty, 
 (who may full ill bear it.) Considering also, that many 
 occasions might require speedy remedies, and that 
 delaying these till a parliament met might occasion 
 great prejudices to the realm ; and that the King, by 
 his royal power given of God, might do many things 
 in such cases ; therefore it is enacted, that the King for 
 the time being, with advice of his council, might set 
 forth proclamations with pains and penalties in them, 
 which were to be obeyed as if they were made by an 
 act of parliament. But this was not to be so extended, 
 that any of the King's subjects should suffer in their 
 estates, liberties, or persons by virtue of it : nor that,
 
 424 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 by any of the King's proclamations, laws or customs 
 were to be broken and subverted." Then follow some 
 clauses about the publishing of proclamations, and the 
 way of prosecuting those who contemned and dis- 
 obeyed them. It is also added, " that if any offended 
 against them, and in further contempt went out of the 
 realm, he was to be adjudged a traitor. This also gave 
 power to the counsellors of the King's successor, if 
 he were under age, to set forth proclamations in his 
 name, which were to be obeyed in the same manner 
 with those set forth by the King himself." This act 
 gave great power to the judges, since there were such 
 restrictions in some branches of it, which seemed to 
 lessen the great extent of the other parts of it ; so that 
 the expositors of the law had much referred to them. 
 Upon this act were the great changes of religion in the 
 nonage of Edward the Sixth grounded. 
 
 There is another act, which but collaterally belongs 
 to ecclesiastical affairs, and therefore shall be but 
 slightly touched. It is the act of the precedency of 
 the officers of state, by which the Lord Vicegerent has 
 the precedence of all persons in the kingdom next the 
 royal family ; and on this I must make one remark, 
 which may seem very improper for one of my profes- 
 sion, especially when it is an animadversion on one of 
 the greatest men that any age had produced the most 
 learned Mr. Selden. He, in his Titles of Honour, 
 says, " That this statute was never printed in the 
 Statute-Book, and but incorrectly by another ; and, 
 that therefore he inserts it literally, as it is in the 
 Record." In which there are two mistakes. For it is 
 printed in the Statute-Book, that was set out in that 
 King's reign, though left out in some later Statute- 
 Books ; and that which he prints, is not exactly accord- 
 ing to the Record. For, as he prints it, the Bishop of 
 London is not named in the precedency; which is not 
 according to the Parliament-Roll, in which the Bishop 
 of London has the precedence next the Archbishop of 
 York ; and though this is corrected in a posthumous 
 edition, yet in that set out by himself, it is wanting : 
 nor is that omission among the errors of the press, for
 
 PART I. BOOK III. 425 
 
 though there are many of these gathered to be amend- 
 ed, this is none of them. This I do not take notice of * 
 out of any vanity, or humour of censu ring a man so great 
 in all sorts of learning ; but my design is only to let in- 
 genuous persons see, that they ought not to take things 
 on trust easily, no, not from their greatest authors. 
 
 These are all the public acts that relate to religion, som. 
 which were passed in this parliament. With these there der 
 passed an act of attainder of the Marquis of Exeter, 
 and the Lord Montacute, with many others, that were 
 either found to have had a great hand in the late rebel- 
 lion, or were discovered to hold correspondence with 
 Cardinal Pole, who was then trafficking with foreign 
 princes, and projecting a league among them against 
 the King. But of this I shall give a more full account 
 at the end of this book ; being there to open the 
 grounds of all the attainders that were passed in these 
 last years of the King's reign. There is one remark- 
 able thing that belongs to this act. 
 
 Some were to be attainted in absence; others they 
 had no mind to bring to make their answer, but yet 
 designed to attaint them. Such were the Marchioness 
 of Exeter, and the Countess of Sarum, mother to 
 Cardinal Pole, whom, by a gross mistake, Speed fan- 
 cies to have been condemned without arraignment or 
 trial, as Cromwell had been by parliament : for she 
 was now condemned a year before him. About the 
 justice of doing this, there was some debate ; and to 
 clear it, Cromwell sent for the judges, and asked their 
 opinions, whether a man might be attainted in par- 
 liament without being brought to make his answer? 
 They said, it was a dangerous question. That the par- 
 liament ought to be an example to all inferior courts; 
 and that when any person was charged with a crime, 
 he, by the common rule of justice and equity, should 
 be heard to plead for himself. But the parliament 
 being the supreme court of the nation, what way 
 soever they proceeded, it must be good in law ; arid 
 it could never be questioned, whether the party was 
 brought to answer or not. And thus a very ill precedent 
 was made, by which the most innocent person in the
 
 426 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 world might be ruined. And this, as has often been 
 observed in the like cases, fell very soon heavily on 
 the author of the counsel ; as shall appear. 
 The King's When the parliament was prorogued on the 28th of 
 c^mer. June, the King apprehending that the Archbishop of 
 Antiq.Bnt. Canterbury might be much cast down with the act for 
 cran. the six Articles, sent for him and told him, that he had 
 heard how much, and with what learning he had 
 argued against it, and therefore he desired he would 
 put all his arguments in writing, and bring them to 
 him. Next day he sent the Dukes of Norfolk and 
 Suffolk, and the Lord Cromwell, to dine with him : 
 ordering them to assure him of the King's constant 
 and unshaken kindness to him, and to encourage him 
 all they could. When they were at table with him at 
 Lambeth, they ran out much on his commendation, and 
 acknowledged he had opposed the act with so much 
 learning, gravity, and eloquence, that even those that dif- 
 fered from him were much taken with what he said; and 
 that he needed fear nothing from the King. Cromwell 
 saying, that this difference the King put between him 
 and all his other counsellors; that when complaints 
 were brought of others, the King received them, and 
 tried the truth of them ; but he would not so much as 
 hearken to any complaint of the Archbishop. From 
 that he went on to make a parallel between him and 
 Cardinal Wolsey : that the one lost his friends by 
 his haughtiness and pride, but the other gained on 
 his enemies by his gentleness and mildness. Upon 
 which the Duke of Norfolk said, he might best speak 
 of the Cardinal, for he knew him well, having been his 
 man. This nettled Cromwell, who answered, that 
 though he had served him, yet he never liked his man- 
 ners : and that, though the Cardinal had designed, 
 (if his attempt for the popedom had been successful,) 
 to have made him his admiral ; yet he had resolved 
 not to accept of it, nor to leave his country. To 
 which the Duke of Norfolk replied, with a deep oath, 
 " that he lied ;" with other reproachful language. 
 This troubled Cranmer extremely, who did all he could 
 to quiet and reconcile them. But now the enmity
 
 PART I. BOOK III. 427 
 
 between those two great ministers broke out to that 
 height, that they were never afterwards hearty friends. 
 
 But Cranmer went about that which the King had cnwme 
 commanded : and made a book of the reasons that led J^, 
 him to oppose the six Articles: in which the places a k gam5 ' 
 
 i o i P 1 the six 
 
 out ot the bcnptures, the authorities ot the ancient <=!< 
 doctors, with the arguments drawn from these, were 
 all digested in a good method. This he commanded 
 his Secretary to write out in a fair hand, that it might 
 be given the King. The Secretary, returning with it 
 from Croydon, where the Archbishop was then, to 
 Lambeth, found the key of his chamber was carried 
 away by the Archbishop's Almoner : so that he, being 
 obliged to go over to London, and not daring to trust 
 the book to any other's keeping, carried it with himself; 
 where both he and the book met with an unlooked-for 
 encounter. Some others, that were with him in the 
 wherry, would needs go to the Southwark side, to 
 look on a bear-baiting that was near the river, where 
 the King was in person. The bear broke loose into 
 the river, and the dogs after her. They that were in 
 the boat leaped out, and left the poor Secretary alone 
 there. But the bear got into the boat, with the dogs 
 about her, and sunk it. The Secretary, apprehending 
 his life was in danger, did not mind his book, which 
 he lost in the water : but being quickly rescued and 
 brought to land, he began to look for his book, and 
 saw it floating in the river. So he desired the bear- 
 ward to bring it to him ; who took it up : but, before 
 he would restore it, put it into the hands of a priest 
 that stood there, to see what it might contain. The 
 priest, reading a little in it, found it a confutation of 
 the six Articles ; and told the bearward, that whoso- 
 ever claimed it, would be hanged for his pains. But 
 the Archbishop's Secretary, thinking to mend the 
 matter, said it was his Lord's book. This made the 
 bearward more intractable, for he was a spiteful papist, 
 and hated the Archbishop : so that no offers nor en- 
 treaties could prevail with him to give it back. Where- 
 upon Morice (that was the Secretary's name) went and 
 opened the matter to Cromwell the next day: Crom-
 
 428 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 well was then going to court, and he expected to find 
 the bearward there, looking to deliver the book to some 
 of Cranmer's enemies ; he therefore ordered Morice to 
 go along with him. Where as they had expected, they 
 found the fellow with the book about him; upon whom 
 Cromwell called, and took the book out of his hands, 
 threatening him severely for his presumption in med- 
 dling with a privy-counsellor's book. 
 
 Proceed- g u t though Cranmer escaped this hazard, yet in 
 urn a. Q London the storm of the late act was falling heavily 
 on them that were obnoxious. Shaxton and Latimer, 
 the bishops of Salisbury and Worcester, within a week 
 after the session of parliament, as it appears, resigned 
 their bishopricks. For on the 7th of July, the chap- 
 ters of these churches petitioned the King for his 
 leave to fill those sees, they being then vacant by the 
 free resignation of the former bishops. Upon which, 
 the conge cTelire for both was granted. Nor was this 
 all: but they, being presented as having spoken 
 against the six Articles, were put in prison, where the 
 one lay till the King died, and the other till a little 
 before his death, as shall be shewn in its proper place. 
 There were also commissions issued out for proceed- 
 ing upon that statute : and those who were commis- 
 sioned for London, were all secret favourers of po- 
 pery ; so they proceeded more severely, and examined 
 many witnesses against all who were presented : whom 
 they interrogated not only upon the express words of 
 the statute, but upon all such collateral or presump- 
 tive circumstances as might entangle them, or con- 
 clude them guilty. So that in a very little while, five 
 hundred persons were put in prison, and involved in 
 the breach of the statute. Upon this, not only Cran- 
 mer and Cromwell, but the Duke of Suffolk, and 
 Audley, the chancellor, represented to the King how 
 hard it would be, and of what ill consequence to exe- 
 cute the law upon so many persons. So the King 
 was prevailed with to pardon them all ; and I find no 
 further proceeding upon this statute till Cromwell fell. 
 But the opposite party used all the arts possible to 
 insinuate themselves into the King. And therefore,
 
 PART I. BOOK III. 429 
 
 to shew how far their compliance would go, Bonner 
 took a strange commission from the King, on the 
 1 2th of November this year. It has been certainly 
 enrolled ; but it is not there now : so that I judge it 
 was razed in that suppression of records, which was 
 in Queen Mary's time. But, as men are commonly 
 more careless at home, Bonner has left it on record in 
 his own Register. Whether the other bishops took 
 such commissions from this King, I know not: but I 
 am certain there is none such in Cranmer's Register: 
 and it is not likely, if any such had been taken out by 
 him, that ever it would have been razed. The com- 
 mission itself will be found in the Collection of Papers coii*. 
 at the end. The substance of it is, " That since all Numb - 14 - 
 jurisdictions, both ecclesiastical and civil, flowed from 
 the King as 'Sgpreme head, and he was the foundation 
 of all power; if became those who exercised it only 
 (pr&cario) at the King's courtesy, gratefully to ac- 
 knowledge, that they had it only of his bounty ; and 
 to declare that they would deliver it up again, when 
 it should please him to call for it. And since the 
 King had constituted the Lord Cromwell his vicege- 
 rent in ecclesiastical affairs ; yet, because he could not 
 look into all those matters, therefore the King, upon 
 Bonner 's petition, did empower him, in his own stead, 
 to ordain such as he found worthy, to present and give 
 institution, with all the other parts of episcopal au- 
 thority, for which he is duly commissionated ; and this 
 to last during the King's pleasure only. And all the 
 parts of the episcopal function being reckoned up, it 
 concluded with a strict charge to the Bishop, to or- 
 dain none but such of whose integrity, good life, and 
 learning he had very good assurance. For as the cor- 
 ruptions of the Christian doctrine, and of men's man- 
 ners, had chiefly proceeded from ill pastors ; so it was 
 not to be doubted, but good pastors well chosen would 
 again reform the Christian doctrine, and the lives of 
 Christians." After he had taken this commission, 
 Bonner might have been well called one of the King's 
 bishops. The true reason of this profound compli- 
 ance was, that the popish party apprehended that
 
 430 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 Cranmer's great interest with the King was chiefly 
 grounded on some opinions he had, of the ecclesias- 
 tical officers being as much subject to the King's 
 power as- all other civil officers were. And this having 
 endeared him so much to the King, therefore they 
 resolved to outdo him in that point. But there was 
 this difference that Cranmer was once of that opi- 
 nion, and, if he followed it at all, it was out of con- 
 science : but Bonner, against his conscience (if he 
 had any) complied with it. 
 
 rwssoiu- Now followed the final dissolution of the abbeys ; 
 
 the g reat there are fifty-seven surrenders upon record this year. 
 
 abbeys. The originals of about thirty of these are yet to be 
 seen. Thirty-seven of them were abbeys, or priories, 
 and twenty nunneries. The good house of Godstow 
 now fell with the rest, though among the last of them. 
 Now the great parliament abbots surrendered apace; 
 as those of Westminster, St. Albans, St. Edmunds - 
 bury, Canterbury, St. Mary in York, Selby, St. Pe- 
 ter's in Gloucester, Cirencester, Waltham, Winch- 
 combe, Malmesbury, and Battel. Three others were 
 attainted; Glastenbury, Reading, and Colchester. 
 The deeds of the rest are lost. Here it will not be 
 unacceptable to the reader, to know who were the 
 parliamentary abbots. There were in all twenty-eight, 
 as they were commonly given: Fuller has given a 
 catalogue of them in "three places of his History of 
 Abbeys; but as every one of these differs from the 
 others, so none of them are according to the Journals 
 of parliament : the Lord Herbert is also mistaken in 
 his account. I shall not rise higher in my inquiry 
 than this reign, for anciently many more abbots and 
 priors sat in parliament, beside other clergy, that had 
 likewise their writs ; and of whose right to sit in the 
 House of Commons there was a question moved in 
 Edward the Sixth's reign, as shall be opened in its 
 proper place. Much less will I presume to determine 
 so great a point in law, Whether they sat in the 
 House of Lords, as being a part of the ecclesiastical 
 state, or as holding their lands of the King by ba- 
 ronage? I am only to observe the matter of fact, which
 
 PART I. BOOK III. 431 
 
 is, that, in the Journals of parliament in this reign, 
 these twenty-eight abbots had their writs ; Abington, 
 St. Alban's, St. Austin's Canterbury, Battel, St. Ben- 
 net's in the Holm, Berdeney, Cirencester, Colchester, 
 Coventry, Croyland, St. Edmundsbury, Evesham, 
 Glastenbury, Gloucester, Hide, Malmesbury, St. 
 Mary's in York, Peterborough, Ramsey, Reading, 
 Selby, Shrewsbury, Tavenstock,Tewksbury, Thonuy, 
 Waltham, Westminster, and Winchelcombe; to whom 
 also the Prior of St. John's may be added. But be- 
 sides all these, I find that in the twenty-eighth year 
 of this King, the Abbot of Burton upon Trent sat in 
 parliament. Generally Coventry and Burton were 
 held by the same man, as one bishop held both Co- 
 ventry and Litchfield ; but in that year they were held 
 by two different persons, and both had their writs to 
 that parliament. The method used in the suppression 
 of these houses will appear by one complete report 
 made of the suppression of the abbey of Tewksbury, 
 which, out of many I copied, is in the Collection, collect. 
 From it the reader will see, what provision was made s^^.*" 
 for the abbot, the prior, the other officers, and the 
 monks, and other servants of the house; and what 
 buildings they ordered to be defaced and what to re- 
 main; and how they did estimate the jewels, plate, 
 and other ornaments. But monasteries were not 
 sufficient to stop the appetite of some that were 
 about the King: for hospitals were next looked after, some bos 
 One of these was this year surrendered by Thomas nadlnt. 
 Thirleby, with two other priests ; he was master of St. 
 Thomas's Hospital in Southwark, and was designed 
 bishop of Westminster, to which he made his way by 
 that resignation. He was a learned and modest man ; 
 but of so fickle or cowardly a temper, that he turned 
 always with the stream in every change that was made, 
 till Queen Elizabeth came to the crown: but then, 
 being ashamed of so many turns, he resolved to shew 
 he could once be firm to somewhat. 
 
 Now were all the monasteries of England sup- Theabt 
 pressed, and the King had then in his hand the ^ Ten " r 
 greatest opportunity of making royal and noble foun- awv>
 
 432 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 dations that ever king of England had. But, whe- 
 ther out of policy, to give a general content to the 
 gentry by selling to them at low rates, or out of easi- 
 ness to his courtiers, or out of an unmeasured lavish- 
 ness in his expense, it came far short of what he had 
 given out he would do, and what himself seemed once 
 to have designed. The clear yearly value of all the 
 suppressed houses is cast up, in an account then 
 stated to be, viz. 131,607/. 6*. 4</. as the rents were 
 then rated ; but was at least ten times so much in 
 true value.* Of which he designed to convert 
 18,000/. into a revenue for eighteen bishopricks and 
 cathedrals. But of these he only erected six, as 
 shall be afterwards shewn. Great sums were in- 
 deed laid out on building and fortifying many ports 
 in the Channel, and other parts of England, which 
 were raised by the sale of abbey lands. 
 A project At this time many were offering projects for noble 
 nlryToT foundations, on which the King seemed very earnest : 
 ministers j^t ft j s ver y likely, that before he was aware of it, 
 
 of state. . , / IP i i i 
 
 he had so outrun himselt in his bounty, that it was 
 not possible for him to bring these to any effect. 
 Yet I shall set down one of the projects, which shews 
 the greatness of his mind that designed it ; that is, 
 of Sir Nicholas Bacon, who was afterwards one of 
 the wisest ministers that ever this nation bred. The 
 King designed to found a house for the study of the 
 civil law, and the purity of the Latin and French 
 tongues ; so he ordered Sir Nicholas Bacon, and two 
 others, Thomas Denton, and Robert Gary, to make 
 a full project of the nature and orders of such a house; 
 who brought it to him in writing : the original 
 in Bibu- whereof is yet extant. The design of it was, that 
 D.D.ofl. there should be frequent pleadings, and other exer- 
 pierpoint. c \ ses [ n fa e Latin and French tongues : and when 
 the King's students were brought to some ripeness, 
 
 In Nasmith's edition of Tanner's Notitia Monastica, the annual revenue of 
 all the monastic houses is computed to be 142, 914/. Burnet's supposition, 
 that they exceeded the computed estimate, to the amount of ten times its 
 value, is judged to have been very erroneous at all events the gain to the 
 Crown by their suppression, was very large ; St. Peter's, Westminster, which 
 was accounted the richest, had a revenue of 397 71. per annum, a large sun? 
 for those times. N.
 
 PART I. BOOK III. 433 
 
 they should be sent with his ambassadors to foreign 
 parts, and trained up in the knowledge of foreign 
 affairs; and so the house should be the nursery for 
 ambassadors. Some were also to be appointed to 
 write the history of all embassies, treaties, and other 
 foreign transactions ; as also of all arraignments, and 
 public trials at home. But, before any of them might 
 write on these subjects, the Lord Chancellor was to 
 give them an oath, that they should do it truly, with- 
 out respect of persons, or any other corrupt affection. 
 This noble design miscarried. But, if it had been 
 well laid and regulated, it is easy to gather what 
 great and public advantages might have flowed from 
 it. Among which, it is not inconsiderable, that we 
 should have been delivered from a rabble of ill writers 
 of history, who have, without due care or inquiry, de- 
 livered to us the transactions of that time so imper- 
 fectly, that there is still need of inquiring into regis- 
 ters and papers for these matters : which, in such a 
 house, had been more certainly and clearly conveyed 
 to posterity than can be now expected, at such a dis- 
 tance of time, and after such a razure of records, and 
 other confusions, in which many of these papers 
 have been lost. And this help was the more neces- 
 sary, after the suppression of religious houses : in 
 most of which a chronicle of the times was kept, and 
 still filled up as new transactions came to their know- 
 ledge. It is true, most of these were written by men 
 of weak judgments, who were more punctual in de- 
 livering fables and trifles than in opening observable 
 transactions. Yet some of them were men of better 
 understandings ; and it is like were directed by their 
 abbots, who, being lords of parliament, understood 
 affairs well : only an invincible humour of lying, 
 when it might raise the credit of their religion, or 
 order, or house, runs through all their manuscripts. 
 
 One thing was very remarkable, which was this A pro 
 year granted at Cranmer's intercession. There was "^ 
 nothing could so much recover reformation, that was { 
 declining so fast, as the free use of the Scriptures ; tares. 
 and though these had been set up in the churches a 
 
 VOL. i. 2 F
 
 434 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 year ago, yet he pressed, and now procured leave, for 
 private persons to buy Bibles, and keep them in their 
 nouses. So this was granted by letters-patents di- 
 rected to Cromwell, bearing date the J 3th of Novem- 
 
 Numb.i5. ber; the substance of which was, "That the King 
 was desirous to have his subjects attain the know- 
 ledge of God's word ; which could not be effected by 
 any means so well, as by granting them the free and 
 liberal use of the Bible in the English tongue ; which, 
 to avoid dissension, he intended should pass among 
 them only by one translation. Therefore Cromwell 
 was charged to take care, that for the space of five 
 years there should be no impression of the Bible, or 
 any part of it, but only by such as should be as- 
 signed by him." But Gardiner opposed this all he 
 could ; and one day, in a conference before the King, 
 he provoked Cranmer to shew any difference between 
 the authority of the Scriptures, and of the apostolical 
 canons, which he pretended were equal to the other 
 writings of the apostles. Upon which they disputed 
 for some time ; but the King perceived solid learning 
 tempered with great modesty in what Cranmer said ; 
 and nothing' but vanity and affectation in Gardiner's 
 reasonings. So he took him up sharply, and told 
 him, that Cranner was an old and experienced cap- 
 tain, and was not to be troubled by fresh men and 
 novices. 
 
 The King The great matter of the King's marriage came on 
 at this time. Many reports were brought the King of 
 the beauty of Anne of Cleves, so that he inclined to 
 ally himself with that family. Both the Emperor and 
 the King of France had courted him to matches 
 which they had projected. The Emperor proposed 
 the Duchess of Milan, his kinswoman, and daughter 
 to the King of Denmark. He was then designing to 
 break the league of Smalcald, and to make himself 
 master of Germany ; and therefore he took much 
 pains with the King, to divide him from the princes 
 there ; which was in great part effected by the statute 
 for the six Articles : upon which the ambassadors of 
 the princes had complained, and said, That whereas 
 
 Anne of 
 Cleves.
 
 PART I. BOOK III. 435 
 
 the King had been in so fair a way of union with 
 them, he had now broke it off, and made so severe 
 a law about communion in one kind, private masses, 
 and the celibate of the clergy, which differed so much 
 from their doctrine, that they could entertain no fur- 
 ther correspondence with him, if that law was not 
 mitigated. But Gardiner wrought much on the 
 King's vanity and passions ; and told him, that it 
 was below his dignity, and high learning, to have a 
 company of dull Germans and small princes dictate 
 to him in matters of religion. There was also ano- 
 ther thing which he oft made use of, (though it argues 
 somewhere a great ignorance of the constitution of the 
 empire,) that the King could not expect these princes 
 would ever be for his supremacy; since, if they ac- 
 knowledged that in him, they must likewise yield it 
 to the Emperor. This was a great mistake ; for as the 
 princes of Germany never acknowledged the Em- 
 peror to have a sovereignty in their dominions; so 
 they did acknowledge the diet, in which the sove- 
 reignty of the empire lies, to have a power of making 
 or changing what laws they pleased about religion. 
 And in things that were not determined by the diet, 
 every prince pretended to it as highly in his own do- 
 minions as the King could do in England. But, as 
 untrue as this allegation was, it served Gardiner's 
 turn : for the King was sufficiently irritated with it 
 against the princes ; so that there was now a great 
 coldness in their correspondence. Yet the project of 
 a match with the Duchess of Milan failing, and those 
 proposed by France not being acceptable, Cromwell 
 moved the King about an alliance with the Duke of 
 Cleves ; who, as he was the Emperor's neighbour in 
 Flanders, had- also a pretension to the duchy of 
 Gueldre, and his eldest daughter was married to the 
 Duke of Saxony. So that the King, having then some 
 apprehensions of a war with the Emperor, this seemed 
 a very proper alliance to give him a diversion. 
 
 There had been a treaty between her father and 
 the Duke of Lorrain, in order to a match between the 
 Duke of Lorrain's son and her : but they both being 
 
 2 F 2
 
 436 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 under age, it went no further than a contract between 
 their fathers. Hans Holbein, having taken her picture, 
 sent it over to the King. But in that he bestowed the 
 common compliment of his art somewhat too liberally 
 on a lady that was in a way to be Queen. The King 
 liked the picture better than the original, when he had 
 the occasion afterwards to compare them. The Duke 
 of Saxony, who was very zealous for the Augsburg 
 Confession, finding the King had declined so much 
 from it, dissuaded the match. But Cromwell set it 
 on mightily, expecting a great support from a Queen 
 of his own making, whose friends being all Lutherans, 
 it tended also to bring down the popish party at court, 
 and again to recover the ground they had now lost. 
 Those that had seen the lady did much commend her 
 beauty and person. But she could speak no language 
 but Dutch, to which the King was a stranger : nor 
 was she bred to music, with which the King was 
 much taken. So that, except her person had charmed 
 him, there was nothing left for her to gain upon him 
 by. After some months' treaty, one of the Counts 
 Palatine of the Rhine, with other ambassadors from 
 the Duke of Saxony, and her brother the Duke of 
 Cleves, (for her father was lately dead,) came over, 
 and concluded the match. 
 
 wh In the end of December she was brought over to 
 or to England : and the King, being impatient to see her, 
 England> went down incognito to Rochester. But when he had 
 a sight of her, finding none of those charms which he 
 was made believe were in her, he was so extremely 
 nt u surprised, that he not only did not like her, but took 
 an aversion to her, which he could never after over- 
 King. come. He swore they had brought over a Flanders 
 mare to him ; and was sorry he had gone so far, but 
 glad it had proceeded no further. And presently he 
 resolved, if it were possible, to break off the matter, 
 and never to yoke himself with her. But his affairs 
 were not then in such a condition, that he could safely 
 put that affront on the Dukes of Saxony and Cleves, 
 which the sending back of this lady would have done. 
 For the Germans, being of all nations most sensible
 
 PART I. BOOK III. 437 
 
 of every thing in which the honour of their family is 
 touched, he knew they would resent such an injury : 
 and it was not safe for him to adventure that at such 
 a time. For the Emperor was then in Paris, whither 
 he had grone to an interview with Francis : and his 
 
 O 
 
 reception was not only as magnificent as could be, but 
 there was all the evidence possible of hearty friend- 
 ship and kindness. The king also understood, that 
 between them there was somewhat projected against 
 himself. And now Francis, that had been as much 
 obliged by him as possibly one prince could be by 
 another, was not only forgetful of it, but intended to 
 take advantage from the distractions and discontents 
 of the English, to drive them out of France, if it were 
 possible. And it is not to be doubted, but the Emperor 
 would gladly have embroiled these two Kings, that he 
 might have a better opportunity both to make himself 
 master of Germany, and to force the King of England 
 into an alliance, by which the Lady Mary should be 
 legitimated, and the princes of Germany be left des- 
 titute of a support, which made them insolent and in- 
 tractable. The King apprehended the conjunction of 
 those two great Princes against himself, which was 
 much set forward by the Pope ; and that they would 
 set up the King of Scotland against him, who, with 
 that foreign assistance, and the discontents at home, 
 would have made war upon great advantages ; espe- 
 cially those in the north of England being ill affected 
 to him : and therefore he judged it necessary for his 
 affairs not to lose the princes of Germany. Only he 
 resolved, first, to try if any nullities or pre-contracts 
 could excuse him fairly at their hands. He returned 
 to Greenwich very melancholy. He much blamed 
 the Earl of Southampton, who, being sent over to re- 
 ceive her at Calais, had written a high commendation 
 of her beauty. But he excused himself, that he 
 thought the thing was so far gone, that it was decent 
 to write as he had done. The King lamented his 
 condition in that marriage ; and expressed great 
 trouble, both to the Lord Russel, Sir Anthony Brown, 
 Sir Anthony Denny, and others about him. The
 
 438 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 last of those told him, " This was one advantage that 
 mean persons had over princes : that great princes 
 must take such wives as are brought them, whereas 
 meaner persons go and choose wives for themselves. 1 ' 
 But when the King saw Cromwell, he gave his grief 
 a freer vent to him. He, finding the King so much 
 troubled, would have cast the chief blame on the Earl 
 of Southampton, for whom he had no great kindness : 
 and said, when he found her so far short of what 
 reports and pictures had made her, he should have 
 stayed her at Calais, till he had given the King notice 
 of it. But the Earl's commission being only to bring 
 her over, he said, it had been too great a presumption 
 in him to have interposed in such a manner. And 
 the King was convinced he was in the right. So now, 
 all they had to insist on was, the clearing of that con- 
 tract that had passed between her and the Marquis 
 of Lorrain : which the ambassadors, who had been 
 with the King, had undertaken should be fully done, 
 and brought over with her in due form of law. So, 
 after the lady was brought in great state to Green- 
 wich, the council met, and sent for the ambassadors 
 of the Duke of Cleves that conducted her over ; and 
 desired to see what they had brought for clearing the 
 breach of that contract with the Marquis of Lorrain. 
 But they had brought nothing, and made no account 
 of it ; saying, that the contract was in their minority, 
 when they could give no consent ; and that nothing- 
 had followed on it after they came to be of age. But 
 this did not satisfy the King's council, who said, these 
 were but their words, and they must see better proofs. 
 The King's marriage was annulled with Anne Boleyn 
 upon a pre-contract ; therefore he must not again run 
 the like hazard. So Olisleger and Hogesden, the 
 ambassadors from Cleves, did by a formal instrument, 
 protest before Cromwell, that in a peace made between 
 their late master, John, duke of Cleves, and Anthony, 
 duke of Lorrain, one of the conditions was, that this 
 lady, being then under age, should be given in mar- 
 riage to Francis, son to the Duke of Lorrain, who was 
 likewise under age ; which treaty they affirmed they
 
 PART I. BOOK III. 439 
 
 saw and read. But that afterwards Henry de Groffe, 
 ambassador of Charles, duke of Gueldres, upon whose 
 mediation that peace had been concluded, declared 
 in their hearing, that the espousals were annulled 
 and of no effect ; and that this was registered in the 
 chancery of Cleves, of which they promised to bring 
 an authentical extract, within three months, to Eng- 
 land. Some of the counsellors, who knew the King's 
 secret dislike of her person, would have insisted more 
 on this. But the Archbishop of Canterbury, and the 
 Bishop of Duresme, said, if there was no more than 
 that, it could be no just hinderance to the solemniza- 
 tion of the marriage. So the King, seeing there was no 1540. 
 remedy, and being much pressed both by the ministers 
 of Cleves, and by the Lord Cromwell, married her on But ye t 
 the 6th of January : but expressed so much aversion and '""" 
 dislike of her, that every body about him took notice 
 of it. Next day the Lord Cromwell asked him, how 
 he liked her then ? He told him, " He was not every 
 man ;" therefore he would be free with him : he liked 
 her worse than he did. He suspected she was no And could 
 maid ; and had such ill smells about her, that he 
 loathed her more than ever, and did not believe he 
 should ever consummate the marriage. This was sad 
 news to Cromwell, who knew well how delicate the 
 King was in these matters ; and that so great mis- 
 fortune must needs turn very heavy on him, that was 
 the chief promoter of it. He knew his enemies would 
 draw great advantages from this ; and understood the 
 King's temper too well, to think his greatness would 
 last long, if he could not induce the King to like the 
 Queen better. But that was not to be done ; for 
 though the King lived five months with her in that 
 state, and very oft lay in the bed with her, yet his 
 aversion rather increased than abated. She seemed 
 not much concerned at it^t and as their conversation 
 was not great, so she was of a heavy composition, and 
 was not much displeased to be delivered from a mar- 
 riage in which she had so little satisfaction. Yet one 
 thing shews that she wanted not capacity, for she 
 learned the English language very soon : and before 
 
 never love 
 her.
 
 440 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 her marriage was annulled, she spoke English freely ; 
 as appears by some of the depositions. 
 
 There was an instrument brought over from Cleves, 
 taken out of the chancery there, by which it appeared, 
 that Henry de Groffe, ambassador from the Duke of 
 Gueldres, had, on the 15th of February in the year 
 1535, declared the nullity of the former contract, in 
 express words, which are set down in High Dutch, 
 but thus put in Latin : Sponsalia ilia progressum 
 suum non habitura, (I \pll not answer for the Latin,) 
 ev quo dictus Dux Carolus admodum doleret, et propte- 
 rea qucedam fecisset, et amplius facturus esset : and 
 Pallandus, that was ambassador from the Duke of 
 Cleves in the Duke of Gueldres' court, wrote to his 
 master, Illustrissimum Ducem Gueldricc certo scire 
 prima ilia sponsalia inter Domicellam Annam fore 
 inania et progressum suum non habitura. When this 
 was shewed the King, his council found great excep- 
 tions to it, upon the ambiguity of the word sponsalia ; 
 it not being expressed, whether they were espousals 
 by the words of the present, or of the future tense ; 
 and intended to make use of that when there should 
 be a fit opportunity for it. 
 
 A pariia- On the 12th of April a session of parliament was 
 HHuri. held. The Journal shews that neither the Abbot of 
 Westminster, nor any other abbot, was present. After 
 the Lord Chancellor had opened the reasons for the 
 King's meeting them at that time, as they related to 
 the civil government, Cromwell as lord vicegerent 
 where spake next in the King's name ; and said, " There was 
 S^rL nothing which the King so much desired, as a firm 
 'erent' 06 un i on among all his subjects, in which he placed his 
 chief security. He knew there were many incendia- 
 ries, and much cockle grew up with the wheat. The 
 rashness and licentiousness of some, and the invete- 
 rate superstition and stiffness of others, in the ancient 
 corruptions, had raised great dissensions, to the sad 
 regret of all good Christians. Some were called pa- 
 pists, others heretics ; which bitterness of spirit seemed 
 the more strange since now the Holy Scriptures, by 
 the King's great care of his people, were in all their
 
 PART I. BOOK III. 441 
 
 hands, in a language which they understood. But 
 these were grossly perverted by both sides ; who stu- 
 died rather to justify their passions out of them, than 
 to direct their belief by them. The King leaned nei- 
 ther to the right nor to the left hand, neither to the one 
 nor the other party; but set the pure and sincere doc- 
 trine of the Christian faith only before his eyes : and 
 therefore was now resolved to have this set forth to 
 his subjects, without any corrupt mixtures; and to 
 have such decent ceremonies continued, and the true 
 use of them taught, by which all abuses might be cut 
 off, and disputes about the exposition of the Scrip- 
 tures cease, that so all his subjects might be well in- 
 structed in their faith, and directed in the reverent 
 worship of God ; and resolved to punish severely all 
 transgressors, of what sort or side soever they were. 
 The King was resolved, that Christ, that the gospel 
 of Christ, and the truth, should have the victory; and 
 tnerefore had appointed some bishops and divines to 
 draw up an exposition of those things that were ne- 
 cessary for the institution of a Christian man; who 
 were, the two Archbishops, the Bishops of London, 
 Duresme, Winchester, Rochester, Hereford, and St. 
 David's; and Doctors Thirleby, Robertson, Cox, Day, 
 Oglethorp, Redmayn, Edgeworth,Crayford, Symonds, 
 Robins, and Tresham. He had also appointed others, 
 to examine what ceremonies should be retained, and 
 what was the true use of them ; who were the Bishops 
 of Bath and Wells, Ely, Sarum, Chichester, Wor- 
 cester, and Landaff. The King had also commanded 
 the judges, and other justices of the peace, and per- 
 sons commissioned for the execution of the act for- 
 merly passed, to proceed against all transgressors, and 
 punish them according to law. And he concluded 
 with a high commendation of the King, whose due 
 praises, he said, a man of far greater eloquence than 
 himself was, could not fully set forth." The Lords 
 approved of this nomination, and ordered, that these 
 committees should sit constantly, on Mondays, Wed- 
 nesdays, and Fridays; and on other days they were 
 to sit in the afternoon. But their proceedings will
 
 442 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 require so full a relation, that I shall first open the 
 other affairs that passed in this session, and leave 
 these to the last. 
 
 He is made On the 14th of April the King created Cromwell 
 
 ^ x f Earl of Essex; the male line of the Bourchiers, that 
 
 had carried that title, being extinguished. This 
 
 shews that the true causes of Cromwell's fall must be 
 
 found in some other thing than his making up the 
 
 King's marriage ; who had never thus raised his title, 
 
 if he had intended so soon to pull him down. 
 
 The sup. On the 22d of April, a bill was brought in for sup- 
 
 fhTknTght pressing the knights of St. John of Jerusalem. Their 
 
 of st. John fi rs |; foundation was to be a guard to the pilgrims that 
 
 ofJerusa- ITTIT ITI i 
 
 iem. went to the Holy Land, r or some ages that was ex- 
 tolled as the highest expression of devotion and reve- 
 rence to our Saviour, to go and view the places of his 
 ,. abode; and chiefly the places where he was crucified, 
 buried, and ascended to heaven. Upon which, many 
 entered into a religious knighthood, who were to de- 
 fend the Holy Land, and conduct the pilgrims. Those 
 were of two sorts; the knights templars and hospi- 
 tallers. The former were the greater and richer, but 
 the other were also very considerable. The popes 
 and their clergy did every where animate all princes, 
 and great persons, to undertake expeditions into these 
 parts; which were very costly and dangerous, and 
 proved fatal to almost all the princes that made them. 
 Yet the belief of the pains of purgatory, from which 
 all were delivered by the Pope's power, who went on 
 this expedition, such as died in it being also reckoned 
 martyrs, wrought wonderfully on a blind and super- 
 stitious age. But such as could not go, were per- 
 suaded, that if on their death-beds they vowed to go 
 upon their recovery, and left some lands to maintain 
 a knight that should go thither and fight against the 
 infidels, it would do as well. Upon this, great and 
 vast endowments were made. But there were many 
 complaints made of the templars, for betraying and 
 robbing the pilgrims, and other horrid abuses, which 
 may reasonably be believed to have been true; though 
 other writers of that age lay the blame rather on the
 
 PART I. BOOK III. 443 
 
 covetousness of the King of France, and the Pope's 
 malice to them : yet, in a general council, the whole 
 order was condemned and suppressed, and such of 
 them as could be taken were cruelly put to death. 
 The order of the hospitallers stood, yet did not grow 
 much after that. They were beaten out of the Holy 
 Land by the sultans, and lately out 'of the Isle of 
 Rhodes, and were at this time in Malta. Their great 
 master depended on the Pope and the emperor: so it 
 was not thought fit to let a house that was subject to 
 a foreign power stand longer. And it seems they 
 would not willingly surrender up their house, as others 
 had done: therefore it was necessary to force them 
 out of it by an act of parliament, which on the 22d 
 of April was read the first time, and on the 26th the 
 second time, and on the 29th the third time, by which 
 both their house in England, and another they had in 
 Kilmainam in Ireland, were suppressed; great pen- 
 sions being reserved by the act to the priors, a 1000/. 
 to him of St. John's near London, and 500 marks to 
 the other, with very considerable allowances for the 
 knights, which in all amounted to near 3000/. yearly. 
 But on the 14th of May the parliament was pro- 
 rogued to the 25th, and a vote passed that their bills 
 should remain in the state they were in. 
 
 Upon their next meeting, as they were going on 
 in their business, a great, change of court broke out. fall 
 For, on the 13th of June, at the council table, the 
 Duke of Norfolk, in the King's name, challenged the 
 Lord Cromwell of high treason, and, arresting him, 
 sent him prisoner to the Tower. He had many ene- 
 mies among all sorts of persons. The nobility de- 
 spised him, and thought it lessened the greatness of 
 their titles, to see the son of a blacksmith raised so 
 many degrees above them. His aspiring to the order 
 of the garter was thought inexcusable vanity ; and 
 his having so many places heaped on him, as lord 
 privy-seal, lord chamberlain of England, and lord 
 vicegerent, with the mastership of the rolls, with 
 which he had but lately parted, drew much envy on 
 him. All the popish party hated him out of measure.
 
 4-14 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 The suppression of the abbeys was laid wholly at his 
 door: the attainders and all other severe proceedings 
 were imputed to his counsels. He was also thought 
 to be the person that had kept the King and the Em- 
 peror at such distance: and therefore the Duke of 
 Norfolk and Gardiner, beside private animosities, 
 hated him on that account. And they did not think 
 it impossible, if he were out of the way, to bring on 
 a treaty with the Emperor; which they hoped would 
 open the way for one with the Pope. But other more 
 secret reasons wrought his ruin with the King. The 
 fear he was in of a conjunction between the Emperor 
 and France did now abate ; for he understood that it 
 went no further than compliments : and though he 
 clearly discovered, having sent over the Duke of Nor- 
 folk to Francis, that he was not to depend much on 
 his friendship ; yet, at the same time, he knew that the 
 Emperor would not yield up the duchy of Milan to 
 him, upon which his heart was much set. So he saw 
 they could come to no agreement; therefore he made 
 no great account of the loss of France, since he knew 
 the Emperor would willingly make an alliance with 
 him : the hopes of which made him more indifferent, 
 whether the German princes were pleased with what 
 he did or not: since he had now attained the end he 
 had proposed to himself in all his negotiations with 
 them, which was to secure himself from any trouble 
 the Emperor might give him. Therefore Cromwell's 
 counsels were now disliked, for he had always inclined 
 the King to favour those princes against the Emperor. 
 Another secret cause was, that, as the King had an 
 unconquerable aversion to his Queen, so he was taken 
 The King with the beauty and behaviour of Mistress Katherine 
 j t ve Howard, daughter to the Lord Edmund Howard, a 
 KafherTne Drotner ^ tne Duke f Norfolk's. And as this de- 
 iioward. signed match raised the credit of her uncle, so the ill 
 consequences of the former drew him down who had 
 been the chief counsellor in it. The King also found 
 his government was grown uneasy, and therefore 
 judged it was no ill policy to cast over all that had 
 been done amiss upon a minister who had great power
 
 PART I. BOOK III. 445 
 
 with him; and, being now in disgrace, all the blame 
 of these things would be taken off from the King, and 
 laid on him, and his ruin would much appease dis- 
 contents, and make them more moderate in censuring 
 the King or his proceedings. It is said that other 
 particulars were charged on him, which lost him the 
 King's favour. If this be true, it is like they related 
 to the encouragement he was said to have given to 
 some reformers, in the opposition they made to the 
 six Articles : upon the execution of which the King 
 was now much set. His fall was so secretly carried, 
 that though he had often before looked for it, know- 
 ing the King's uneasy and jealous temper, yet at that 
 time he had no apprehensions of it till the storm broke 
 upon him. In his fall he had the common fate of all 
 disgraced ministers, to be forsaken by his friends and 
 insulted over by his enemies. Only Cranmer retained 
 still so much of his former simplicity, that he could 
 never learn these court arts. Therefore he wrote to 1 
 the King about him next day; "He much magnified toci 
 his diligence in the King's service and preservation, wel1 ' 
 and discovering all plots as soon as they were made : 
 that he had always loved the King above all things, 
 and served him with great fidelity and success : that 
 he thought no king of England had ever such a ser- 
 vant: upon that account he had loved him, as one 
 that loved the King above all others. But if he was 
 a traitor, he was glad it was discovered. But he 
 prayed God earnestly to send the King such a coun- 
 sellor in his stead, who could and would serve him 
 as he had done." This shews both the firmness of 
 Cranmer's friendship to him, and that he had a great 
 soul, not turned by the changes of men's fortunes, to 
 like or dislike them as they stood or declined from 
 their greatness. And had not the King's kindness 
 for Cranmer been deeply rooted, this letter had ruined 
 him : for he was the most impatient of contradiction 
 in such cases that could be. Cromwell's ruin was 
 now decreed; and he, who had so servilely complied 
 with the King's pleasure in procuring some to be at- 
 tainted the year before, without being brought to
 
 446 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 make their answer, fell now under the same severity. 
 For, whether it was that his enemies knew, that if he 
 were brought to the bar he would so justify himself, 
 that they would find great difficulties in the process ; 
 or whether it was that they blindly resolved to follow 
 that unjustifiable precedent of passing over so neces- 
 sary a rule to all courts, of giving the party accused 
 a hearing; the. bill of attainder was brought into the 
 House of Lords, Cranmer being absent that day, as 
 appears by the Journal, on the 17th of June, and 
 read the first time; and on the 19th was read the se- 
 cond and third time, and sent down to the Commons. 
 By which it appears, how few friends he had in that 
 House, when a bill of that nature went on so hastily. 
 But it seems he found in the House of Commons 
 somewhat of the same measure, which ten years be- 
 fore he had dealt to the Cardinal, though not with the 
 same success : for his matter stuck ten days there. 
 At length a new bill of attainder was brought up, con- 
 ceived in the House of Commons, with a proviso an- 
 nexed to it. They also sent back the bill which the 
 Lords sent to them. But it is not clear from the Jour- 
 nals what they meant by these two bills. It seems 
 they rejected the Lords' bill, and yet sent it up with 
 their own, either in respect to the Lords, or that they 
 left it to their choice, which of the two bills they would 
 offer to the royal assent. But though this be an un- 
 parliamentary way of proceeding, I know no other 
 sense which the words of the Journal can bear.* 
 And that very day the King assented to it, as appears 
 by the letter written the next day by Cromwell to the 
 King. 
 
 Cromwell-* The act said, "that the King, having raised Thomas 
 nder ' Cromwell from a base degree to great dignities and 
 161 high trusts, yet he had now, by a great number of wit- 
 nesses, persons of honour, found him to be the most 
 
 * Journal Procer. parag. 58. Item billa attincturcc Thome Cromwell Comitis 
 Essex de crimine haresit et la-ste majestatis, per Communes de novo concepta, et assensa, 
 et simul cum provisione eidem anneia. Qua quidem billa 1, 2 do , et 3**, lecta est ; 
 et proviso ejusdem concernens Deco.natv.rn Wcltensem perlecta est, et communi om- 
 nium Procerum consensu nemine diacrepante expedita j etsimul cum ea refere- 
 batur billa attincturx qua; privs missa erat in Domum Communium. 
 
 Collect. 
 
 Numb.
 
 PART I. BOOK III. 447 
 
 corrupt traitor, and deceiver of the King and the 
 crown, that had ever been known in his whole reign. 
 He had taken upon him to set at liberty divers persons 
 put in prison for misprision of treason, and others that 
 were suspected of it. He had also received several 
 bribes, and for them granted licenses to carry money, 
 corn, horses, and other things out of the kingdom, con- 
 trary to the King's proclamations. He had also given 
 out many commissions without the King's knowledge; 
 and, being but of a base birth, had said, ( That he was 
 sure of the King.' He had granted many passports, 
 both to the King's subjects and foreigners, for passing 
 the seas, without search. He, being also a heretic, 
 had dispersed many erroneous books among the King's 
 subjects, particularly some that were contrary to the 
 belief of the sacrament. And when some had in- 
 formed him of this, and had shewed him these here- 
 sies in books printed in England, he said, 'they were 
 good, and that he found no fault in them;' and said, 
 * it was as lawful for every Christian man to be the 
 minister of that sacrament as a priest.' And whereas 
 the King had constituted him vicegerent for the spi- 
 ritual affairs of the church ; he had, under the seal of 
 that office, licensed many that were suspected of he- 
 resy to preach over the kingdom ; and he had, both by 
 word and in writing, suggested to several sheriffs, that 
 it was the King's pleasure they should discharge many 
 prisoners, of whom some were indicted, others appre- 
 hended for heresy. And when many particular com- 
 plaints were brought to him of detestable heresies, 
 with the names of the offenders, he not only defended 
 the heretics, but severely checked the informers; and 
 vexed some of them by imprisonment, and other ways. 
 The particulars of all which were too tedious to be 
 recited. And he, having entertained many of the 
 King's subjects about himself, whom he had infected 
 by heresy, and imagining he was by force able to de- 
 fend his treasons and heresies; on the last of March, 
 in the thirtieth year of the King's reign, in the parish 
 of St Peter's the Poor in London, when some of them 
 complained to him of the new preachers, such as Barnes
 
 448 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 and others, he said, l their preaching was good ;' and 
 said also, among other things, ' that if the King would 
 turn from it, yet he would not turn : and if the King 
 did turn, and all his people with him, he would fight 
 in the field in his own person, with his sword in his 
 hand against him, and all others :' and then he pulled 
 out his dagger, and held it up, and said, ' or else this 
 dagger thrust me to the heart, if I would not die in 
 that quarrel against them all; and I trust, if I live one 
 year or two, it shall not be in the King's power to 
 resist, or let it, if he would :' and, swearing a great 
 oath, said, * I would do so indeed.' He had also, by 
 oppression and bribery, made a great estate to himself, 
 and extorted much money from the King's subjects; 
 and being greatly enriched, had treated the nobility 
 with much contempt. And on the last of January, 
 in the thirty-first year of the King's reign, in the parish 
 of St. Martin's in the Fields, when some had put him 
 in mind to what the King had raised him, he said, 
 'If the Lords would handle him so, he would give 
 
 ' O 
 
 them such a breakfast as was never made in England ; 
 and that the proudest of them should know it.' For 
 all which treasons and heresies, he was attainted to 
 suffer the pains of death for heresy and treason, as 
 should please the King, and to forfeit all his estate and 
 goods to the King's use, that he had on the last of 
 March, in the thirty-first year of the King's reign, or 
 since that time. There was added to this bill, a pro- 
 viso,* that this should not be hurtful to the Bishop of 
 Bath and Wells, and to the Dean and Chapter of 
 Wells : with whom, it seems, he had made some ex- 
 changes of land." 
 
 censures From these particulars the reader will clearly see, 
 w ^y ^ e was no * ^ rou ght; to make his answer, most of 
 them relating to orders and directions he had given, 
 for which it is very probable he had the King's war- 
 rant. And for the matter of heresy, it has appeared 
 how far the King had proceeded towards a reforma- 
 tion, so that what he did that way was most likely 
 done by the King's order : but the King now falling 
 
 * Cromwell wus then dean of Wells, and that was the reason of the proviso.
 
 PART I. BOOK III. 449 
 
 from these things, it was thought they intended to 
 stifle him by such an attainder, that he might not 
 discover the secret orders or directions given him for 
 his own justification. For the particulars of bribery 
 and extortion, they being mentioned in general ex- 
 pressions, seem only cast into the heap to defame 
 him. But for those treasonable words, it was gene- 
 rally thought that they were a contrivance of his ene- 
 mies ; since it seemed a thing very extravagant, for 
 a favourite, in the height of his greatness, to talk so 
 rudely : and if he had been guilty of it, Bedlam was 
 thought a fitter place for his restraint than the Tower. 
 Nor was it judged likely that, he having such great 
 and watchful enemies at court, any such discourses 
 could have lain so long a secret ; or if they had come 
 to the King's knowledge, he was not a Prince of such 
 a temper as to have forgiven, much less employed 
 and advanced a man after such discourses. And to 
 think, that, during these fifteen months, after the 
 words were said to have been spoken, none would 
 have had the zeal for the King, or the malice for 
 Cromwell, as to repeat them, were things that could 
 not be believed. The formality of drawing his 
 dagger made it the more suspected ; for this was to 
 affix an overt act to these words, which in the opi- 
 nion of many lawyers, was necessary to make words 
 treasonable. But, as if these words had not been ill 
 enough, some writers since have made them worse ; 
 as if he had said, he would *' thrust his dagger in 
 the King's heart :" about which Fuller hath made 
 another story to excuse these words, as if they had 
 not been meant of the King, but of another. But all 
 that is founded on a mistake, which, if he had looked 
 in the record, he had corrected. 
 
 Cromwell's fall was the first step towards the King's The K< ng 
 divorce ; for, on the 25th of June, he sent his Queen d d "'^ e * 
 to Richmond, pretending the country air would agree from his 
 better with her : but on the 6th of July a motion was 
 made and assented to in the House of Lords, that 
 they should make an address to the King, desiring 
 him to suffer his marriage with the Queen to be tried. 
 
 VOL. i. 2 G
 
 450 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 Upon which the Lord Chancellor, the Archbishop of 
 Canterbury, the Dukes of Norfolk and Suffolk, the 
 Earl of Southampton, and the Bishop of Duresme, 
 were sent down to the Commons to represent the 
 matter to them, and to desire their concurrence in 
 the address ; to which they agreed, and ordered twenty 
 of their number to go along with the Peers. So the 
 whole house of Lords, with these Commoners, went 
 to the King, and told him they had a matter of great 
 consequence to propose to him, but it was of that im- 
 portance that they first begged his leave to move it. 
 That being obtained, they desired the King would 
 order a trial to be made of the validity of his mar- 
 riage. To which the King consented ; and made a 
 deep protestation, as in the presence of God, that he 
 should conceal nothing that related to it, and all its 
 circumstances ; and that there was nothing he held 
 dearer than the glory of God, the good of the common- 
 wealth, and the declaration of truth. So a commis- 
 sion was issued out to the convocation to try it. 
 u is refer- On the 7th of'July it was brought before the con- 
 vocation, of which the reader will see a fuller account 
 m t ne Collection at the end than is needful to be 
 brought in here. The case was opened by the Bishop 
 of Winchester, and a committee was appointed to 
 consider it ; and they deputed the Bishops of Du- 
 resme and Winchester, and Thirleby, and Richard 
 Leighton, dean of York, to examine the witnesses that 
 day. And the next day they received the King's 
 deposition, with a long declaration of the whole mat- 
 ter, under Cromwell's hand, in a letter to the King ; 
 an d tne depositions of most of the privy-counsellors, 
 is of the Earl of Southampton, the Lord Russel, then 
 admiral, of Sir Anthony Brown, Sir Anthony Denny, 
 Doctor Chambers, and Doctor Butts, the King's phy- 
 sicians, and of some ladies that had talked with the 
 Reasons Queen. All which amounted to this ; that the King 
 fpTi"" 61 * expected that the pre-contract with the Marquis of 
 Lorrain should have been more fully cleared ; that 
 the King always disliked her, and married her full sore 
 against his heart, and since that time he had never con- 
 
 coiie. 17 '
 
 PART I. BOOK III. 451 
 
 sumraated the marriage. So the substance of the whole 
 evidence being considered, it amounted to these three 
 particulars : First, That there had been a contract 
 between the Marquis of Lorrain and the Queen, which 
 was not sufficiently cleared ; for it did not yet appear, 
 whether these espousals were made by the party 
 themselves, or in the words of the present tense. 
 Then it was said, that the King, having married her 
 against his will, he had not given a pure, inward, and 
 complete consent ; and since a man's act is only what 
 is inward, extorted or forced promises do not bind. 
 And, thirdly, That he had never consummated the 
 marriage. To which was added, the great interest 
 the whole nation had in the King's having more issue, 
 which they saw he could never have by the Queen. 
 This was furiously driven on by the popish party ; 
 and Cranmer, whether overcome with these argu- 
 ments, or rather with fear, for he knew it was con- 
 trived to send him quickly after Cromwell, consented 
 with the rest. So that the whole convocation, with- convoc 
 out one disagreeing vote, judged the marriage null [Hi!*" 
 and of no force, and that both the Kin? and the lady Collect - 
 
 C xL U J C *. Numb< 
 
 were tree trom the bond ot it. 
 
 This was the greatest piece of compliance that ever n i. 
 the King had from the clergy : for as they all knew 
 there was nothing of weight in that pre-contract, so 
 they laid down a most pernicious precedent for in- 
 validating all public treaties and agreements ; since, 
 if one of the parties being unwilling to it, so that his 
 consent were not inward, he was not bound by it, 
 there was no safety among men more. For no man 
 can know whether another consents inwardly ; and 
 when a man does any thing with great aversion, to 
 infer from thence, that he does not inwardly consent, 
 may furnish every one with an excuse to break loose 
 from all engagements ; for he may pretend he did 
 it unwillingly, and get his friends to declare that he 
 privately signified that to them. And for that argu- 
 ment which was taken from the want of consumma- 
 tion, they had forgotten what was pleaded on the 
 King's behalf ten years before, that consent, without 
 
 2c2 
 
 s cea- 
 sured.
 
 452 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 consummation, made a marriage complete; by which 
 they concluded, that though Prince Arthur had not 
 consummated his marriage with Queen Katherine, 
 yet his consent did so complete it, that the King 
 could not afterwards lawfully marry her. But as the 
 King was resolved on any terms to be rid of this 
 Queen, so the clergy were resolved not to incur his 
 displeasure ; in which they rather sought for reasons 
 to give some colour to their sentence, than pass their 
 judgment upon the strength of them. This only can 
 be said for their excuse, that these were as just and 
 weighty reasons, as used to be admitted by the court 
 of Rome for a divorce : and most of them being cano- 
 
 " 
 
 nists, and knowing how many precedents there were 
 to be found for such divorces, they thought they 
 might do it as well as the popes had formerly done. 
 On the 9th of July sentence was given, which was 
 signed by both houses of convocation, and had the 
 two Archbishops' seals put to it ; of which whole 
 trial the record does yet remain, having escaped the 
 fate of the other books of convocation. The original 
 depositions are also yet extant. 
 
 Only I shall add here a reflection upon Cromweirs 
 misfortune, which may justly abate the loftiness of 
 haughty men. The day after he was attainted, being 
 required to send to the King a full account under his 
 hand of the business of his marriage ; which account 
 collect, he sent, as will be found in the Collection; he con- 
 7> eludes it with these abject words : "I, a most woful 
 prisoner, ready to take the death, when it shall please 
 God and your Majesty ; and yet the frail flesh inciteth 
 me continually to call to your Grace for mercy, and 
 grace for mine offences. And thus Christ save, pre- 
 serve, and keep you. Written at the Tower, this 
 Wednesday, the last of June, with the heavy heart, 
 and trembling hand, of your Highness' most heavy, 
 and most miserable prisoner, and poor slave, Thomas 
 Cromwell." And a little below that, " Most gracious 
 ^ t Prince, I cry for mercy, mercy, mercy!" 
 mad. to On the 10th of July the Archbishop of Canterbury 
 reported to the House of Lords, that the convocation
 
 consents 
 to it. 
 
 PART I. BOOK III. 453 
 
 had judged the marriage null, both by the law of 
 God, and the law of the land. The Bishop of Win- 
 chester delivered the judgment in writing; which 
 being read, he enlarged on all the reasons of it. This 
 satisfied the Lords, and they sent down Cranmer and 
 him to the Commons, to give them the same account. 
 Next day the King sent the Lord Chancellor, the 
 Duke of Norfolk, the Earl of Southampton, and the 
 Bishop of Winchester, to let the Queen know what 
 was done ; who was not at all troubled at it, and 
 seemed not ill-pleased. They told her, that the King 
 would by letters-patents declare her his adopted sis- 
 ter, and give her precedence before all the ladies of 
 England, next his Queen and daughters, and assign 
 her an estate of 3000/. a year ; and that she had her 
 choice, either to live in England, or to return home 
 again. She accepted the offer, and under her hand The QU 
 declared her consent and approbation of the sentence; 
 and chose to live still in England, where she was in 
 great honour, rather than return under that disgrace 
 to her own country. She was also desired to write to 
 her brother, and let him know that she approved of 
 what was done in her matter, and that the King used 
 her as a father, or a brother; and therefore to desire 
 him and her other friends not to take this matter ill, 
 or lessen their friendship to the King. She had no 
 mind to do that, but said, it would be time enough 
 when her brother wrote to her to send him such an 
 answer. But it was answered, that much depended 
 on the first impressions that are received of any 
 matter. She, in conclusion, said, she would obey 
 the King in every thing he desired her to do. So she collect, 
 wrote the letter as they desired it ; and the day fol- 1 "" nb<8 
 lowing, being the 12th of July, the bill was brought 
 into the House for annulling the marriage, which 
 went easily through both Houses. 
 
 On the 16th of July, a bill was brought in for mo- An a 
 derating the statute of the six Articles in the clauses 1^"^ 
 that related to the marriage of the priests, or their in- *? of 
 continency with other women. On the 17th it was P " 
 agreed to by the whole House without a contradictory
 
 454 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 vote, and sent down to the Commons ; who on the 
 21st, sent it up again. By it the pains of death were 
 turned to forfeitures of their goods and chattels, and 
 the rents of their ecclesiastical promotions, to the 
 King. 
 
 Another On the 20th of July, a bill was brought in concern- 
 i*gio U n. re " ing a declaration of the Christian religion, and was 
 then read the first, second, and third time, and passed 
 without any opposition, and sent down to the Com- 
 mons ; who, agreeing to it, sent it up again the next 
 day. It contained, " That the King, as supreme 
 head of the church, was taking much pains for an 
 union among all his subjects in matters of religion : 
 and, for preventing the further progress of heresy, 
 had appointed many of the bishops and the most 
 learned divines, to declare the principal articles of the 
 Christian belief } with the ceremonies, and way of 
 God's service to be observed. That therefore a thing 
 of that weight might not be rashly done, or hasted 
 through in this session of parliament; but be done 
 with that care which was requisite ; therefore it was 
 enacted, that whatsoever was determined by the arch- 
 bishops, bishops, and the other divines, now commis- 
 sionated for that effect, or by any others appointed by 
 the King, or by the whole clergy of England, and 
 published by the King's authority, concerning the 
 Christian faith, or the ceremonies of the church, 
 should be believed and obeyed by all the King's sub- 
 jects; as well as if the particulars so set forth had 
 been enumerated in this act, any custom or law to the 
 contrary notwithstanding." To this, a strange pro- 
 viso was added, which destroyed the former clause; 
 "that nothing should be done or determined by the 
 authority of this act, which was contrary to the laws 
 and statutes of the kingdom." But whether this pro- 
 viso was added by the House of Commons, or ori- 
 ginally put into the bill, does not appear. It was 
 more likely it was put in at the first by the King's 
 council ; for these contradictory clauses raised the 
 prerogative higher, and left it in the judge's power to 
 determine which of the two should be followed ; by
 
 PART I. BOOK III. 455 
 
 which all ecclesiastical matters were to be brought 
 under trials at common law: for it was one of the 
 great designs, both of the ministers and lawyers, at 
 this time, to bring all ecclesiastical matters to the 
 cognizance of the secular judge. 
 
 But another bill passed, which seems a little odd, 
 concerning the circumstances of that time. " That 
 whereas many marriages had been annulled in the 
 time of popery, upon the pretence of pre-contracts, or 
 other degrees of kindred, than those that were pro- 
 hibited by the law of God : therefore, after a marriage 
 was consummated, no pretence of any pre-contract, 
 or any degrees of kindred or alliance, but those men- 
 tioned in the law of God, should be brought or made 
 use of to annul it ; since these things had been oft 
 pretended only to dissolve a marriage, when the 
 parties grew weary of each other, which was contrary 
 to God's law. Therefore it was enacted, that no pre- 
 tence of pre-contract, not consummated, should be 
 made use of to annul a marriage duly solemnized, and 
 consummated; and that no degrees of kindred, not 
 mentioned by the law of God, should be pleaded to 
 annul a marriage." The act gave great occasion of 
 censuring the King's former proceedings against 
 Queen Anne Boleyn, since that which was now con- 
 demned had been the pretence for dissolving his mar- 
 riage with her. Others thought the King did it on 
 design to remove that impediment out of the way of 
 the Lady Elizabeth's succeeding to the crown ; since 
 that judgment, upon which she was illegitimated, was 
 now indirectly censured : and that other branch of 
 the act, for taking away all prohibitions of marriages, 
 within any degrees but those forbidden in Scripture, 
 was to make way for the King's marriage with Ka- 
 therine Howard, who was cousin-german to Queen 
 Anne Boleyn ; for that was one of the prohibited 
 degrees by the canon law. 
 
 The province of Canterbury offered a subsidy of s 
 four shillings in the pound of all ecclesiastical prefer- t 
 ments, to be paid in two years ; and that in acknow- 
 ledgment of the great liberty they enjoyed by being
 
 456 BURiNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 delivered from the usurpations of the bishops of 
 Rome, and in recompence of the great charges the 
 King had been at, and was still to be at, in building 
 havens, bulwarks, and other forts, for the defence of 
 his coasts, and the security of his subjects. This was 
 confirmed in parliament. But that did not satisfy the 
 King ; who had husbanded the money thfvt came in 
 by the sale of abbey lands so ill, that now he wanted 
 money, and was forced to ask a subsidy for his mar- 
 
 AH<I laity, riage of the parliament. This was obtained with 
 great difficulty. For it was said, that if the King was 
 already in want, after so vast an income, especially 
 being engaged in no \var, there would be no end of 
 his necessities ; nor could it be possible for them to 
 supply them. But it was answered, that the King 
 had laid out a great treasure in fortifying the coast ; 
 and though he was then in no visible war, yet the 
 charge he was at in keeping up the war beyond sea, 
 was equal to the expense of a war ; and much more 
 to the advantage of his people, who were kept in 
 peace and plenty. This obtained a tenth and four 
 fifteenths. After the passing of all these bills, and 
 many others that concerned the public, with several 
 other bills of attainder of some that favoured the 
 Pope's interests, or corresponded with Cardinal Pole, 
 which shall be mentioned in another place, the King 
 sent in a general pardon, with the ordinary excep- 
 tions ; and, in particular, excepted Cromwell, the 
 Countess of Sarum, with many others, then in prison : 
 some of them were put in for opposing the King's 
 supremacy, and others for transgressing the statute of 
 the six Articles. On the 24th of July the parliament 
 was dissolved. 
 
 Cromwell-* And now Cromwell, who had been six weeks a 
 ath ' prisoner, was brought to his execution. He had used 
 all the endeavours he could for his own preservation. 
 Once he wrote to the King in such melting terms, 
 that he made the letter to be thrice read, and seemed 
 touched with it. But the charms of Katherine 
 Howard, and the endeavours of the Duke of Norfolk, 
 and the Bishop of Winchester, at length prevailed :
 
 PART I. BOOK III. 457 
 
 so a warrant was sent to cut off his head, on the 28th 
 of July, at Tower-hill. When he was brought to 
 the scaffold, his kindness to his son made him very 
 cautious in what he said : he declined the purging 
 of himself, but said : " he was by law condemned to 
 die, and thanked God for bringing him to that death 
 for his offences. He acknowledged his sins against 
 God, and his offences against his Prince, who had 
 raised him from a base degree. He declared that he 
 died in the catholic faith, not doubting of any article 
 of faith, or of any sacrament of the church ; and 
 denied that he had been a supporter of those who 
 believed ill opinions : he confessed he had been 
 seduced, but now died in the catholic faith, and de- 
 sired them to pray for the King, and for the Prince, 
 and for himself :" and then prayed very fervently for 
 the remission of his past sins, and admittance into 
 eternal glory : and having given the sign, the exe- 
 cutioner cut off his head very barbarously. 
 
 Thus fell that great minister, that was raised merely ms 
 upon the strength of his natural parts. For as his ra< 
 extraction was mean, so his education was low : all 
 the learning he had was, that he had got the New 
 Testament in Latin by heart. His great wisdom, 
 and dexterity in business, raised him up through se- 
 veral steps, till he was become as great as a subject 
 could be. He carried his greatness with wonderful 
 temper and moderation ; and fell under the weight 
 of popular odium rather than guilt. The disorders 
 in the suppression of abbeys were generally charged 
 on him : yet, when he fell, no bribery, nor cheating 
 of the King, could be fastened on him ; though such 
 things come out in swarms on a disgraced favourite, 
 when there is any ground for them. By what he 
 spoke at his death, he left it much doubted of what 
 religion he died : but it is certain he was a Lutheran. 
 
 o 
 
 The term catholic faith, used by him in his last speech, 
 seemed to make it doubtful ; but that was then used 
 in England in its true sense, in opposition to the no- 
 velties of the see of Rome, as will afterwards appear 
 on another occasion. So that his profession of the
 
 458 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 catholic faith was strangely perverted, when some 
 from thence concluded, that he died in the commu- 
 nion of the church of Rome. But his praying in 
 English, and that only to God through Christ, with- 
 out any of those tricks that were used when those of 
 that church died, shewed he was none of their's. 
 With him the office of the King's vicegerent in ec- 
 clesiastical affairs died, as it rose first in his person : 
 and as all the clergy opposed the setting up a new 
 officer, whose interest should oblige him to oppose a 
 reconciliation with Rome, so it seems none were fond 
 to succeed in an office that proved so fatal to him 
 that had first carried it. The King was said to have 
 lamented his death, after it was too late ; but the fall 
 of the new Queen, that followed not long after, and 
 the miseries which fell also on the Duke of Norfolk 
 and his family, some years after, were looked on as 
 the scourges of Heaven, for their cruel prosecution 
 of this unfortunate minister. 
 
 With his fall, the progress of the Reformation, 
 which had been by his endeavours so far advanced, 
 was quite stopped. For all that Cranmer could do 
 after this, was to keep the ground they had gained : 
 but he could never advance much further. And in- 
 deed every one expected to see him go next : for, as 
 Design* one Gostwick, knight for Bedfordshire, had named 
 corner, him in the House of Commons as the supporter and 
 promoter of all the heresy that was in England ; so 
 the popish party reckoned they had but half done 
 their work by destroying Cromwell ; and that it was 
 not finished till Cranmer followed him. Therefore 
 all possible endeavours were used to make discove- 
 ries of the encouragement, which, as was believed, he 
 gave to the preachers of the condemned doctrines. 
 And it is very probable, that had not the inconti- 
 nence of Katherine Howard (whom the King declared 
 Queen on the 8th of August) broken out not long 
 after, he had been sacrificed the next session of par- 
 liament. 
 
 But now I return to my proper business, to give 
 an account of church matters for this year ; with
 
 PART I. BOOK III. 459 
 
 which these great changes in court had so great a 
 relation, that the reader will excuse the digression 
 about them. 
 
 Upon Cromwell's fall, Gardiner, and those that 
 followed him, made no doubt but they should quickly 
 recover what they had lost of late years. So their 
 greatest attempt was upon the translation of the 
 Scriptures. The convocation books (as I have been 
 forced often to lament) are lost ; so that here I can- 
 not stir, but as Fuller leads me ; who assures the 
 world, that he copied out of the Records with his 
 own pen what he published. And yet I doubt he 
 has mistaken himself in the year ; and that which 
 he calls the convocation of this year, was the convo- 
 cation of the year 1542 : for he tells us that their 
 seventh session was the 10th of March. Now in this 
 year the convocation did not sit down till the 13th 
 of April ; but that year it sat all March. So likewise 
 he tells us of the Bishops of Westminster, Gloucester, 
 and Peterborough, bearing a share in this convoca- 
 tion : whereas these were not consecrated before 
 winter, and could not sit as bishops in this synod 
 And, besides, Thirleby sat at this time in the lower 
 house ; as was formerly shewn in the process about 
 Anne of Cleves' marriage. So that their attempt 
 against the New Testament belongs to the year 1542. 
 
 But they were now much better employed, though A c 
 not in the way of convocation : for a select number ;^ n 
 of them sat by virtue of a commission from the King, ''S' 
 confirmed in parliament. Their first work was to 
 draw up a declaration of the Christian doctrine, "for 
 the necessary erudition of a Christian man."* They 
 thought, that to speak of faith in general ought na 
 turally to go before an exposition of the Christian 
 belief ; and therefore with that they began. 
 
 The church of Rome, that designed to keep herAn 
 children in ignorance, had made no great account of f^ 
 faith ; which, they generally taught, consisted chiefly 
 in an implicit believing whatever the church proposed, 
 without any explicit knowledge of particulars. So 
 
 * See below, p. 470.
 
 4GO BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 that a Christian faith, as they had explained it, was a 
 submission to the church. The reformers, finding that 
 this was the spring of all their other errors, and that 
 which gave them colour and authority ; did on the 
 other hand, set up the strength of their whole cause 
 on an explicit believing the truth of the Scriptures, 
 because of the authority of God, who had revealed 
 them : and said, that as the great subject of the apos- 
 tles' preaching was faith, so that which they every 
 where taught, was to read and believe the Scriptures. 
 Upon which followed nice disputing, what was that 
 saving faith by which the Scriptures say we are justi- 
 fied. They could not say it was barely crediting the 
 Divine revelation, since in that sense the devils be- 
 lieved ; therefore they generally placed it, at first, in 
 their being assured that they should be saved by 
 Christ's dying for them. In which, their design was 
 to make holiness and all other graces necessary re- 
 quisites in the composition of faith ; though they 
 would not make them formally parts of it. For since 
 Christ's death has its full virtue and effect upon none 
 but those who are regenerate ; and live according to 
 his gospel ; none could be assured that he should be 
 saved by Christ's death, till he first found in himself 
 these necessary qualifications which are delivered in 
 the gospel. Having once settled on this phrase, their 
 followers would needs defend it, but really made it 
 worse by their explanations. The church of Rome 
 thought they had them at great advantages in it, and 
 called them Solifidians, and said they were against 
 good works : though whatever unwary expressions 
 some of them threw out, they always declared good 
 works indispensably necessary to salvation. But they 
 differed from the church of Rome in two things that 
 were material: there was also a third, but there the dif- 
 ference was more in the manner of expression. The 
 one was, What were good works? The church of Rome 
 had generally delivered, that works which did an im- 
 mediate honour to God or his saints, were more va- 
 luable than works done to other men : and that the 
 honour they did to saints, in their images and relics,
 
 PART I. BOOK III. 461 
 
 and to God in his priests, that were dedicated to him, 
 were the highest pieces of holiness, as having the best 
 objects. This was the foundation of all that trade, 
 which brought in both riches and glory to their church. 
 On the other hand, the reformers taught, that justice 
 and mercy, with the other good works done in obe- 
 dience to God's commandments, were only necessary. 
 And for those things, so much magnified at Rome, 
 they acknowledged there ought to be a decent splen- 
 dour in the worship of God, and good provision to be 
 made for the encouragement of those who dedicated 
 themselves to his service in the church ; and that what 
 was beyond these, was the effect of ignorance and su- 
 perstition. The other main difference was about the 
 merit of good works : which the friars had raised so 
 high, that people were come to think they bought and 
 sold with Almighty God, for heaven and all other his 
 blessings. This the reformers judged was the height 
 of arrogance : and therefore taught, that good works 
 were indeed absolutely necessary to salvation: but 
 that the purchase of heaven was only by the death 
 and intercession of Jesus Christ. With these material 
 differences they joined another, that consisted more 
 in words : Whether obedience was an essential part 
 of faith ? The reformers said it certainly accompanied 
 and followed faith : but thought not fit to make it an 
 ingredient in the nature of faith. These things had 
 been now much canvassed in disputes : and it was 
 thought by many, that men of ill lives made no good 
 use of some of the expressions of the reformers, that 
 separated faith from good works, and came to persuade 
 themselves, that if they could but attain to a firm as- 
 surance that they should be saved by Christ, all would 
 be well with them. Therefore now, when they went 
 about to state the true notion of faith, Cranmer com- 
 manded Dr. Redmayn, who was esteemed the most 
 learned and judicious divine of that time, to write a 
 short treatise on these heads ; which he did with that 
 solidity and clearness, that it will sufficiently justify 
 any advantageous character that can be given of the 
 author ; and, according to the conclusions of that
 
 462 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 treatise, they laid down the nature of faith thus : " That 
 it stands in two several senses in Scripture. The one 
 is a persuasion of the truths, both of natural and re- 
 vealed religion, wrought in the mind by God's Holy 
 Spirit : and the other is, such a belief as begets a sub- 
 mission to the will of God, and hath hope, love, and 
 obedience to God's commandmentsjoined to it : which 
 was Abraham's faith, and that which, according to 
 St. Paul, wrought by charity, and was so much com- 
 mended in the Epistle to the Hebrews. That this was 
 the faith which in baptism is professed, from which 
 Christians are called the faithful. And in those Scrip- 
 tures where it is said, that we are justified by faith, 
 they declared, we may not think that we be justified 
 by faith, as it is a separate virtue from hope and 
 charity, fear of God, and repentance ; but by it is 
 meant faith, neither only, nor alone, but with the 
 foresaid virtues coupled together ; containing (as is 
 aforesaid) the obedience to the whole doctrine and 
 religion of Christ. But for the definition of faith, 
 which some proposed, as if it were a certainty that 
 one was predestinated, they found nothing of it, either 
 in the Scriptures, or the doctors ; and thought that 
 could not be known : for though God never failed in 
 his promises to men, yet, such was the frailty of men, 
 that they often failed in their promises to God, and 
 so did forfeit their right to the promises, which are all 
 made upon conditions that depend on us." 
 
 Upon this occasion I shall digress a little, to shew 
 w ^ n wna t care Cranmer considered so weighty a point. 
 Among his other papers, I find a collection of a great 
 many places out of the Scripture, concerning justifica- 
 tion by faith, together with a vast number of quotations, 
 out of Origen, Basil, Jerome, Theodoret, Ambrose, 
 Austin, Prosper, Chrysostom, Gennadius, Beda, He- 
 sychius, Theophylact, and CEcumenius ; together with 
 many later writers, such as Anselm, Bernard, Peter 
 Lombard, Hugo Cardinalis, Lyranus, and Bruno ; in 
 which the sense of those authors in this point did ap- 
 pear ; all drawn out with his own hand. To this is 
 added another collection of many places of the fathers,
 
 PART I. BOOK III. 4G3 
 
 in which they speak of the merit of good works : and 
 at the end of the whole collection he writes these 
 words, " This proposition, that we be justified by 
 Christ only, and not by our good works, is a very true 
 and necessary doctrine of St. Paul's, and the other 
 apostles, taught by them, to set forth thereby the glory 
 of Christ, and the mercy of God through Christ." 
 And after some further discourse to the same purpose, 
 he concludes, " Although all that be justified must of 
 necessity have charity as well as faith ; yet neither 
 faith nor charity be the worthiness nor merits of our 
 justification : but that is to be ascribed only to our 
 Saviour Christ, who was offered upon the cross for 
 our sins, and rose again for our justification." This 
 I set down, to let the world see that Cranmer was not 
 at all concerned in those niceties, which have been so 
 much inquired into since that time, about the instru- 
 mentality of faith in justification ; all that he then 
 considered being, that the glory of it might be ascribed 
 only to the death and intercession of Jesus Christ. 
 
 After this was thus laid down, there followed an They ex. 
 explanation of the Apostles' Creed, full of excellent Apoltw 
 matters ; being a large paraphrase on every article of Crecd * 
 the Creed, with such serious and practical inferences, 
 that I must acknowledge, after all the practical books 
 we have had, I find great edification in reading that 
 over and over again. The style is strong, nervous, 
 and well fitted for the weakest capacities. There is 
 nothing in this that is controverted between the papists 
 and the reformers, except the definition of the holy 
 catholic church, which they give thus: "That it 
 comprehends all assemblies of men over the whole 
 world, that receive the faith of Christ ; who ought 
 to hold an unity of love and brotherly agreement to- 
 gether, by which they become members of the catholic 
 church." Upon which a long excursion is made, to 
 shew the injustice and unreasonableness of the plea 
 of the church of Rome, who place the unity of the 
 catholic church in a submission to the bishop of their 
 city, without any ground from Scripture, or the ancient 
 writers.
 
 seven 
 sacra- 
 meats. 
 
 4G4 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 The From that they proceeded to examine the seven 
 sacraments ; and here fell in stiff debates, which re- 
 main in some authentic writings, that give a great 
 light to their proceedings. The method which they 
 followed was this : First, the whole business they 
 were to consider was divided into so many heads, 
 which were proposed as queries, and these were given 
 out to so many bishops and divines ; and, at a pre- 
 fixed time, every one brought his opinion in writing 
 wuh great upon all the queries. So, concerning the seven sa- 
 maturity. cram ents, the queries were given out to the two Arch- 
 bishops, the Bishops of London, Rochester, and Car- 
 lisle (though the last was not in the commission), and 
 to the Bishops of Duresme, Hereford, and St. David s : 
 for though the Bishop of Winchester was in this 
 commission, yet he did nothing in this particular ; 
 but I imagine that he was gone out of town, and that 
 the Bishop of Carlisle was appointed to supply his 
 absence. The queries were also given to Doctor 
 Thirleby, then bishop elect of Westminster, to Doc- 
 tors Robertson, Day, Redmayn, Cox, Leighton 
 (though not in the commission), Symmonds, Tresham, 
 Coren (though not in the commission), Edgeworth, 
 Oglethorp, Crayford, Wilson, and Robins. When 
 their answers were given in, two were appointed to 
 compare them, and draw an extract of the particulars 
 in which they agreed or disagreed : which the one 
 did in Latin, and the other in English ; only those 
 who compared them, it seems, doing it for the Arch- 
 bishop of Canterbury, took no notice of his opinions 
 in the extract they made. And of these, the original 
 answers of the two Archbishops, the Bishops of Lon- 
 don, Rochester, and Carlisle ; and these Doctors, 
 Day, Robertson, Redmayn, Cox, Leighton, Sym- 
 monds, Tresham, Coren, Edgeworth, and Oglethorp, 
 are yet extant : but the papers given in by the Bishops 
 of Duresme, Hereford, and St. David's, and the elect 
 of Westminster, and Doctors Crayford, Wilson, and 
 Robins, though they are mentioned in the extracts 
 collect, made out of them, yet are lost. This the reader will 
 in the c n ec tion : which, though it be somewhat 
 
 b. 21.
 
 PART I. BOOK III. 465 
 
 large, yet I thought such pieces were of too great 
 importance not to be communicated to the world ; 
 since it is, perhaps, as great an evidence of the ripe- 
 ness of their proceedings as can be shewed in any 
 church, or any age of it. And though other papers 
 of this sort do not occur in this King's reign, yet I 
 have reason to conclude from this instance, that they 
 proceeded with the same maturity in the rest of their 
 deliberations. In which I am the more confirmed, 
 because I find another instance like this, in the refor- 
 mation that was further carried on in the succeeding 
 reign of Edward VI., of many bishops and divines 
 giving in their opinions, under their hands, upon 
 some heads then examined and changed. In Cran- 
 mer's paper, some singular opinions of his about, the 
 nature of ecclesiastical offices will be found ; but as 
 they are delivered by him with all possible modesty, 
 so they were not established as the doctrine of the 
 church, but laid aside as particular conceits of his 
 own. And it seems, that afterwards he changed his 
 opinion ; for he subscribed the book that was soon 
 after set out, which is directly contrary to those opi- 
 nions set down in these papers. Cranmer was for 
 reducing the sacraments to two ; but the popish party 
 was then prevalent, so the old number of seven was 
 agreed to. 
 
 Baptism was explained in the same manner that 
 had been done three years before, in the articles then 
 set out, only the matter of original sin was more en- 
 larged on. 
 
 Secondly, Penance was formally placed in the ab- 
 solution of the priest, which, by the former articles, 
 was only declared a thing desirable, and not to be 
 contemned if it might be had ; yet all merit of good 
 works was rejected, though they were declared ne- 
 cessary ; and sinners were taught to depend wholly 
 on the sufferings of Christ, with other good direc- 
 tions about repentance. 
 
 Thirdly, In the explanation of the eucharist, tran- 
 substantiation was fully asserted ; as also the conco- 
 mitancy of the blood with the flesh ; so that comnm- 
 VOL. i. 2 H
 
 466 BURNET'S REFORMATION 
 
 nion in both kinds was not necessary. The use of 
 hearing mass, though one did not communicate, was 
 also asserted. To which were added, very good rules 
 about the disposition of mind that ought to accom- 
 pany this sacrament. 
 
 Fourthly, Matrimony was said to be instituted of 
 God, and sanctified by Christ. The degrees in the 
 Mosaical law were declared obligatory, and none 
 else ; and the bond of marriage was declared not se- 
 parable on any account. 
 
 Fifthly, Orders were to be administered in the 
 church, according to the New Testament; but the 
 particular forms of nominating, electing, presenting, 
 or appointing ecclesiastical ministers, was left to the 
 laws of every country, to be made by the assent of 
 the prince. The office of churchmen was to preach, 
 administer the sacraments, to bind and loose, and to 
 pray for the whole flock : but they must execute 
 these with such limitation as was allowed by the 
 laws of every kingdom. The Scriptures, they said, 
 made express mention only of the two orders of priests 
 and deacons. To these the primitive church had 
 added some inferior degrees, which were also not to 
 be contemned. But no bishop had any authority over 
 other bishops by the law of God. Upon which fol- 
 lowed a long digression, confuting the pretensions 
 of the bishops of Rome ; with an explanation of the 
 King's authority in ecclesiastical matters, which was 
 beforehand set down in another place, to shew what 
 they understood by the King's being supreme head 
 of the church. 
 
 Sixthly, Confirmation was said to have been used 
 in the primitive church, in imitation of the apostles ; 
 who by laying on their hands, conferred the Holy 
 Ghost, in an extraordinary manner; and therefore was 
 of great advantage, but not necessary to salvation. 
 
 Seventhly, Extreme unction was said to have been 
 derived from the practice of the apostles, mentioned 
 by St. James, for the health both of body and soul ; 
 and though the sick person was not always reco- 
 vered of his bodily sickness by it, yet remission of
 
 PART I. BOOK III. 467 
 
 sins was obtained by it, and that which God knew 
 to be best for our bodily condition, to whose will we 
 ought always to submit. But this sacrament was 
 only fruitful to those who by penance were restored 
 to the state of grace. 
 
 Then followed an explanation of the Ten Com- The Ten 
 mandments, which contains many good rules of mo- meiT. and 
 rality, drawn from every one of them. The second 
 commandment Gardiner had a mind to have short- 
 ened, and to cast it into the first. Cranmer was for 
 setting it down as it was in the law of Moses. But 
 
 O 
 
 a temper was found : it was placed as a distinct com- 
 mandment, but not at full length : the words, " For 
 I the Lord thy God," &c. being left out, and only 
 those that go before being set down. In the expla- 
 nation of this commandment, images were said to be 
 profitable for putting us in mind of the great bless- 
 ings we have received by our Saviour, and of the 
 virtues and holiness of the saints, by which we were 
 to be stirred up to imitate them : so that they were 
 not to be despised, though we be forbidden to do any 
 godly honour to them ; and therefore the superstition 
 of preferring one image to another, as if they had any 
 special virtue in them, or the adorning them richly, 
 and making vows and pilgrimages to them, is con- 
 demned; yet the censing of images, and kneeling 
 before them, are not condemned : but the people must 
 be taught that these things were not to be done to 
 the image itself, but to God and his honour. To the 
 third commandment, they reduced the invocation of 
 God's name for his gifts ; and they condemned the 
 invocation of saints, when such things were prayed 
 for from them, which were only given by God. This 
 was the giving his glory to creatures : yet to pray to 
 saints as intercessors is declared lawful, and according 
 to the doctrine of the catholic church. Upon the 
 fourth commandment, a rest from labour every se- 
 venth day is said to be ceremonial, and such as only 
 obliged Jews ; but the spiritual signification of rest 
 among Christians was to abstain from sin and other 
 carnal pleasures. But, besides that, we were also 
 2n2
 
 468 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 bound by this precept sometimes to cease from labour, 
 that we may serve and worship God both in public 
 and private : and that on the days appointed for this 
 purpose, people ought to examine their lives, the past 
 week, and set to amendment, and give themselves to 
 prayer, reading, and meditation : yet in cases of ne- 
 cessity, such as saving their corn and cattle, men 
 ought not superstitiously to think that it is a sin 
 to work on that day, but to do their work without 
 scruple. Then follow very profitable expositions of 
 the other commandments, with many grave and 
 weighty admonitions concerning the duties by them 
 enjoined, and against those sins which are too com- 
 mon in all ages. 
 
 The Lord's After that, an explanation of the Lord's Prayer was 
 added. In the preface to which, it is said, that it is 
 meet and requisite that the unlearned people should 
 make their prayers in their mother tongue ; whereby 
 they may be the more stirred to devotion, and to mind 
 the things they prayed for. Then followed an expo- 
 sition of the angel's salutation of the blessed Virgin : 
 in which, the whole history of the incarnation of 
 
 The Ave Christ was opened, and the Ave Maria explained ; 
 which hymn was chiefly to be used in commemora- 
 tion of Christ's incarnation, and likewise to set forth 
 the praises of the blessed Virgin. The next article 
 
 Free-wiii. is about free-will, which they say must be in man ; 
 otherwise all precepts and exhortations are to no pur- 
 pose. They defined it a power of the will, joined 
 with reason, whereby a reasonable creature, without 
 constraint, in things of reason, discerneth and willeth 
 good and evil ; but chooseth good by the assistance 
 of God's grace, and evil of itself. This was perfect 
 in the state of innocency ; but is much impaired by 
 Adam's fall, and now by an especial grace (offered 
 to all men, but enjoyed only by those who by their 
 free-will do accept the same), it was restored, that 
 with great watchfulness we may serve God accept- 
 ably. And as many places of Scripture shew, that 
 free-will is still in man, so there be many others 
 which shew that the grace of God is necessary, that
 
 PART I. BOOK III. 469 
 
 doth both prevent us and assist us, both to begin and 
 perform every good work ; therefore all men ought 
 most gratefully to receive and follow the motions of 
 the Holy Ghost, and to beg God's grace with earnest 
 devotion, and a stedfast faith ; which he w.ill grant 
 to all that so ask it, both because he is naturally good, 
 and he has promised to grant our desires : for he is 
 not the author of sin, nor the cause of man's damna- 
 tion : but this men draw on themselves, who, by vice, 
 have corrupted these natures which God made good. 
 Therefore all preachers were warned so to moderate 
 themselves in this high point, that they neither should 
 so preach the grace of God as to take away free-will, 
 nor to extol free-will as injury might be done to the 
 grace of God. 
 
 After this they handled justification. Having stated 
 the miseries of man by nature, and the guilt of sin, 
 with the unspeakable goodness of God in sending 
 Christ to redeem us by his death, who was the medi- 
 ator betwnen God and man, they next shew how men 
 are made partakers of the blessings which he hath 
 procured. Justification is the making of us righteous 
 before God, whereby we are reconciled to him, and 
 made heirs of eternal life ; that by his grace we may 
 walk in his ways, and be reputed just and righteous 
 in the day of judgment, and so attain everlasting hap- 
 piness. God is the chief cause of our justification : 
 yet man, prevented by grace, is by his free consent 
 and obedience a worker toward the attaining his own 
 justification. For though it is only procured through 
 the merits of Christ's death, yet every one must do 
 many things to attain a right and claim to that which, 
 though it was offered to all, yet was applied but to a 
 few. We must have a steadfast faith, true repentance, 
 real purposes of amendment ; committing sin no more, 
 but serving God all our lives ; which, if we fall from, 
 we must recover it by penance, fasting, alms, prayer, 
 with other good works, and a firm faith, going for- 
 ward in mortification and obedience to the laws of 
 God : it being certain, that men might fall away from 
 their justification. All curious reasonings about pre-
 
 470 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 destination were to be set apart ; there being no cer- 
 tainty to be had of our election, but by feeling the 
 motions of God's Spirit in us, by a good and virtuous 
 life, and persevering in it to the end. Therefore it 
 was to be taught, that as, on the one hand, we are 
 justified freely by the free grace of God ; so, on the 
 other hand, when it is said we are justified by faith, 
 it must be understood of such a faith, in which the 
 fear of God, repentance, hope, and charity, be in- 
 cluded ; all which must be joined together in our jus- 
 tification ; and though these be imperfect, yet God 
 accepteth of them freely through Christ. 
 Good Next, good works were explained, which were said 
 to be absolutely necessary to salvation : but these 
 were not only outward corporal works, but inward 
 spiritual works, as the love and fear of God, patience, 
 humility, and the like : nor were they superstitions 
 and men's inventions, such as those in which monks 
 and friars exercised themselves ; nor only moral works 
 done by the power of natural reason ; but the works 
 of charity, flowing from a pure heart, a good con- 
 science, and faith unfeigned, which were meritorious 
 towards the attaining of everlasting life. Other works 
 were of an inferior sort ; such as fasting, alms-deeds, 
 and other fruits of penance : and the merit of good 
 works is reconciled with the freedom of God's mercies 
 to us, since all our works are done by his grace ; so 
 that we have no cause of boasting, but must ascribe all 
 to the grace and goodness of God. The last chapter is 
 about prayers for souls departed, which is the same that 
 was formerly set out in the articles three years before. 
 AH ws All this was finished and set forth this year,* with 
 set fonh a p re f ac!j written by those of the clergy who had 
 been employed in it ; declaring with what care they 
 had examined the Scriptures, and the ancient doctors, 
 out of whom they had faithfully gathered this expo- 
 
 * This is a great mistake. The Necessary Erudition was not set forth or 
 published, before the year 1543, though certain questions concerning the sacra- 
 ments do appear to have been subjected to examination and discussion in the 
 year 1540 ; and as the Necessary Doctrine, &c. did not appear till three years 
 afterwards, so is also the author mistaken as to the Preface written by the 
 clergy ; no such preface, probably, was ever written, and therefore the King 
 could not have added another, as stated in the text. N. 
 
 iu a book ;
 
 PART I. BOOK HI. 47J 
 
 sition of the Christian faith. To this the King added And P nb. 
 another preface some years after; declaring that J^KiS-i 
 although he had cast out the darkness, by setting "*> 
 forth the Scriptures to his people, which had pro- 
 duced very good effects ; yet, as hypocrisy and super- 
 stition were purged away, so a spirit of presumption, 
 dissension, and carnal liberty was breaking in. For 
 repressing which he had, by the advice of his clergy, 
 set forth a declaration of the true knowledge of God, 
 for directing all men's belief and practice, which both 
 houses of parliament had seen, and liked very well. 
 
 So that he verily trusted it contained a true and 
 sufficient doctrine, for the attaining everlasting life. 
 Therefore, he required all his people to read and print 
 in their hearts, the doctrine of this book. He also 
 willed them to remember, that as there were some 
 teachers whose office it was to instruct the people, so 
 the rest ought to be taught, and to those it was not 
 necessary to read the Scriptures ; and that therefore 
 he had restrained it from a great many, esteeming it 
 sufficient for such to hear the doctrine of the Scrip- 
 tures taught by their preachers, which they should 
 lay up in their hearts, and practise in their lives. 
 Lastly, he desired all his subjects to pray to God to 
 grant them the spirit of humility, that they might read 
 and carry in their hearts the doctrine set forth in this 
 book. But though I have joined the account of this 
 preface to the extract here made of the Bishops' Book, 
 yet it was not prefixed to it till above two years after 
 the other was set out. 
 
 When this was published, both parties found cause it van- 
 in it both to be glad and sorrowful. The reformers s ^. cen " 
 rejoiced to see the doctrine of the gospel thus opened 
 more and more ; for they concluded that ignorance 
 and prejudices, being the chief supports of the errors 
 they complained of, the instructing people in Divine 
 matters, even though some particulars displeased 
 them, yet would awaken and work upon an inquisitive 
 humour that was then a stirring ; and they did not 
 doubt but their doctrines were so clear, that inquiries 
 into religion would do their business. They were
 
 472 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 also glad to see the morals of Christianity so well 
 cleared, which they hoped would dispose people to a 
 better taste of Divine matters ; since they had ob- 
 served that purity of soul does mightily prepare peo- 
 ple for sound opinions. Most of the superstitious 
 conceits and practices, which had for some ages em- 
 based the Christian faith, were now removed ; and 
 the great fundamental of Christianity, the covenant 
 between God and man in Christ, with the conditions 
 of it, was plainly and sincerely declared. There was 
 also another principle laid down, that was big with 
 a further reformation ; for every national church was 
 declared a complete body within itself, with power 
 to reform heresies, correct abuses, and do every thing 
 else that was necessary for keeping itself pure, or 
 governing its members. By which there was a fair 
 way opened for a full discussion of things afterwards, 
 when a fitter opportunity should be offered. But, on 
 the other hand, the popish party thought they had 
 gained much. The seven sacraments were again as- 
 serted, so that here much ground was recovered, and 
 they hoped more would follow. There were many 
 things laid down, to which they knew the reformers 
 would never consent. So that they, who were re- 
 solved to comply with every thing that the King had 
 a mind to, were pretty safe. But the others who fol- 
 lowed their persuasions and consciences, were brought 
 into many snares; and the popish party was confident 
 that their absolute compliance, which was joined with 
 all possible submission and flattery, would gain the 
 King at length : and the stiffness of others, who would 
 not give that deference to the King's j udgment and plea- 
 sure, would so alienate him from them, that he would 
 in the end abandon them ; for with the King's years 
 his uneasiness and peevishness grew mightily on him. 
 The dissolution of the King's marriage with Anne 
 of Cleves had so offended the princes of Germany, 
 that though upon the lady's account they made no 
 public noise of it, yet there was little more intercourse 
 between the King and them, especially Cromwell 
 falling, that had always carried on the correspondence
 
 PART I. BOOK III. 473 
 
 with them. As this intercourse went off, so a secret 
 treaty was set on foot between the King and the Empe- 
 ror ; yet it came not to a conclusion till two years after. 
 
 The other bishops, that were appointed to examine comc- 
 the rights and ceremonies of the church, drew up a mTslblok! 
 rubric and rationale of them, which I do not find was "j other 
 printed ; but a very authentical MS. of a great part EXMSS. 
 of it is extant. The alterations they made were in- J;^" 1 ' 
 considerable, and so slight that there was no need of 
 reprinting either the missals, breviaries, or other 
 offices ; for a few razures of other collects, in which 
 the Pope was prayed for, of Thomas Becket's office, 
 and the offices of other saints, whose days were by 
 the King's injunctions no more to be observed, with 
 some other deletions, made that the old books did 
 still serve. For whether it was that the change of 
 the mass-books and other public offices would have 
 been too great a charge to the nation ; or whether they 
 thought it would have possessed the people with an 
 opinion that the religion was altered, since the books 
 of the ancient worship were changed, which remaining 
 the same, they might be the more easily persuaded 
 that the religion was still the same ; there was no 
 new impression of the breviaries, missals, and other 
 rituals, during this King's reign. Yet in Queen 
 Mary's lime they took care that posterity should not 
 know how much was dashed out or changed. For 
 as all parishes were required to furnish themselves 
 with new complete books of the offices, so the dashed 
 books were every where brought in, and destroyed. 
 But it is likely that most of those scandalous hymns 
 and prayers which are addressed to saints in the same 
 style in which good Christians worship God, were 
 all struck out, because they were now condemned, 
 as appears from the extract of the other book set out 
 by the bishops. 
 
 But as they went on in these things, the popish A per* 
 party, whose counsels were laid very close, and ma- !e^L Pr< 
 naged with great dexterity, chiefly by the Duke of 
 Norfolk and Gardiner, pursued the ruin of those 
 whom they called heretics, knowing well that if the
 
 474 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 King was once set against them, and they provoked 
 against the government, he would be not only alie- 
 nated from them, but forced, for securing himself 
 against them, to gain the hearts of his other subjects 
 by a conjunction with the Emperor, and by his means 
 with the Pope. The first on whom this design took 
 or Barnes effect were Doctor Barnes, Mr. Gerrard, and Mr. 
 "' Jerome ; all priests who had been among the earliest 
 converts to Luther's doctrine. Barnes had, in a sermon 
 at Cambridge, during the Cardinal's greatness, reflect- 
 ed on the pomp and state in which he lived so plainly, 
 that every body understood of whom he meant. So 
 he was carried up to London ; but, by the interposi- 
 tion of Gardiner and Fox, who were his friends, he 
 was saved at that time, having abjured some opinions 
 that were objected to him. But other accusations 
 being afterwards brought against him, he was again 
 imprisoned, and it was believed that he would have 
 been burnt. But he made his escape and went to 
 Germany, where he gave himself to the study of the 
 Scriptures and divinity ; in which he became so con- 
 siderable, that not only the German divines, but their 
 princes, took great notice of him ; and the King of 
 Denmark sending over ambassadors to the King, he 
 was sent with them ; though perhaps Fox was ill in- 
 formed when he says he was one of them. Fox, bishop 
 of Hereford, being at Smalcald, in the year 1536, sent 
 him over to England, where he was received and 
 kindly entertained by Cromwell, and well used by the 
 King. And by his means the correspondence with the 
 Germans was chiefly kept up, for he was often sent 
 over to the courts of the several princes. But, in 
 particular, he had the misfortune to be first employed 
 in the project of the King's marriage with the Lady 
 Anne of Cleves ; for that giving the King so little 
 satisfaction, all who were the main promoters of it fell 
 in disgrace upon it. 
 
 But other things concurred to destroy Barnes. In 
 Lent, this year, Bonner had appointed him, and Ger- 
 rard, and Jerome, turns in the course of sermons at 
 St. Paul's Cross, they being in favour with Cromwell,
 
 PART I. BOOK III. 475 
 
 on whom Bonner depended wholly. But Gardiner 
 sent Bonner word that he intended himself to preach 
 on Sunday at St. Paul's Cross ; and in his sermon he 
 treated of justification, and other points, with many 
 reflections on the Lutherans. Barnes, when it came 
 to his turn, made use of the same text, but preached 
 contrary doctrine, not without some unhandsome re- 
 flections on Gardiner's person ; and he played on his 
 name, alluding to a gardener setting ill plants in a 
 garden. The other two preached the same doctrine, 
 but made no reflections on any person. Gardiner 
 seemed to bear it with a great appearance of neglect 
 and indifFerency : but his friends complained to the 
 King of the unsufferable insolences of these preachers, 
 who did not spare so great a prelate, especially he 
 being a privy-counsellor. So Barnes was questioned 
 for it, and commanded to go and give the Bishop of 
 Winchester satisfaction. And the Bishop carried the 
 matter with a great show of moderation, and acted 
 outwardly in it as became his function : though it 
 was believed the matter stuck deeper in his heart, 
 which the effects that followed seemed to demonstrate. 
 The King concerned himself in the matter, and did 
 argue with Barnes about the points in difference. But 
 whether he was truly convinced, or overcome rather 
 with the fear of the King than with the force of his 
 reasonings, he and his two friends, William Jerome 
 and Thomas Gerrard, signed a paper (which will be 
 found in the Collection) in which he acknowledged, collect. 
 ''That, having been brought before the King, f or Numb - <!2 - 
 things preached by, him, his Highness, being assisted 
 by some of the clergy, had so disputed with him, that 
 he was convinced of his rashness and oversight ; and 
 promised to abstain from such indiscretions for the 
 future, and to submit to any orders the King should 
 give for what was past." 
 
 The articles were, " First, That, though we are re- 
 deemed only by the death of Christ, in which we par- 
 ticipate by faith and baptism, yet, by not following 
 the commandments of Christ, we lose the benefits of 
 it, which we cannot recover but by penance.
 
 476 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 " Secondly, That God is not the author of sin, or 
 evil, which he only permits. 
 
 " Thirdly, That we ought to reconcile ourselves to 
 our neighbours, and forgive, before we can be forgiven. 
 
 " Fourthly, That good works done sincerely ac- 
 cording to the Scriptures, are profitable and helpful 
 to salvation. 
 
 " Fifthly, That laws made by Christian rulers ought 
 to be obeyed by their subjects for conscience sake ; 
 and that whosoever breaks them breaks God's com- 
 mandments." 
 
 It is not likely that Barnes could say any thing 
 directly contrary to these articles ; though, having 
 brought much of Luther's heat over with him, he might 
 have said some things that sounded ill upon these 
 heads. There were other points in difference between 
 Gardiner and him, about justification ; but it seems 
 the King thought these were of so subtle a nature, 
 that no article of faith was controverted in them ; and 
 therefore left the Bishop and him to agree these 
 among themselves, which they in a greaj; measure 
 did. So the King commanded Barnes and his friends 
 to preach at the Spittle in the Easter-week, and openly 
 to recant what they had formerly said. And Barnes 
 was in particular to ask the Bishop of Winchester's 
 pardon, which he did ; and Gardiner being twice 
 desired by him to give some sign that he forgave him, 
 did lift up his ringer. But in their sermons, it was 
 said, they justified in one part what they recanted in 
 another. Of which complaints being brought to the 
 King, he, without hearing them, sent them all to the 
 Tower; and Cromwell's interest at court was then 
 declining so fast, that either he could not protect 
 them, or else would not prejudice himself by inter- 
 posing in a matter which gave the King so great of- 
 whowere fence. They lay in the Tower till the parliament 
 h pa'"*' met, and then they were attainted of heresy, without 
 mvat ' ever being brought to make their answer. And it 
 seems for the extraordinariness of the thing, they re- 
 solved to mix attainders for things that were very dif- 
 ferent from one another. For four others were by the
 
 PART I. BOOK III. 477 
 
 same act attainted of treason, who were Gregory But- 
 tolpli, Adam Damplip, Edmund Brindholme, and 
 Clement Philpot, for assisting Reginald Pole, adher- 
 ing to the Bishop of Rome, denying the King to be 
 the supreme head on earth of the church of England, 
 and designing to surprise the town of Calais. One 
 Derby Gunnings was also attainted of treason for as- 
 sisting one Fitzgerald, a traitor, in Ireland. And after 
 all these, Barnes, Gerrard, and Jerome, are attainted 
 of heresy, being, as the act says, " Detestable heretics, 
 who had conspired together to set forth many heresies, 
 and, taking themselves to be men of learning, had 
 expounded the Scriptures, perverting them to their 
 heresies, the number of which was too long to be re- 
 peated ; that having formerly abjured, they were now 
 incorrigible heretics, and so were condemned to be 
 burnt, or suffer any other death, as should please the 
 King." And two days after Cromwell's death, being 
 the 30th of July, they were brought to Smithfield, 
 where, in their execution, there was as odd a mixture 
 as had been in their attainders : for Abel, Fetherstom, 
 and Powel, that were attainted by another act of the 
 same parliament for owning the Pope's supremacy, 
 and denying the King's, were 'carried to the place of 
 execution, and coupled with the other three. So that 
 one of each was put into a hurdle, and carried together, 
 which every body condemned as an extravagant af- 
 fectation of the show of impartial justice. 
 
 When they were brought to the stake, Barnes spake Their 
 thus to the people : " Since he was to be burnt as an ^ht 
 heretic, he would declare what opinions he held. So stake - 
 he enlarged on all the articles of the Creed, to shew 
 he believed them all. He expressed a particular ab- 
 horrence of an opinion which some anabaptists held, 
 that the blessed Virgin was as a saffron bag; (by which 
 indecent simile they meant that our Saviour took no 
 substance of her.) He explained his opinion of good 
 works; that they must of necessity be done, since 
 without them none should ever enter into the kingdom 
 of God. They were commanded of God, to shew 
 forth our profession by them : but he believed, as they
 
 478 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 were not pure nor perfect, so they did not avail to 
 our justification, nor merit any thing at the hands of 
 God ; for that was to be ascribed to the merits of the 
 death and passion of Christ. He professed great re- 
 verence to the blessed Virgin and saints : but said, he 
 saw no warrant in Scripture for praying to them : 
 nor was it certain whether they prayed for us or not ; 
 but if the saints did pray for those on earth, he trusted 
 within half an hour to be praying for them all." 
 Then he asked the Sheriff if he had any articles 
 against them, for which they were condemned: who 
 answered he had none. He next asked the people, 
 if they knew wherefore he died, or if they had been 
 led into any errors by his preaching; but none made 
 answer. Then he said, he heard he was condemned 
 to die by an act of parliament; and it seemed it was 
 for heresy, since they were to be burnt. He prayed 
 God to forgive those who had been the occasions of 
 it : and in particular, for the Bishop of Winchester; 
 if he had sought or procured his death, he prayed 
 God heartily to forgive him, as Christ forgave his 
 murderers. He prayed earnestly for the King and the 
 Prince; and exhorted the people to pray for them. 
 He said, some had reported thathehad been a preacher 
 of sedition and disobedience : but he declared to the 
 people, that they were bound, by the law of God, to 
 obey their King's laws with all humility, not only for 
 fear, but for conscience; adding, that if the King com- 
 manded any thing against God's law, though it were 
 in their power to resist him, yet they might not do it. 
 Then he desired the Sheriff to carry five requests from 
 him to the King. 
 
 "First, That since he had taken the abbey lands 
 into his hands, for which he did not blame him, (as 
 the Sheriff fancied he was about to do, and thereupon 
 stopped him,) but was glad that superstition was taken 
 away, and that the King was then a complete King, 
 obeyed by all his subjects ; which had been done 
 through the preaching of them, and such wretches as 
 they were ; yet he wished the King would bestow
 
 PART I. BOOK III. 479 
 
 these goods, or some of them, to the comfort of his 
 poor subjects who had great need of them. 
 
 " Secondly, That marriage might be had in greater 
 esteem, and that men might not upon light pretences 
 cast off their wives ; and those who were unmarried 
 might not be suffered to live in whoredom. 
 
 "Thirdly, That abominable swearers might be pu- 
 nished. 
 
 " Fourthly, That since the King had begun to set 
 forth Christian religion, he would go forward in it, 
 and make an end : for though he had done a great 
 deal, yet many things remained to be done, and he 
 wished that the King might not be deceived with 
 false teachers." 
 
 The fifth desire, he said, he had forgot. 
 
 Then he begged that they all would forgive him, if 
 at any time he had said or done evil unadvisedly : and 
 so turned about, and prepared himself for his death. 
 
 Jerome spake next, and declared his faith upon 
 every article of the Creed ; and said, that he believed 
 all that was in the Holy Scriptures. He also prayed 
 for the King, and the Prince : and concluded with a 
 very pathetical exhortation to mutual love and cha- 
 rity ; that they would propose to themselves the pat- 
 tern of Christ's wonderful love, through whom only 
 he hoped to be saved; and desired all their prayers 
 for himself and his brethren,, Then Gerrard declared 
 his faith, and said, that if, through ignorance or neg- 
 ligence, he had taught any error, he was sorry for 
 it; and asked God pardon, and them, whom he had 
 thereby offended. But he protested, that, according 
 to his learning and knowledge, he had always set forth 
 the honour of God, and the obedience of the King's 
 laws. Then they all prayed for the pardon of their 
 sins, and constancy and patience in their sufferings : 
 and so they embraced and kissed one another; and 
 then the executioners tied them to the stake, and set 
 fire to them. 
 
 Their death did rather encourage than dishearten 
 their followers ; who, seeing such an extraordinary 
 measure of patience in them, were the more confirmed
 
 480 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 in their resolutions of suffering for a good conscience, 
 and for His name, who did not forsake his servants 
 in these cruel agonies. One difference between their 
 sufferings, and the other three, who were hanged for 
 asserting the Pope's supremacy, was remarkable ; that, 
 though the others demeaned themselves toward them 
 with the most uncharitable and spiteful malice that 
 was possible, (so that their own historian says, that 
 their being carried with them to their execution was 
 bitterer to them than death itself;) yet they declared 
 their hearty forgiving of their enemies, and of Gar- 
 diner in particular, who was generally looked on as 
 the person that procured their death : which imputa- 
 tion stuck fast to him, though by a printed apology 
 he studied to clear himself of any other concernment 
 in it, than by giving his vote for the act of their 
 attainder. 
 
 Bonner-s Now Bonner began to shew his nature. Hitherto 
 uelty ' he had acted another part : for, being most extremely 
 desirous of preferment, he had so complied with Crom- 
 well and Cranmer, that they had great confidence in 
 him; and he being a blustering and forward man, 
 they thought he might do the Reformation good ser- 
 vice, and therefore he was advanced so high by their 
 means. But as soon as ever Cromwell fell, the very 
 next day he shewed his ingratitude, and how nimbly 
 he turned with the wind. For Grafton the printer, 
 (whom Cromwell favoured much for his printing the 
 Bible, and who was by that means very familiar with 
 Bonner,) meeting him, said, he was very sorry for the 
 news he had heard of Cromwell's being sent to the 
 Tower. Bonner answered, it had been good he had 
 been dispatched long ago. So the other shrunk away, 
 perceiving the change that was in him. And some 
 days after that, Grafton being brought before the coun- 
 cil, for some verses which he was believed to have 
 printed in commendation of Cromwell, Bonner in- 
 formed the council of what Grafton had said to him 
 upon Cromwell's being arrested, to make the other 
 charge seem the more probable. Yet Audley the chan- 
 cellor was Grafton's friend, and brought him off. But
 
 PART I. BOOK III. 481 
 
 Bonner gave the city of London quickly cause to ap- 
 prehend the utmost severities from him : for many 
 were indicted by his procurement. Yet the King was 
 loath to give too many instances of cruelty, in this 
 declination of his age; and therefore, by an order 
 from the Star Chamber, they were discharged. But, 
 upon what motives I cannot fancy, he picked out an 
 instance, which, if the deeper stains of his following 
 life had not dashed all particular spots, had been suf- 
 ficient to have blemished him for ever. There was 
 one Richard Mekins, a boy not above fifteen years of 
 age, and both illiterate and very ignorant, who had 
 said somewhat against the corporal presence of Christ's 
 body in the sacrament, and in commendation of Doctor 
 Barnes. Upon this he was indicted. The words were 
 proved by two witnesses, and a day was appointed 
 for the juries to bring in their verdict. The day be- 
 ing come, the grand jury was called for ; then the 
 foreman said, they had found nothing. This put Bon- 
 ner in a fury, and he charged them with perjury : but 
 they said they could find nothing, for the witnesses 
 did not agree. The one deposed, that he had said 
 the sacrament was nothing but a ceremony; and the 
 other, that it was nothing but a signification. But 
 Bonner still persisted, and told them, that he had said 
 that Barnes died holy. But they could not find these 
 words to be against the statute. Upon which Bonner 
 cursed, and was in a great rage, and caused them to 
 go aside again : so they, being overawed, returned 
 and found the indictment. Then sat the jury upon 
 life and death, who found him guilty: and he was 
 adjudged to be burnt. But when he was brought to 
 the stake, he was taught to speak much good of Bon- 
 ner, and to condemn all heretics, and Barnes in par- 
 ticular, saying he had learned heresy of him. Thus 
 the boy was made to die with a lie in his mouth. For 
 Barnes held not that opinion of the sacrament's being 
 only a ceremony or signification, but was a zealous 
 Lutheran : which appeared very signally on many oc- 
 casions, chiefly in Lambert's case. Three others were 
 also burnt at Salisbury, upon the same statute, one or 
 VOL. i. 2 i
 
 482 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 whom was a priest. Two also were burnt at Lincoln 
 in one day : besides, a great number of persons were 
 brought in trouble, and kept long in prison upon the 
 statute of the six Articles. But more blood I find 
 not spilt at this time. 
 
 Newbi. In the end of this year were the new bishopricks 
 f' founded. For in December was the abbey of West- 
 minster converted into a bishop's see, and a deanery 
 and twelve prebends, with the officers for a cathedral 
 and a choir. And in the year following, on the 4th 
 of August, the King erected out of the monastery of 
 St. Werburg at Chester, a bishoprick, a deanery, and 
 six prebends. In September, out of the monastery of 
 St. Peters at Gloucester, the King endowed a bishop- 
 rick, a deanery, and six prebendaries. And in the same 
 month, the abbey of Peterborough was converted to a 
 bishop's seat, a deanery, and six prebendaries. And, 
 to lay this whole matter together, two years after this, 
 the abbey of Osney in Oxford, was converted into a 
 bishoprick, a deanery, and six prebends. And the 
 monastery of St. Austin's in Bristol was changed into 
 the same use. There are many other grants also in 
 the rolls, both to the bishops, and deans, and chap- 
 ters, of these sees. But these foundations will be 
 better understood by their charters : of which, since 
 the bishoprick of Westminster is least known, because 
 long ago suppressed, I have chosen to set down the 
 charter of that see, which the reader will find in the 
 collect. Collection: and they running all in the same style, 
 one may serve for the rest. The substance of the 
 preamble is, " That the King, being moved by the 
 grace of God, and intending nothing more than that 
 
 O O O 
 
 true religion, and the sincere worship of God, should 
 not be abolished, but rather restored to the primitive 
 sincerity, and reformed from those abuses with which 
 the profession and the lives of the monks had so long 
 and so lamentably corrupted religion; had, as far as 
 human infirmity could foresee, designed that the word 
 of God might be sincerely preached, the sacraments 
 purely administered, good order kept up, the youth 
 veil instructed, and old people relieved, with other
 
 PART I. BOOK III. 483 
 
 public alms-deeds: and therefore the King erected 
 and endowed these sees." The day after these seve- 
 ral grants, there followed a writ to the Archbishop, 
 containing, that the King had appointed such a person 
 to be bishop of that see, requiring him to consecrate 
 and ordain him in due form. Then the priories at 
 most cathedrals, such as Canterbury, Winchester, 
 Duresme, Worcester, Carlisle, Rochester, and Ely, 
 were also converted into deaneries, and colleges of 
 prebends, with many other officers, and an allowance 
 of charity to be yearly distributed to the poor. 
 
 But all this came far short of what the King had 
 once intended, so Cranmer's design was quite disap- c 
 pointed. For he had projected, that in every cathe- 
 dral there should be provision made for readers of 
 divinity, and of Greek, and Hebrew; and a great 
 number of students to be both exercised in the daily 
 worship of God, and trained up in study and devo- 
 tion, whom the bishop might transplant out of this 
 nursery, into all the parts of his diocese. And thus 
 every bishop should have had a college of clergymen 
 under his eye, to be preferred according to their merit. 
 He saw great disorders among some prebendaries, 
 and, in a long letter, the original of which I have seen, 
 he expressed his regret that these endowments went 
 in such a channel. Yet now his power was not great 
 at court, and the other party run down all his motions. 
 But those who observed things narrowly, judged, that 
 a good mixture of prebendaries, and of young clerks, 
 bred up about cathedrals, under the bishop's eye, and 
 the conduct and direction of the dean and prebenda- 
 ries, had been one of the greatest blessings that could 
 have befallen the church : which not being sufficiently 
 provided of houses for the forming of the minds and 
 manners of those who are to be received into orders, 
 has since felt the ill effects of it very sensibly. Against 
 this, Cranmer had projected a noble remedy, had not the 
 popish party then at court, who very well apprehended 
 the advantages such nurseries would have given to the 
 Reformation, borne down this proposition, and turned 
 all the King's bounty and foundations another way. 
 2 i 2
 
 484 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 These These new foundations gave some credit to the 
 ti^c'en- King's proceedings, and made the suppression of 
 sured< chantries and chapels go on more smoothly. But 
 those of the Roman party beyond sea censured this, 
 as they had done all the rest of the King's actings. 
 They said it was but a slight restitution of a small 
 part of the goods, of which he had robbed the church. 
 And they complained of the King's encroaching on 
 the spiritual jurisdiction of the church, by dismem- 
 bering dioceses, and removing churches from one ju- 
 risdiction to another. To this it was answered, that 
 the necessities which their practices put on the King, 
 both to fortify his coast and dominions, to send money 
 beyond sea for keeping the war at a distance from 
 himself, and to secure his quiet at home, by easy 
 grants of these lands, made him that he could not do 
 all that he intended. And for the division of dioceses, 
 many things were brought from the Roman law to 
 shew, that the division of the ecclesiastical jurisdic- 
 tion, whether of patriarchs, primates, metropolitans, 
 or bishops, was regulated by the emperors; of which 
 the ancient councils always approved. And in Eng- 
 land, when the bishoprick of Lincoln being judged of 
 too great an extent, the bishoprick of Ely was taken 
 out of it, it was done only by the King, with the con- 
 sent of his clergy and nobles. Pope Nicolas indeed 
 officiously intruded himself into that matter, by send- 
 ing afterwards a confirmation of that which was done. 
 But that was one of the greatest arts of the papacy, 
 to offer confirmation of things that were done without 
 the popes. For these being easily received by them, 
 that thought of nothing more than to give the better 
 countenance to their own acts, the popes afterwards 
 founded a right on these confirmations. The very 
 receiving of them was pretended to be an acknow- 
 ledgment of a title in the pope. And the matter was 
 so artificially managed, that princes were noosed into 
 some approbation of such a pretence before they were 
 aware of it. And then the authority of the canon law 
 prevailing, maxims were laid down in it, by which the 
 most tacit and inconsiderate acts of princes were con
 
 PART I. BOOK III. 485 
 
 strued to such senses, as still advanced the greatness 
 of the papal pretensions. 
 
 This business of the new foundations being thus 
 settled, the matters of the church were now put in a 
 method : and the Bishops' Book was the standard of 
 religion. So that whatsoever was not agreeable to 
 that was judged heretical, whether it leaned to the one 
 side, or the other. But it seems that the King by 
 some secret order had chained up the party, which 
 was going on in the execution of the statute of the 
 six Articles, that they should not proceed capitally. 
 
 Thus matters went this year; and with this the The state 
 series of the history of the Reformation made by this ^^ 
 King ends: for it was now digested and formed into this me - 
 a body. What followed was not in a thread, but now 
 and then some remarkable things were done ; some- 
 times in favour of the one, and sometimes of the other 
 party. For after Cromwell fell, the King did not go 
 on so steadily in any thing as he had done formerly. 
 Cromwell had an ascendant over him, which after 
 Cardinal Wolsey's fall none besides himself ever had. 
 They knew how to manage the King's uneasy and 
 imperious humour: but now none had such a power 
 over him. The Duke of Norfolk was rich and brave, 
 and made his court well, but had not so great a 
 genius ; so that the King did rather trust and fear than 
 esteem him. Gardiner was only a tool, and being of 
 an abject spirit, was employed, but not at all reve- 
 renced by the King. Cranmer retained always his 
 candour and simplicity, and was a great prelate : but 
 neither a good courtier, nor a statesman. And the 
 King esteemed him more for his virtues, than for his 
 dexterity and cunning in business : so that now the 
 King was left wholly to himself; and being extreme 
 humorous and impatient, there were more errors com- 
 mitted in the last years of his government, than had 
 been for his whole reign before. France forsook 
 him; Scotland made war upon him, which might have 
 been fatal to him, if their King had not died in the 
 beginning of it, leaving an infant Princess, but a few 
 days old, behind him. And though the Emperor made
 
 486 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 peace with him, yet it was but a hollow agreement. 
 Of all which I shall give but slender hints in the rest 
 of this book ; and rather open some few particulars, 
 than pursue a continued narration, since the matter 
 of my work fails me. 
 
 The BMe In May, the thirty-third year of the King's reign, 
 Mt^iodi a new impression of the Bible was finished, and the 
 churches. King; by proclamation, " required all curates and pa- 
 
 Collect. . , F J r ,, j . , -11 
 
 nshioners ot every town and parish, to provide them- 
 selves a copy of it before All-hallowtide, under the 
 penalty of forfeiting forty shillings a month, after that, 
 till they had one. He declared that he set it forth, to 
 the end that his people might, by reading it, per- 
 ceive the power, wisdom, and goodness of God : ob- 
 serve his commandments, obey the laws, and their 
 prince, and live in godly charity among themselves. 
 But that the King did not thereby intend that his 
 subjects should presume to expound, or take argu- 
 ments from Scripture, nor disturb Divine service, by 
 reading it when mass was celebrating; but should read 
 it meekly, humbly, and reverently, for their instruc- 
 tion, edification, and amendment." There was also 
 care taken so to regulate the prices of the Bibles, 
 that there should be no exacting on the subjects in 
 the sale of them. And Bonner, seeing the King's 
 mind was set on this, ordered six of these great Bi- 
 bles to be set up in several places of St. Paul's ; that 
 all persons who could read, might at all times have 
 collect, free access to them. And upon the pillars to which 
 . 25. these Bibles were chained, an exhortation was set 
 up, " admonishing all that came thither to read ; 
 that they should lay aside vain-glory, hypocrisy, and 
 all other corrupt affections, and bring with them dis- 
 cretion, good intentions, charity, reverence, and a 
 quiet behaviour, for the edification of their own souls ; 
 but not to draw multitudes about them, nor to make 
 expositions of what they read, nor to read aloud, nor 
 make noise in time of Divine service, nor enter into 
 disputes concerning it." But people came generally 
 to hear the Scriptures read, and such as could read, 
 and had clear voices, came often thither with great
 
 PART I. BOOK III. 487 
 
 crowds about them. And many set their children to 
 school, that they might carry them with them to St. 
 Paul's, and hear them read the Scriptures. Nor 
 could the people be hindered from entering into dis- 
 putes about some places ; for who could hear the 
 words of the institution of the sacrament, " Drink ye 
 all of it," or St. Paul's discourse against worship in 
 an unknown tongue, and not from thence be led to con- 
 sider that the people were deprived of the cup, which 
 by Christ's express command was to be drunk by all ; 
 and that they were kept in a worship, to which the 
 unlearned could not say Amen, since they understood 
 not what was said, either in the collects or hymns? 
 So the King had many complaints brought him, of 
 the abuses that were said to have arisen from the li- 
 berty given the people to read the Scriptures. Upon 
 which, Bonner, (no doubt having obtained the King's 
 leave,) set up a hew advertisement, in which he com- 
 plained of these abuses, in the reading the Bible; for 
 which he threatened the people, that he would remove 
 these Bibles out of the church, if they continued as 
 they did to abuse so high a favour. Yet these com- 
 plaints produced no further severity at this time. 
 But by them the popish party afterwards obtained 
 what they desired. This summer .the King turned 1541. 
 the monastery of Burton-upon-Trent into a collegiate B rit! q " 
 church for a dean and four prebends ; and the mo- %** 
 nastery of Thornton in Lincolnshire into another for A mie 
 a dean and four prebends. In this year Cranmer took church 
 it into consideration, to what excess the tables of the e ^. 
 bishops had risen, whereby those revenues, that kee p' u s- 
 ought to have been applied to better purposes, were 
 wasted on great entertainment; which, though they 
 passed under the decent name of hospitality, yet were 
 in themselves both too high and expensive, and proved 
 great hinderances to churchmen's charity in more 
 necessary and profitable instances. He therefore set 
 out an order for regulating that expense ; by which 
 an archbishop's table was not to exceed six dishes of 
 meat, and four of banquet ;* a bishop's, five dishes of Beiiwi 
 meat, and three of banquet ; a dean's or archdeacon's
 
 488 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 table was not to exceed four dishes, and two of ban- 
 quet; and other clergymen might be served only with 
 two dishes. But he that gives us the account of this, 
 laments that this regulation took no effect ; and com- 
 
 O ' 
 
 plains, that the people, expecting generally such 
 splendid housekeeping from the dignified clergy, and 
 not considering how short their revenues are of what 
 they were anciently ; they, out of a weak compliance 
 with the multitude, have disabled themselves from 
 keeping hospitality, as our Saviour ordered it, not for 
 the rich, but the poor; not to mention the other ill 
 effects that follow too sumptuous a table. 
 The King In the end of this year, the tragical fall of the 
 Y^rk'. Queen put a stop to all other proceedings. The King 
 had invited his nephew, the King of Scotland, to meet 
 him at York, who was resolved to come thither. The 
 King intended to gain upon him all he could, and to 
 engage him to follow the copy he had set him, in ex- 
 tirpating the Pope's supremacy, and suppressing ab- 
 beys, and to establish a firm agreement in all other 
 things. The clergy of Scotland feared the ill effects 
 of that interview, especially their King being a prince 
 of most extraordinary parts, who, had he not ble- 
 mished his government with being so extremely ad- 
 dicted to his pleasures, was the greatest prince that 
 nation had for several ages. He was a great patron 
 of learning and executor of justice : he used in person 
 and incognito to go over his kingdom, and see how 
 justice was every where done. He had no very good 
 opinion of the religious orders, and had encouraged 
 Buchanan to write a severe and witty libel against 
 the Franciscan friars. So that they were very appre- 
 hensive that he might have been wrought on by his 
 uncle; therefore, they used all their endeavours to 
 divert his journey. But the French King, that had 
 him fast engaged to his interests, falling then off from 
 the King, wrought more on him. So, instead of meet- 
 ing the King at York, where magnificent preparations 
 were made for his reception, he sent his excuse ; which 
 provoked his uncle, and gave occasion to a breach that 
 followed not long after,
 
 PART I. BOOK III. 489 
 
 But here I shall crave the reader's leave to give a An & 
 full representation of the state of religion at this time oflhl 
 in Scotland, and of the footing the Reformation had ^Md. 
 got there. Its neighbourhood to England, and the 
 union of these kingdoms, first in the same religion, 
 and since under the same princes, together with the 
 intercourse that was both in this and the next reign 
 between these nations, seem not only to justify this di- 
 gression, but rather to challenge it as a part of the 
 history, without which it should be defective. And 
 it may be the rather expected from one, who had his 
 birth and education in that kingdom. 
 
 The correspondence between that crown and The begin- 
 France was the cause that what learning they had " e "Sn g 
 came from Paris, where our kings generally kept some **" 
 scholars, and from that great nursery they were 
 brought over, and set in the universities of Scotland 
 to propagate learning there. From the year 1412, 
 in which Wardlaw, archbishop of St. Andrew's, first 
 founded that university, learning had made such a 
 progress, that more colleges were soon after founded 
 in that city. Universities were also founded both at 
 Glasgow and Aberdeen, which have since furnished 
 that nation with many eminent scholars in all profes- 
 sions. But at the time that learning came into Scot- And of the 
 land, the knowledge of true religion also followed it: u^ rma 
 and, in that same Archbishop's time, one John Resby, 
 an Englishman, a follower of Wickliffe's opinions, 
 was charged with heresy. Forty articles were ob- 
 jected to him, of which two are only mentioned. The Archbishop 
 one was, that "the Pope is not Christ's vicar:" the Spotsw<XHl - 
 other was, that " he was not to be esteemed a pope, if 
 he was a man of wicked life." For maintaining these, 
 he was burnt anno 1407. Twenty-four years after 
 that, one Paul Craw came out of Germany, and, being 
 a Bohemian and an Hussite, was infusing his doc- i*iey. 
 trine into some at St. Andrew's; which being dis- 
 covered, he was judged an obstinate heretic, and burnt 
 there, anno 1432. And, to encourage people to pro- 
 secute such persons, Fogo, who had discovered him, 
 was rewarded with the abbey of Melross soon after.
 
 490 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 It does not appear that those doctrines, which were 
 called Lollardies in England, had gained many fol- 
 lowers in Scotland, till near the end of that century. 
 But then it was found that they were much spread 
 over the western parts ; which being in the neighbour- 
 hood of England, those who were persecuted there 
 might perhaps fly into Scotland, and spread their 
 spotswood. doctrine in that kingdom. Several persons of quality 
 were then charged with these articles, and brought to 
 the Archbishop of Glasgow's courts. But they an- 
 swered him with such confidence, that he thought fit 
 to discharge them, with an admonition to take heed 
 of new doctrines, and to content themselves with the 
 faith of the church. 
 
 The clergy At this time the clergy in Scotland were both very 
 ^WM* ignorant and dissolute in their manners. The secular 
 and cruel. c l e rgy minded nothing but their tithes, and did either 
 hire some friars to preach, or some poor priests to sing 
 masses to them at their churches. The abbots had 
 possessed themselves of the best seats, and the great- 
 est wealth of the nation; and, by a profuse supersti- 
 tion, almost the one half of the kingdom fell into the 
 hands of the churchmen. The bishops looked more 
 after the affairs of the state, than the concerns of the 
 church; and were resolved to maintain by their cruelty, 
 what their predecessors had acquired by fraud and 
 impostures. And, as Lesley himself confesses, there 
 was no pains taken to instruct the people in the prin- 
 ciples of religion; nor were the children at all cate- 
 chised, but left in ignorance ; and the ill lives of the 
 clergy, who were both covetous and lewd, disposed 
 the people to favour those that preached for a refor- 
 patrick mation. The first that suifered in this age was Pa- 
 !ings] s trick Hamilton, a person of very noble blood : his fa- 
 ther was brother to the Earl of Arran, and his mother 
 sister to the Duke of Albany : so nearly was he on 
 both sides related to the King. He was provided of 
 the Abbey of Fern in his youth ; and being designed 
 for greater preferments, he was sent to travel : but, 
 as he went through Germany, he contracted a friend- 
 ship with Luther, Melancthon, and others of their
 
 PART I. BOOK III. 491 
 
 persuasion, by whose means he was instructed in the 
 points about which they differed from the church of 
 Rome. He returned to Scotland, that he might com- 
 municate that knowledge to others, with which him- 
 self was so happily enlightened. And, little consider- 
 ing either the hinderance of his further preferment, or 
 the other dangers that might lie in his way, he spared 
 not to lay open the corruptions of the Roman church, 
 and to shew the errors that had crept into the Chris- 
 tian religion. He was a man both of* great learning, 
 and of a sweet and charming conversation, and came 
 to be followed and esteemed by all sorts of people. 
 
 The clergy being enraged at this, invited him to 
 St. Andrew's, that there might be conferences held 
 with him about those points which he condemned. 
 And one Friar Campbel, prior of the Dominicans, 
 who had the reputation of a learned man, was ap- 
 pointed to treat with him. They had many confer- 
 ences together, and the Prior seemed to be convinced 
 in most points; and acknowledged there were many 
 things in the church that required reformation. But 
 all this while he was betraying him; so that, when 
 the Abbot looked for no such thing, he was in the 
 night-time made prisoner, and carried to the Arch- 
 bishop's castle. There several articles were objected 
 to him, about original sin, free-will, justification, good 
 works, priestly absolution, auricular confession, pur- 
 gatory, and the Pope's being antichrist. Some of 
 these he positively adhered to, the others he thought 
 were disputable points; yet, he said, he would not 
 condemn them, except he saw better reasons than any 
 he had yet heard. The matter was referred to twelve 
 divines of the university, of whom Friar Campbel was 
 one: and, within a day or two they censured all his 
 tenets as heretical, and contrary to the faith of the 
 church. On the 1st of March judgment was given 
 upon him by Beaton, archbishop of St. Andrew's, 
 with whom sat the Archbishop of Glasgow, the 
 Bishop of Dunl^eld, Brichen, and Dunblain, five ab- 
 bots, and many of the inferior clergy. They also 
 made the whole university, old and young, sign it
 
 492 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 He was declared an obstinate heretic, and delivered 
 to the secular power. 
 
 The King had at that time gone a pilgrimage to 
 Ross ; and the clergy, fearing lest nearness of blood, 
 with the intercessions which might be made for him, 
 should snatch this prey out of their hands, proceeded 
 that same day to his execution : so in the afternoon he 
 was brought to the stake before St. Salvator's college. 
 He stripped himself of his garments, and gave them 
 to his man ; and said, " he had no more to leave him, 
 but the example of his death : that he prayed him to 
 keep in mind. For though it was bitter and painful 
 in man's judgment, yet it was the entrance to ever- 
 lasting life, which none could inherit that denied Christ 
 before such a congregation." Then was he tied to a 
 stake, and a great deal of fuel was heaped about him, 
 which he seemed not to fear; but continued lifting up 
 his eyes toheaven,and recommending his soul to God. 
 When the train of powder was kindled, it did not take 
 hold of the fuel, but only scorched his hand and the 
 side of his face. This occasioned some delay, till more 
 powder was brought from the castle ; during which 
 time the friars were veiy troublesome, and called to him 
 to turn, and pray to our Lady, and say, Salve Regina. 
 None was more officious than Friar Campbel. The 
 Abbot wished him often to let him alone, and give him 
 no more trouble ; but the Friar continuing to impor- 
 tune him, he said to him, "Wicked man, thou knowest 
 that I am not a heretic, and that it is the truth of God 
 for which I now surfer. So much thou didst confess 
 to me in private ; and thereupon I appeal thee to an- 
 swer before the judgment-seat of Christ." Bythistime 
 more powder was brought, and the fire was kindled. 
 He cried out with a loud voice, " How long, O Lord, 
 shall darkness oppress this realm? how long wilt 
 thou suffer this tyranny of men?" and died repeating 
 these words, " Lord Jesus, receive my spirit." The 
 patience and constancy he expressed in his sufferings 
 made the spectators generally conclude that he was a 
 true martyr of Christ ; in which they were the more 
 confirmed, by Friar Campbel's falling into great de-
 
 PART I. BOOK III. 493 
 
 spair soon after, who from that turned frantic, and 
 died within a year. 
 
 On this I have insisted the more fully, because it was 
 indeed the beginning of the Reformation in Scotland ; 
 and raised there a humour of inquiring into points of 
 religion, which did always prove fatal to the church 
 of Rome. In the university itself many were wrought 
 on, and particularly one Seaton, a Dominican friar, e fe ^' s 
 who was the King's confessor. He being appointed favours the 
 to preach the next Lent at St. Andrew's, insisted much a^. 
 on these points; " That the law of God was the only 
 rule of righteousness ; that sin was only committed 
 when God's law was violated ; that no man could sa- 
 tisfy for sin ; and that pardon was to be obtained by 
 unfeigned repentance and true faith." But he never 
 mentioned purgatory, pilgrimages, merits, nor prayers 
 to saints, which used to be the subjects on which the 
 friars insisted most on these occasions. Being gone 
 from St. Andrew's, he heard that another friar of his 
 own order had refuted these doctrines : so he returned, 
 and confirmed them in another sermon ; in which he 
 also made some reflections on bishops that were not 
 teachers, calling them dumb dogs. For this he was 
 carried before the Archbishop ; but he defended him- 
 self, saying, that he had only, in St. Paul's words, said 
 " a bishop should teach ;" and, in Esaias's words, 
 that such as did not teach were dumb doffs : but 
 
 o * 
 
 having said this in the general, he did not apply it to 
 any bishop in particular. The Archbishop was nettled 
 at this answer, yet resolved to let him alone till he 
 should be brought into disgrace with the King. And 
 that was soon done ; for the King being a licentious 
 prince, and Friar Seaton having often reproved him 
 boldly for it, he grew weary of him. The clergy per- 
 ceiving this, were resolved to fall upon him. So he 
 withdrew to Berwick; but wrote to the King, that if 
 he would hear him make his defence, he would return 
 aud justify all that he had taught. He taxed the 
 cruelty of the clergy, and desired the King would 
 restrain their tyranny, and consider that he was 
 obliged to protect his subjects from their severity and
 
 494 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 malice ; but receiving no satisfactory answer, he lived 
 
 in England, where he was entertained by the Duke of 
 
 Forrest's Suffolk, as his chaplain. Not long after this one For- 
 
 sufferings. , r ,. . P 
 
 rest, a simple Benedictine monk, was accused for 
 having said that Patrick Hamilton had died a martyr; 
 yet since there was no sufficient proof to convict him, 
 a friar, one Walter Lainge, was sent to confess him ; 
 to whom, in confession, he acknowledged he thought 
 Hamilton was a good man, and that the articles for 
 which he was condemned might be defended. This 
 being revealed by the friar, was taken for good evi- 
 dence : so the poor man was condemned to be burnt as 
 a heretic. As he was led out to his execution, he said, 
 " Fie on falsehood ; fie on friars, revealers of confes- 
 sion ; let never man trust them after me ; they arede- 
 spisers of God, and deceivers of men." When they were 
 considering in what place to burn him, a simple man 
 that attended the Archbishop advised to burn him in 
 some low cellar; for, said he, "the smoke of Mr. Pa- 
 trick Hamilton has infected all those on whom it blew." 
 A further Soon after this, Abbot Hamilton's brother and sister 
 t^inT" were brought into the bishops' courts ; but the King, 
 Scotland. w ^ o favoured this brother, persuaded him to absent 
 himself. His sister, and six others, being brought be- 
 fore the Bishop of Ross, who was deputed by the Arch- 
 bishop to proceed against them, the King himself 
 dealt with the woman to abjure, which she and the 
 other six did. Two others were more resolute : the 
 one was Normand Gowrlay, who was charged with 
 denying the Pope's authority in Scotland, and saying 
 there was no purgatory; the other was David Straiton. 
 He was charged with the same opinions. They also 
 alleged, that he had denied that tithes were due to 
 churchmen ; and that when the vicar came to take the 
 tithe out of some fish-boats that belonged to him, 
 he alleged the tithe was to be taken where the stock 
 grew : and therefore ordered the tenth fish to be cast 
 into the sea, and bade the vicar to seek them there. 
 They were both judged obstinate heretics, and burnt 
 at one stake, the 27th of August, 1534. Upon this 
 persecution, some others, who were cited to appear,
 
 or- 
 ation. 
 
 PART I. BOOK III. 495 
 
 fled into England. Those were, Alexander Alesse, 
 John Fife, John Mackbee, and one Mackdowgall. The 
 first of these was received by Cromwell into his family, 
 and grew into great favour with King Henry, and was 
 commonly called his scholar, of whom see what was 
 said, page 346. But, after Cromwell's death, he took 
 Fife with him, and they went into Saxony, and 
 were both professors in Leipsic. Mackbee was at first 
 entertained by Shaxton, bishop of Salisbury ; but he 
 went afterwards into Denmark, where he was known 
 by the name of Doctor Maccabeus, and was chaplain 
 to King Christian II. 
 
 But all these violent proceedings were not effectual 
 enough to quench that light which was then shining ^ 
 there. Many, by searching the Scriptures, came to mati 
 the knowledge of the truth ; and the noise of what 
 was then doing in England awakened others to make 
 further inquiries into matters of religion. Pope Cle- 
 ment VII. apprehending that King Henry might pre- 
 vail on his nephew to follow his example, wrote let- Lesley. 
 ters full of earnest exhortations to him to continue in 
 the catholic faith. Upon which King James called 
 a parliament; and there, in the presence of the Pope's 
 nuncio, declared his zeal for that faith and the apos- 
 tolic see. The parliament also concurred with him in 
 it ; and made acts against heretics, and for maintaining 
 the Pope's authority. That same Pope did afterwards 
 send to desire him to assist him in making war against 
 the King of England ; for he was resolved to divide 
 that kingdom among those who would assist him in 
 driving out King Henry. But the firm peace at that 
 time between the King of England and the French 
 King kept him quiet from any trouble, which other- 
 wise the King of Scotland might have given him. 
 Yet King Henry sent the Bishop of St. David's, with 
 the Duke of Norfolk's brother, Lord William Howard, 
 to him so unexpectedly, that they came to him at 
 Stirling before he had heard of their being sent. The Buchanan. 
 Bishop brought with him some of the books that had 
 been wrote for the justifying King Henry's proceed- 
 ing; and desired that the King would impartially exa-
 
 496 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 mine them. But he put them into the hands of some 
 about him that were addicted to the interests of Rome, 
 who, without ever reading them, told him they were 
 full of pestilent doctrine and heresy. 
 
 The secret business they came for was, to persuade 
 that King to concur with his uncle, and to agree to 
 an interview between them ; and they offered him, in 
 their master's name, the Lady Mary in marriage, and 
 Regni An- that he should be made Duke of York, and lord lieu- 
 r'r. Vl<a tenant of all England: but the clergy diverted him 
 from it, and persuaded him rather to go on in his de- 
 sign of a match with France. And their counsels 
 
 o 
 
 did so prevail, that he resolved to go in person, and 
 fetch a Queen from thence. On the 1st of January, 
 1537, he was married to Magdalen, daughter to 
 Francis I. ; but she being then gone far in a con- 
 sumption, died soon after he had brought her home, 
 on the 28th of May. She was much lamented by 
 all persons, the clergy only excepted ; for she had 
 been bred in the Queen of Navarre's court, and so 
 they apprehended she might incline the King to a 
 reformation. But he had seen another lady in France, 
 Mary of Guise, whom he then liked so well, that 
 after his Queen's death, he sent Cardinal Beaton into 
 France to treat for a match with her. This gave the 
 clergy as much joy as the former marriage had raised 
 fear ; for no family in Christendom was more devoted 
 to the interests of the papacy than that was. And now 
 the King, though he had freer thoughts himself, yet 
 was so engaged to the pretended old religion, that he 
 became a violent persecutor of all who differed from it. 
 The King The King grew very expensive ; he indulged him- 
 ^ided by self much in his pleasures ; he built four noble pa- 
 the clergy. j aceS} w hich, considering that kingdom and that age, 
 were very extraordinary buildings ; he had also many 
 natural children, all which things concurred to make 
 him very desirous of money. There were two diffe- 
 rent parties in the court. The nobility, on the one 
 hand, represented to him the great wealth that the 
 abbot s had gathered ; and that if he would do as his 
 uncle had done, he would thereby raise his revenue
 
 PART I. BOOK III. 497 
 
 to the triple of what it was, and provide plentifully 
 for his children. The clergy, on the other hand, as- 
 sured him, that if he would set up a strict inquisi- 
 tion of heretics, he would discover so many men of 
 estates that were guilty, that by their forfeitures he 
 mi^ht raise above a hundred thousand crowns a-year : 
 and for his children, the easiest way of providing for 
 them was to give them good abbeys and priories. 
 This, they thought, would engage both the King and 
 his sons to, maintain their rights more steadily, if their 
 own interests were interwoven with them. They also 
 persuaded the King, that, if he maintained the esta- 
 blished religion, it would give him a good interest 
 in England, and make him be set up by foreign 
 princes as the head of the league, which the Pope 
 and the Emperor were then projecting against King 
 Henry. These counsels being seconded by his 
 Queen, who was a wise and good lady, but wonder- 
 fully zealous for the papacy, did so prevail with him, 
 that, as he made four of his children abbots or priors, 
 so he gave way to the persecuting humour of his 
 priests ; and gave Sir James Hamilton (a natural bro- 
 ther of the Earl of Arran's), in whom the clergy put 
 much confidence, a commission to proceed against 
 all that were suspected of heresy. In the year 1 539, 
 many were cited to appear before a meeting of the 
 bishops at Edinburgh. Of those, nine abjured, many 
 were banished, and five were burnt. Forrester, a 
 gentleman ; Simpson, a secular priest ; Killore and 
 Beverao-e, two friars ; and Forrest, a canon regular : 
 
 O * * * O ' 
 
 were burnt on the castle-hill of Edinburgh. The last 
 of these was a zealous constant preacher, which was 
 a rare thing in those days. His diocesan, the Bishop 
 of Dunkeld, sent for him, and rebuked him for it; 
 and bid him, " when he found a good epistle, or good 
 gospel, that made for the liberties of the holy church, 
 to preach on that, and let the rest alone." The good 
 man answered, " he had read both the Old Testa- 
 ment and the New, and never found an ill epistle 
 or ill gospel in any of them." The Bishop replied, 
 that " he thanked God he had lived well these many 
 VOL. i. 2 K
 
 498 BURNETS REFORMATION. 
 
 years, and never knew either the Old or New : he 
 contented himself with his portuise and his pontifi- 
 cal ; and if the other would trouble himself with 
 these fantasies, he would repent it when he could not 
 help it." Forrest said, " he was resolved to do what 
 he conceived was his duty, whatever might be the 
 danger of it." By this it appears, how deliberately 
 the clergy at that time delivered themselves up to 
 ignorance and superstition. 
 
 TWO other j n the same year, Russel, a Franciscan friar, and 
 lartyrs. ^^ Kennedy, a young man, of eighteen years of age, 
 were brought before the Archbishop of Glasgow. 
 That Bishop was a learned and moderate man, and 
 was much against these cruel proceedings ; he was 
 also in great credit with the King, having been his 
 tutor : yet he was forced, by the threatenings of his 
 brethren, to go on with the persecution. So those 
 two, Russel and Kennedy, being brought before him, 
 Kennedy, that was young and fearful, had resolved 
 to submit and abjure ; but being brought to the bar, 
 and encouraged by Russel's discourses, he felt so high 
 a measure of courage and joy in his heart, that he 
 fell down on his knees, and broke forth in these 
 words : " Wonderful, O God, is thy love and mercy 
 towards me, a miserable wretch ! for now, when I 
 would have denied thee, and thy Son my Saviour, 
 thou hast by thine own hand pulled me back from 
 the bottom of hell, and given me most heavenly com- 
 fort, which hath removed the ungodly fear that before 
 oppressed my mind. Now I defy death ; do what 
 you please ; I thank God I am ready." There fol- 
 lowed a long dispute between the friar and the di- 
 vines that sat with the Archbishop; but when he 
 perceived they would hear nothing, and answered 
 him only with revilings and jeers, he gave it over, 
 and concluded in these words : " This is your hour 
 and power of darkness : now you sit as judges, and 
 we stand wrongfully condemned ; but the day com- 
 eth which will shew our innocence, and you shall 
 see your own blindness to your everlasting confu- 
 sion : go on, and fulfil the measure of your iniquity."
 
 PART I. BOOK III. 499 
 
 This put the Archbishop in great confusion, so that 
 he said to those about him, that these rigorous exe- 
 cutions did hurt the cause of the church more than 
 could be well thought of; and he declared that his opi- 
 nion was, that their lives should be spared, and some 
 other course taken with them. But those that sat 
 with him said, if he took a course different from what 
 the other prelates had taken, he was not the church's 
 friend. This, with other threatening expressions, 
 prevailed so far on his fears, that he gave judgment. 
 So they were burnt ; but at their death they expressed 
 so much constancy and joy, that the people were 
 much wrought on by their behaviour. Russel encou- 
 raged Kennedy, his partner in sufferings, in these 
 words : " Fear not, brother, for he is more mighty 
 that is in us, than he that is in the world ; the pain 
 which we shall suffer is short and light, but our joy 
 and consolation shall never have an end. Death 
 cannot destroy us ; for it is destroyed already by him, 
 for whose sake we suffer ; therefore let us strive to 
 enter in by the same strait way, which our Saviour 
 hath taken before us." With the blood of such mar- 
 tyrs was the field of that church sown, which did 
 quickly rise up in a plentiful harvest. 
 
 Among those that were at this time in hazard, 
 George Buchanan was one. The clergy were re- 
 solved to be revenged on him for the sharpness of 
 the poems he had written against them. And the 
 King had so absolutely left all men to their mercy, 
 that he had died with the rest, if he had not made 
 his escape out of prison : then he went beyond sea, 
 and lived twenty years in that exile, and was forced 
 to teach a school most part of the time ; yet the great- 
 ness of his mind was not oppressed with that mean 
 employment. In his writings there appears, not only 
 all the beauty and graces of the Latin tongue, but a 
 vigour of mind and quickness of thought far beyond 
 Bembo, or the other Italians, who at that time af- 
 fected to revive the purity of the Roman style. It 
 was but a feeble imitation of Tully in them ; but his 
 style is so natural and nervous, and his reflections or 
 2 K 2
 
 500 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 things are so solid (besides his immortal poems, in 
 which he shews how well he could imitate all the 
 Roman poets in their several ways of writing, that 
 he who compares them will be often tempted to pre- 
 fer the copy to the original), that he is justly reck- 
 oned the greatest and best of our modern authors. 
 This was the state of affairs at this time in Scotland. 
 And so I shall leave this digression ; on which, if I 
 have stayed too long, my kindness to my native coun- 
 try must be my excuse : and now I return to the af- 
 fairs of England. 
 
 The King went his progress with his fair and be- 
 loved Queen ; and when he came to York he issued 
 out a proclamation, " that all who had been aggrieved 
 for want of justice, by any whom he had formerly em- 
 ployed, should come to him and his council for re- 
 dress." This was done to cast all past miscarriages 
 on Cromwell, and to put the people in hopes of better 
 times. But, upon his return to London, he met with 
 a new affliction. He was so much taken with his 
 Queen, that on All-Saints' day, when he received the 
 sacrament, he openly gave God thanks for the good 
 life he led, and trusted still to lead with her; and de- 
 sired his ghostly father to join with him in the same 
 thanksgiving .to God. But this joy lasted not long; 
 for the next day the Archbishop of Canterbury came 
 to him, and gave him a doleful account of the Queen's 
 ill life, as it had been brought him by one John Las- 
 sels : who, when the King was in his progress, had 
 told him, that his sister, who had been an old servant 
 of the Duke of Norfolk's, under whose care the Queen 
 was brought up, said to him, that the Queen vwas 
 lewd, and that one Francis Deirham had enjoyed her 
 often, as also one Mannock; with other foul circum- 
 stances not fit to be related. The Archbishop com- 
 municated it to the Lord Chancellor, and the other 
 privy-counsellors that were at London. They agreed 
 that the Archbishop should open it to the King; but 
 he, not knowing how to do it, in discourse, set it 
 down in writing, and put it in the King's hands, 
 d. \\fh en ^g King read it, he seemed much perplexed ;
 
 PART I. BOOK III. 501 
 
 but loved the Queen so tenderly, that he looked on it as 
 a forgery. And now the Archbishop was in extreme 
 danger; for if full evidence had not been brought, it 
 had been certainly turned on him to his ruin. The 
 King imparted it to some other counsellors, and told 
 them that he could not believe it ; yet he would try 
 it out, but with all possible secrecy. So the Lord 
 Privy-Seal was sent to London to examine Lassels, 
 who stood to what he had informed. Then he sent 
 that same lord into Sussex, where Lassels' sister lived, 
 to try if she would justify what her brother had re- 
 ported in her name; and she owning it, he ordered 
 Deirham and Mannock to be arrested upon some other 
 pretences ; but they being examined, not only con 
 fessed what was informed, but revealed some other 
 circumstances, that shewed the Queen had laid aside 
 all sense of modesty, as well as the fear of a disco- 
 very; three several women having been witnesses to 
 these her lewd practices. The report of that struck 
 the King into a most profound pensiveness, and he 
 burst out into tears, and lamented his misfortune. 
 The Archbishop of Canterbury and some other coun- 
 sellors were sent to examine the Queen. She at first 
 denied every thing; but when she perceived it was An 
 already known, she confessed all, and set it under her 
 hand. There were also evident presumptions that she other 
 had intended to continue that course of life : for as she 
 has got Deirham into her service, so she had brought 
 one of the women, who had been formerly privy to 
 their familiarities, to serve about her bedchamber. 
 One Culpepper was also charged upon vehement 
 suspicion; for, when the King was at Lincoln, by 
 the Lady Rochford's means, he was brought into the 
 Queen's chamber at eleven o'clock in the night, and 
 stayed there till four the next morning. The Queen 
 also gave him a gold chain and a rich cap. He, being 
 examined, confessed the crime; for which both Deir- 
 ham and he suffered. Others were also indicted of mis- 
 prision of treason, and condemned to perpetual im- 
 prisonment. But this occasioned a new parliament 
 to be summoned.
 
 502 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 1542. On the 16th of January the parliament met; to 
 
 HUM* which the Bishops of Westminster, Chester, Peter- 
 
 caiied. borough, and Gloucester, had their writs. The Lord 
 
 Cromwell also had his writ, though I do not find by 
 
 any record that he was restored in blood.* On the 
 
 28th of January the Lord Chancellor moved the 
 
 House of Lords, to consider the case the Kino- was in 
 
 o 
 
 by the Queen's ill carriage; and, that there might be 
 no ground of suspicion or complaint, he proposed 
 that some of their number should be sent to examine 
 the Queen ; whereupon the Archbishop of Canterbury, 
 the Duke of Suffolk, the Earl of Southampton, and 
 the Bishop of Westminster, were sent to her. How 
 much she confessed to them is not very clear, neither 
 by the journal, nor the act of parliament, which only 
 says that she confessed, without mentioning the par- 
 ticulars. Upon this, the processes of those that had 
 been formerly attainted being also brought as an evi- 
 dence, the act passed in both houses. In it they pe- 
 titioned the King, 
 
 The act First, Not to be troubled at the matter, since that 
 
 Queen, might be a mean to shorten his life. 
 
 " Secondly, To pardon every thing that had been 
 spoken against the Queen. 
 
 " Thirdly, That the Queen and her complices might 
 be attainted of high-treason, for her taking Deirham 
 into her service ; and another woman into her cham- 
 ber, who had known their former ill life; by which it 
 appeared what she intended to do : and then admit- 
 ting Culpepper to be so long with her in a vile place, 
 so many hours in the night. Therefore, it is desired, 
 that she and they, with the bawd, the Lady Rochford, 
 may be attainted of treason ; and that the Queen and 
 the Lady Rochford should suffer the pains of death. 
 
 " Fourthly, That the King would not trouble him- 
 self to give his assent to this act in his own person, 
 
 * He had his writ, not by virtue of any restoration in blood, but of his crea- 
 tion by patent : neither, the day his father was created earl, as Mr. Fulmau 
 hath it, following Dr. Fuller ; but five months after his father's death, viz. the 
 18th of December, in the 32d of Henry VIII. when he was created baron of 
 this realm, by the title only of Lord Cromwell, but not distinguished by any 
 place. Vide Sir W. Dugdale's Hittory of the Baronage.
 
 PART I. BOOK III. 503 
 
 but grant it by his letters-patents under his hand and 
 and great seal. 
 
 "Fifthly, That the Duchess Dowager of Norfolk, 
 Countess of Bridgewater, the Lord William Howard 
 and his Lady, and four other men, and five women, 
 who were already attainted by the course of common 
 law, (except the Duchess of Norfolk, and the Coun- 
 tess of Bridgewater,) that knew the Queen's vicious 
 life, and had concealed it, should be all attainted of 
 misprision of treason." 
 
 It was also enacted, "That whosoever knew any 
 thing of the incontinence of the Queen, (for the time 
 being,) should reveal it with all possible speed, under 
 the pains of treason. And that, if the King or his suc- 
 cessors should intend to marry any woman, whom they 
 took to be a pure and clean maid ; if she, not being so, 
 did not declare the same to the King, it should be high 
 treason : and all who knew it, and did not reveal it, 
 were guilty of misprision of treason. And if the Queen, 
 or the Prince's wife, should procure any, by messages 
 or words, to know her carnally; or any other, by mes- 
 sages or words, should solicit them ; they, their coun- 
 sellors and abettors, are to be adjudged high traitors." 
 
 This act being assented to by the King's letters- censures 
 patents, the Queen and the Lady Rochford were be- JJ^ t 
 headed on Tower-Hill, the 12th of February. The 
 Queen confessed the miscarriages of her former life, 
 before the King married her : but stood absolutely to 
 her denial, as to any thing after that ; and protested 
 to Dr. White, afterwards Bishop of Winchester, that 
 she took God and his angels to be her witnesses, upon 
 the salvation of her soul, that she was guiltless of 
 that act of defiling her Sovereign's bed, for which 
 she was condemned. Yet the lasciviousness of her 
 former life, made people incline to believe any ill 
 thing that could be reported of her. But for the 
 Lady Rochford, every body observed God's justice 
 on her; who had the chief hand, both in Queen Anne 
 Boleyn's, and her own husband's death : and it now 
 appearing so evidently what sort of woman she was, 
 it tended much to raise their reputations again, in
 
 504 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 whose fall her spite and other artifices had so great 
 a hand. She had been a lady of the bedchamber to 
 the last four queens : but now it was found how un- 
 worthy she was of that trust. 
 
 It was thought extreme cruelty to be so severe to 
 the Queen's kindred, for not discovering her former 
 ill life: since the making such a discovery had been 
 inconsistent with the rules of justice or decency. The 
 old Duchess of Norfolk, being her grandmother, had 
 bred her of a child : and it was said, for her to have 
 gone and told the King that she was a whore, when 
 he intended to marry her, as it was an unheard-of 
 thing, so the not doing of it could not have drawn so 
 severe a punishment from any but a prince of that 
 King's temper. But the King pardoned her, and most 
 of the rest; though some continued in prison after 
 the rest were discharged. 
 
 But for the other part of this act, obliging a woman 
 to reveal her own former incontinence, if the King 
 intended to marry her, (which by a mistake the Lord 
 Herbert says was passed in another act, taking it from 
 Hall, and not looking into the record,) it was thought 
 a piece of grievous tyranny ; since if a King, espe- 
 cially one of so imperious a temper as this was, should 
 design such an honour to any of his subjects, who had 
 failed in their former life, they must either defame 
 themselves, by publishing so disgraceful a secret, or 
 run the hazard of being afterwards attainted of trea- 
 son. Upon this, those that took an indiscreet liberty 
 to rally that sex unjustly and severely, said, the King 
 could induce none that was reputed a maid to marry 
 him: so that not so much choice, as necessity, put 
 him on marrying a widow about two years after this. 
 But this part of the act was afterwards repealed in 
 the first parliament of King Edward the Sixth. 
 Act .bout There passed another act in this parliament, that 
 ho*p>uis. mac [ e wa y f or t i ie dissolution of colleges, hospitals, 
 and other foundations of that nature. The courtiers 
 had been practising with the presidents and governors 
 of some of these, to make resignations of them to the 
 King; which were conceived in the same style that
 
 PART I. BOOK III. 505 
 
 most of the surrenders of 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 of most 
 of them, that no president, or any other fellows, could 
 make any such deed, without the consent of all the 
 fellows in 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 observa- 
 tion of them. 
 
 In the convocation that sat at that time, which, as Therapists 
 was formerly observed, Fuller mistakes for the con- sup p g re" 
 vocation in the thirty-first year of this King; the 
 translation of the Bible was brought under examina- 
 tion, and many of the bishops were appointed to pe- 
 ruse it : for it seems complaints were brought against 
 it. It was certainly the greatest eye-sore of the popish 
 party; and that which they knew would most effec- 
 tually beat down all their projects. But there was no 
 opposing it directly, for the King was fully resolved 
 to go through with it. Therefore the way they took 
 was, once to load the translation then set out with as 
 many faults as they could ; and so to get it first con- 
 demned, and then to promise a new one: in the 
 making and publishing of which it would be easy to 
 breed many delays. But Gardiner had another sin- 
 gular conceit: he fancied there were many words in 
 the New Testament of such majesty, that they were 
 not to be translated ; but must stand in the English 
 Bible as they were in the Latin. A hundred of these 
 he put into writing, which was read in convocation. 
 His design in this was visible: that if a translation 
 must be made, it should be so daubed all through 
 with Latin words, that the people should not under- 
 stand it much the better for its being in English. A 
 taste of this the reader may have by the first twenty 
 of them : ecdeaia, pcenitcutia, pontiftx, andlla, con- 
 trifus, olocausta,justilia,justi/icatio, idiota, dementa, 
 baptizare, martyr, adorare, saiidalium, simplex, te- 
 trarcha, sacramentum, simulacrum, gloria. The de- 
 sign he had of keeping some of these, particularly the
 
 506 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 last save one, is plain enough; that the people might 
 not discover that visible opposition, which was be- 
 tween the Scriptures and the Roman church, in the 
 matter of images. This could not be better palliated, 
 than by disguising these places with words that the 
 people understood not. How this was received, 
 Fuller has not told us. But it seems Cranmer found, 
 that the bishops were resolved either to condemn the 
 translation of the Bible, or to proceed so slowly in it, 
 that it should come to nothing: therefore he moved 
 the King to refer the perusing of it to the two universi- 
 ties. The bishops took this very ill, when Cranmer 
 intimated it to them in the King's name ; and objected, 
 that the learning of the universities was much decayed 
 of late, and that the two houses of convocation were 
 the more proper judges of that, where the learning of 
 the land was chiefly gathered together. But the 
 Archbishop said he would stick close to the King's 
 pleasure, and that the universities should examine it. 
 Upon which, all the bishops of his province, except 
 Ely and St. David's, protested against it; and soon 
 after the convocation was dissolved. 
 Bonner-s Not long after this, I find Bonner made some in- 
 uonT junctions for his clergy; which have a strain in them, 
 so far 'different from the rest of his life, that it is more 
 probable they were drawn by another pen, and im- 
 posed on Bonner by an order from the King. They 
 were set out in the thirty-fourth year of the King's 
 reign; but the time of the year is not expressed, 
 collect. The reader will find them in the Collection at their 
 61 full length. The substance of them is : 
 
 " First, That all should observe the King's injunc- 
 tions. 
 
 " Secondly, That every clergyman should read and 
 study a chapter of the Bible every day, with the ex- 
 position of the gloss, or some approved doctor; which 
 having once studied, they should retain it in their me- 
 mories, and be ready to give an account of it to him, 
 or any whom he should appoint. 
 
 " Thirdly, That they should study the book set forth 
 by the bishops, of the Institution of a Christian Man.
 
 PART I. BOOK III. 507 
 
 "Fourthly, That such as did not reside in their 
 benefices should bring their curates to him, or his 
 officers, to be tried. 
 
 " Fifthly, That they should often exhort their pa- 
 rishioners to make no private contracts of marriage. 
 
 " Sixthly, That they should marry none who were 
 married before, till they were sufficiently assured that 
 the former husband or wife were dead. 
 
 " Seventhly, That they should instruct the children 
 of their several parishes; and teach them to read 
 English, that they might know how to believe, and 
 pray, and live, according to the will of God. 
 
 " Eighthly, That they should reconcile all that were 
 in enmity, and in that be a good example to others. 
 
 " Ninthly, That none should receive the commu- 
 nion who did not confess to their own curates. 
 
 " Tenth ly, That none should be suffered to go to 
 taverns, or alehouses, and use unlawful games on 
 Sundays, or holy-days, in time of- Divine service. 
 
 " Eleventhly, That twice every quarter they should 
 declare the seven deadly sins, and the Ten Com- 
 mandments. 
 
 "Twelfthly, That no priest should go but in his habit. 
 
 " Thirteenthly, That no priest should be admitted 
 to say mass, without shewing his letters of orders to 
 the bishop or his officers. 
 
 " Fourteenthly, That they should instruct the peo- 
 ple to beware of blasphemy, or swearing by any part 
 of Christ's body; and to abstain from scolding and 
 slandering, adultery, fornication, gluttony, or drunk- 
 enness; and that they should present at the next 
 visitation those who were guilty of these sins. 
 
 " Fifteenthly, That no priest should use unlawful 
 games, or go to alehouses or taverns, but upon an 
 urgent necessity. t 
 
 " Sixteenthly, No plays or interludes to be acted in 
 the churches. 
 
 " Seventeenthly, That there should be no sermons 
 preached, that had been made within these two hun- 
 dred or three hundred years. But when they preached, 
 they should explain the whole gospel and epistle for
 
 508 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 the day, according to the mind of some good doctor, 
 allowed by the church of England ; and chiefly to in- 
 sist on those places that might stir up the people to 
 good works and to prayer; and to explain the use of 
 the ceremonies of the church. That there should be 
 no railing in sermons ; but the preacher should calmly 
 and discreetly set forth the excellencies of virtue, and 
 the vileness of sin; and should also explain the 
 prayers for that day, that so the people might pray 
 with one heart ; and should teach them the use of the 
 sacraments, particularly of the mass ; but should avoid 
 the reciting of fables, or stories, for which no good 
 writer could be vouched ; and that when the sermon 
 was ended, the preacher should in a few words resume 
 the substance of it. 
 
 " Eighteenthly, That none be suffered to preach 
 under the degree of a bishop, who had not obtained 
 a license, either from the King, or him their ordinary." 
 
 These injunctions, especially when they are consi- 
 dered at their full length, will give great light into 
 *^ e temper of men at that time ; and particularly in- 
 form us of the design and method of preaching, as it 
 was then set forward. Concerning which the reader 
 will not be ill pleased to receive some information. 
 In the time of popery there had been few sermons but 
 in Lent : for their discourses on the holy-days, were 
 rather panegyrics on the saints, or the vain magnify- 
 ing of some of their relics, which were laid up in such 
 or such places. In Lent there was a more solemn 
 and serious way of preaching ; and the friars, who 
 chiefly maintained their credit by their performances 
 at that time, used all the force of their skill and in- 
 dustry to raise the people into heats, by passionate 
 and affecting discourses. Yet these generally tended 
 to raise the value of some of the laws of the church, 
 such as abstinence at that time, confession, with other 
 corporal severities ; or some of the little devices, that 
 both inflamed a blind devotion, and drew money ; 
 such as indulgences, pilgrimages, or the enriching 
 the shrines and relics of the saints. But there was 
 not that pains taken to inform the people of the hate-
 
 PART I. BOOK III. 509 
 
 fulness of vice, and the excellency of holiness, or of 
 the wonderful love of Christ, by which men might 
 be engaged to acknowledge and obey him. And the 
 design of their sermons was rather to raise a present 
 heat, which they knew afterwards how to manage, 
 than to work a real reformation on their hearers. 
 They had also intermixed with all Divine truths so 
 many fables, that they were become very extrava- 
 gant ; and that alloy had so embased the whole, that 
 there was great need of a good discerning, to deliver 
 people from those prejudices, which these mixtures 
 brought upon the whole Christian doctrine. There- 
 fore the reformers studied, with all possible care, to 
 instruct the people in the fundamentals of Christia- 
 nity, with which they had been so little acquainted. 
 From hence it came, that the people ran after those 
 new preachers with wonderful zeal. It is true, there 
 seems to be very foul and indiscreet reflections on the 
 other party, in some of their sermons : but if any 
 have applied themselves much to observe what sort 
 of men the friars and the rest of the p9pish clergy 
 were at that time, they shall find great excuses for 
 those heats. And as our Saviour laid open the hy- 
 pocrisies and impostures of the scribes and pharisees, 
 in a style which such corruptions extorted, so there 
 was great cause given to treat them very roughly : 
 though it is not to be denied, but those preachers 
 had some mixtures of their own resentments, for the 
 cruelties and ill usage which they received from them. 
 But now that the Reformation made a greater pro- 
 gress, much pains was taken to send eminent preachers 
 over the nation ; not confining them to particular 
 charges, but sending them with the King's license up 
 and down to many places. Many of these licenses 
 are enrolled, and it is likely that many were granted 
 that were not so carefully preserved. But provision 
 was also made for people's daily instruction : and 
 because, in that ignorant time, there could not be 
 found a sufficient number of good preachers, and, in 
 a time of so much juggling, they would not trust the 
 instruction of the people to every one ; therefore none
 
 510 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 was to preach except he had gotten a particular li- 
 cense for it from the King, or his diocesan. But to 
 qualify this, a book of Homilies was printed ; in 
 which the gospels and epistles of all the Sundays and 
 holy-days of the year were set down, with a homily 
 to every one of these, which is a plain and practical 
 paraphrase on those parcels of Scripture. To these 
 are added many serious exhortations, and some short 
 explanations of the most obvious difficulties, that shew 
 the compiler of them was a man both of good judg- 
 ment and learning. To these were also added, ser- 
 mons on several occasions ; as, for weddings, christen- 
 ings, and funerals ; and these were to be read to the 
 people by such as were not licensed to preach. But 
 those who were licensed to preach, being often ac- 
 cused for their sermons, and complaints being made 
 to the King by hot men on both sides, they came ge- 
 nerally to write and read their sermons. From thence 
 the reading of sermons grew into a practice in this 
 church : in which, if there was not that heat and fire 
 which the friars had shewed in their declamations, 
 so that the passions of the hearers were not so much 
 wrought on by it ; yet it has produced the greatest 
 treasure of weighty, grave, and solid sermons, that 
 ever the church of God had, which does in a great 
 measure compensate that seeming flatness to vulgar 
 ears that is in the delivery of them. 
 ys and The injunctions take notice of another thing, which 
 the sincerity of an historian obliges me to give an 
 account of, though it was indeed the greatest blemish 
 of that time : these were the stage-plays and inter- 
 ludes that were then generally acted, and often in 
 churches. They were representations of the corrup- 
 tions of the monks, and some other feats of the popish 
 clergy. The poems were ill contrived, and worse 
 expressed ; if there lies not some hidden wit in these 
 ballads (for verses they were not) which at this dis- 
 tance is lost : but from the representing the immora- 
 lities and disorders of the clergy, they proceeded to 
 act the pageantry of their worship. This took with 
 the people much ; who, being provoked by the mis- 
 
 interludes 
 then
 
 PART I. BOOK III. 511 
 
 carriages and cruelties of some of the clergy, were 
 not ill pleased to see them and their religion exposed 
 to public scorn. The clergy complained much of 
 this, and said it was an introduction to atheism and 
 all sort of irreligion : for if once they began to mock 
 sacred things, no stop could be put to that petulant 
 humour. The grave and learned sort of reformers 
 disliked and condemned these courses, as not suitable 
 to the genius of true religion ; but the political men 
 of that party made great use of them, encouraging 
 them all they could ; for they said, contempt being 
 the most operative and lasting affection of the mind, 
 nothing would more effectually drive out many of 
 those abuses, which yet remained, than to expose them 
 to the contempt and scorn of the people. 
 
 In the end of this year a war broke out between war 
 England and Scotland, set on by the instigation ofS 
 the French King, who was also beginning to be an s** 18 
 uneasy neighbour to those of the English pale about 
 Calais. The King set out a long declaration, in which 
 he very largely laid out the pretensions the crown of 
 England had to an homage from the Kings of Scot- 
 land. In this I am no fit person to interpose ; the 
 matter being disputed by the learned men of both 
 nations. The Scots said it was only for some lands 
 their kings had in England that they did homage, as 
 the kings of England did for Normandy and Guienne 
 to the kings of France : but the English writers cited 
 many records, to shew that the homage was done for 
 the crown of Scotland. To this the Scots replied, 
 that in the invasion of Edward the First he had car- 
 ried away all their ancient records ; so these being 
 lost, they could only appeal to the chronicles that lay 
 up and down the nation in their monasteries : that 
 all these affirmed the contrary, and that they were a 
 free kingdom ; till Edward the First, taking advan- 
 tage of their disputes about the succession to their 
 crown, upon the death of Alexander the Third, got 
 some of the competitors to lay down their pretensions 
 at his feet, and to promise homage : that this was also 
 performed by John Balliol, whom he preferred to the
 
 512 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 crown of Scotland ; but by these means he lost the 
 hearts of the nation ; and it was said, that his act of 
 homage could not give away the rights of a free crown 
 and people. And they said, that whatsoever submis- 
 sions had been made since that time, they were only 
 extorted by force, as the effects of victory and con- 
 quest, but gave no good right nor just title. To all 
 this the English writers answered, that these submis- 
 sions, by their records (which were the solemn instru- 
 ments of a nation that ought never to be called in 
 question), were sometimes freely made ; and not by 
 their kings only, but by the consent of their states. 
 In this uncertainty I must leave it with the reader. 
 
 But, after the King had opened this pretension, 
 " he complained of the disorders committed by the 
 Scots ; of the unkind returns he had met with from 
 their King for his care of him while he was an infant; 
 taking no advantage of the confusions in which that 
 kingdom then was ; but, on the contrary, protecting 
 the crown and quieting the kingdom. But that of 
 late many depredations and acts of hostility had been 
 committed by the Scots : and though some treaties 
 had been begun, they were managed with so much 
 shuffling and inconstancy, that the King must now try 
 it by a war." Yet he concluded his declaration am- 
 biguously, neither keeping up nor laying down his 
 pretensions to that crown ; but expressing them in 
 such a manner, that which way soever the success of 
 the war turned, he might be bound up to nothing by 
 what he now declared. 
 
 But whatsoever justice might be in the King's title 
 r quarrel, his sword was much the sharper. He or- 
 dered the Duke of Norfolk to march into Scotland, 
 about the end of October, with an army of twenty 
 thousand men. Hall tells us, they burnt many towns, 
 and names them. But these were only single houses, 
 or little villages ; and the best town he names is Kelso, 
 which is a little open market-town. Soon after they 
 returned back into England ; whether, after they had 
 spoiled the neighbouring country, they felt the incon- 
 veniences of the season of the year, or whether, hear-
 
 PART 1. BOOK III. 513 
 
 ing the Scots were gathering, they had no mind to 
 Q-O too far, I cannot determine ; for the writers of both 
 nations disagree as to the reason of their speedy re- 
 turn But any that knows the country they spoiled, 
 and where they stopped, must conclude, that either 
 they had secret orders only to make an inroad and de- 
 stroy some places that lay along the river of Tweed, 
 and upon the border, which done, without driving the 
 breach too far, to retire back ; or they must have had 
 apprehensions of the Scottish armies coming to lie in 
 these moors and hills of Sautrey, or Lammer-Moor, 
 which they were to pass if they had gone farther : and 
 there were about ten thousand men brought thither, 
 but he that commanded them was much blamed for 
 doing nothing; his excuse was that his number did 
 not equal theirs. About the end of November, the 
 Lord Maxwell brought an army of fifteen thousand 
 men together, with a train of artillery of twenty-four 
 pieces of ordnance. And since the Duke of Norfolk 
 had retired towards Berwick, they resolved to enter 
 England, on the western side, by Sol way Frith. The 
 King went thither himself, but fatally left the army, 
 and yet was not many miles from them when they 
 were defeated. The truth of it was, that King, who 
 had hitherto raised the greatest expectation, was about 
 that time disturbed in his fancy, thinking that he saw 
 apparitions, particularly of one, whom it was said he 
 had unjustly put to death ; so that he could not rest, 
 nor be at quiet. But as his leaving the army was ill 
 advised, so his giving a commission to Oliver Sinclair, 
 that was his minion, to command in chief, did ex- 
 tremely disgust the nobility.* They loved not to be 
 commanded by any but their King; and were already 
 weary of the insolence of that favourite, who, being 
 but of ordinary birth, was despised by them, so that 
 they were beginning to separate. And when they were The 
 upon that occasion, in great disorder, a small body ^ 
 of English, not above five hundred horse, appeared : 
 but they, apprehending it was the Duke of Norfolk's 
 
 * Oliver Sinclair was the more obnoxious to the nobility, as being reputed 
 a creature of the Bishops, who at that time had too much power over the King's 
 mind. N. 
 
 VOL- I. 2 L
 
 514 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 army, refused to fight, and fell in confusion. Many 
 prisoners were taken, the chief of whom were, the 
 Earls of Glencairn .and Cassillis, the Lords Maxwell, 
 Sommervell, Oliphant, Gray, and Oliver Sinclair ; and 
 about two hundred gentlemen and eight hundred sol- 
 diers ; and all the ordnance and baggage was also 
 taken. The news of this being brought to the King 
 of Scotland increased his former disorders ; and some 
 few days after he died, leaving an infant daughter, 
 but newly born, to succeed him. 
 
 Many pn- The lords that were taken prisoners were brought 
 t'rie t London, where, after they had been charged in 
 council how unkindly they had used the King, they 
 were put in the keeping of some of the greatest qua- 
 lity about court. But the Earl of Cassillis had the 
 best luck of them all: for being sent to Lambeth, 
 where he was a prisoner upon his parole, Cranmer 
 studied to free him from the darkness and fetters of 
 popery ; in which he was so successful, that the other 
 was afterwards a great promoter of the Reformation 
 in Scotland. The Scots had been hitherto possessed 
 with most extraordinary prejudices against the changes 
 that had been made in England ; which concurring 
 with the ancient animosities between the two nations, 
 had raised a wonderful ill opinion of the King's pro- 
 ceedings. And though the Bishop of St. David's 
 (Barlow), had been sent into Scotland with the book 
 of the " Institution of a Christian Man," to clear these 
 ill impressions, yet his endeavours were unsuccessful. 
 The Pope, at the instance of the French King, and 
 to make that kingdom sure, made David Beaton, arch- 
 bishop of St. Andrew's, a cardinal, which gave him 
 great authority in the kingdom : so he with the rest 
 of the clergy diverted the King from any correspon- 
 dence with England, and assured him of victory if 
 he would make war on such an heretical prince. The 
 clergy also offered the King fifty thousand crowns 
 a-year towards a war with England; and possessed 
 all the nation with very ill thoughts of the court and 
 clergy there. But the lords that were now prisoners 
 (chiefly the Earl of Cassillis, who was best instructed
 
 PART I. BOOK III. 515 
 
 by his religious host), conceived a better opinion of 
 the Reformation, and carried home with them those 
 seeds of knowledge which produced afterwards a very 
 fruitful harvest. On all these things I have dwelt the 
 longer, that it might appear whence the inclination 
 of the Scottish nobility to reform did take its first 
 rise ; though there was afterwards, in the methods by 
 which it was advanced, too great a mixture of the 
 heat and forwardness that is natural to the genius of 
 that country. 
 
 When the news of the King of Scotland's death, 
 and of the young Queen's birth that succeeded him, 
 came to the court, the King thought this a very favour- 
 able conjuncture to unite and settle the whole island. 
 But that unfortunate Princess was not born under 
 such happy stars, though she was mother to him in 
 whom this long-desired union took effect. The lords 
 that were then prisoners began the motion ; and that 
 being told the King, he called for them to Hampton- 
 Court, in the Christmas-time ; and said, now an op- 
 portunity was put in their hands to quiet all troubles 
 that had been between these two crowns, by the mar- 
 riage of the Prince of Wales to their young Queen ; 
 in which he desired their assistance, and gave them 
 their liberty, they leaving hostages for the perform- 
 ance of what was then offered by them. They all pro- 
 mised their concurrence, and seemed much taken with 
 the greatness of the English court, which the King 
 always kept up, not without affectation : they also said, 
 they thought God was better served there than in their 
 own country. So on New-Year's-day they took their 
 journey towards Scotland ; but the sequel of this will 
 appear afterwards. 
 
 A parliament was summoned to meet the 22d of 15*3. 
 January, which sat till the 12th of May: so the ses- f^L* 1 
 sion began in the thirty-fourth, and ended in the thirty- 
 fifth year of the King's reign ; from whence it is called 
 in the Records, the parliament of the thirty-fourth and 
 thirty-fifth year. Here both the temporality and spi- 
 rituality gave great subsidies to the King, of six shil- 
 lings in the pound, to be paid in three years. They 
 
 2 L 2
 
 516 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 set forth in their preambles, " The expense the King 
 had been at in his war with Scotland, and for his other 
 great and urgent occasions;" by which was meant a 
 war with France, which broke out the following sum- 
 mer. But with these there passed other two acts of 
 great importance to religion. The title of the first was, 
 " An act for the advancement of true religion, and 
 abolishment of the contrary." The King was now 
 entering upon a war; so it seemed reasonable to qua- 
 lify the severity of the late acts about religion, that 
 cranmer all might be quiet at home. Cranmer moved it first, 
 'rehr"* and was faintly seconded by the Bishops of Worces- 
 mation. ter, Hereford, Chichester, and Rochester, who had 
 promised to stick to him in it. At this time a league 
 was almost finished between the King and the Empe- 
 ror, which did again raise the spirit of the popish fac- 
 tion. They had been much cast down ever since the 
 last Queen's fall. But now that the Emperor was like 
 to have an interest in English councils, they took heart 
 again; and Gardiner opposed the Archbishop's mo- 
 tion with all possible earnestness : and that whole 
 faction fell so upon it, that the timorous bishops not 
 only forsook Cranmer, but Heath, of Rochester, and 
 Skip, of Hereford, were very earnest with him to stay 
 for a better opportunity ; but he generously preferred 
 his conscience to those arts of policy which he would 
 never practise, and said he would push it as far as it 
 would go. So he plied the King and the other lords 
 so earnestly, that at length the bill passed, though 
 clogged with many provisos, and very much short 
 of what he had designed. 
 
 AD act The preamble set forth, "That, there being many 
 "' dissensions about religion, the Scriptures, which the 
 King had put into the hands of his people, were 
 abused by many seditious persons in their sermons, 
 books, plays, rhymes, and songs ; from which great 
 inconveniences were like to arise. For preventing 
 these, it was necessary to establish a form of sincere 
 doctrine, conformable to that which was taught by the 
 apostles. Therefore all the books of the Old and New 
 Testament, of Tindal's translation (which is called
 
 PART I. BOOK III. 517 
 
 crafty, false, and untrue), are forbidden to be kept or 
 used in the King's dominions ; with all other books 
 contrary to the doctrine set forth in the year 1540;* 
 with punishments, and fines, and imprisonment, upon 
 such as sold or kept such books. But Bibles that 
 were not of Tindal's translation were still to be kept, 
 only the annotations or preambles that were in any of 
 them, were to be cut out, or dashed ; and the King's 
 proclamations and injunctions, with the Primers and 
 other books printed in English, for the instruction of 
 the people, before the year 1540, were still to be in 
 force ; and among these, Chaucer's books are by name 
 mentioned. No books were to be printed about re- 
 ligion, without the King's allowance. In no plays 
 nor interludes they might make any expositions of 
 Scripture; but only reproach vice, and set forth virtue 
 in them. None might read the Scripture in any open 
 assembly, or expound it, but he who was licensed by 
 the King or his ordinary ; with a proviso, that the 
 chancellors in parliament, judges, recorders, or any 
 others, who were wont in public occasions to make 
 speeches, and commonly took a place of Scripture for 
 their text, might still do as they had done formerly. 
 Every nobleman or gentleman might cause the Bible 
 to be read to him, in or about his house, quietly and 
 without disturbance. Every merchant that was a 
 householder might also read it ; but no woman nor 
 artificers, apprentices, journeymen, serving-men under 
 the degree of yeomen, nor no husbandmen, or labour- 
 ers, might read it : yet every noble woman, or gentle- 
 woman, might read it for herself; and so might all 
 other persons but those who were excepted. Every 
 person might read and teach in their houses the book 
 set out in the year 1540,* with the Psalter, Primer, 
 Paternoster, the Ave, and the Creed, in English. All 
 
 * According to the act itself it should be " since the year 1540, is, or any 
 time hereafter during the King's Majesty's Life, &c. shall be set forth by his 
 Highness." This is connected with the mistake noticed before, p. 470. The au- 
 thor still supposing that the Necessary Erudition was actually published in 1540, 
 which was not the case, though the commissioners appointed to draw it up, 
 held a meeting then upon the subject, it appears to have been before the convo- 
 cation, in the last week of April 1543, and to have been printed on the 29th of 
 May following. 
 
 See before 470.
 
 518 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 spiritual persons who preached or taught contrary to 
 the doctrine set forth in that book, were to be admitted, 
 for the first conviction, to renounce their errors ; for 
 the second to abjure, and carry a faggot ; which if 
 they refused to do, or fell into a third offence, they 
 were to be burnt. But the laity for the third offence 
 were only to forfeit their goods and chattels, and be 
 liable to perpetual imprisonment. But these offences 
 were to be objected to them within a year after they 
 were committed. And whereas before, the party ac- 
 cused was not allowed to bring witnesses for his own 
 purgation ; this was now granted him. But to this 
 a severe proviso was added, which seemed to over- 
 throw all the former favour ; that the act of the six 
 Articles was still in the same force in which it was 
 before the making of this act. Yet that was mode- 
 rated by the next proviso ; that the King might, at 
 any time hereafter, at his pleasure, change this act, 
 or any provision in it." 
 
 This last proviso was made stronger by another act, 
 made for the due execution of proclamations, in pur- 
 suance of a former act to the same effect, of which 
 mention was made in the thirty-first year of the King's 
 reign. By that former act there was so great a number 
 of officers of state, and of the King's household, of 
 
 ' O 7 
 
 judges, and other persons, to sit on these trials, that 
 those not being easily brought together, the act had 
 never taken any effect. Therefore it was now ap- 
 pointed, that nine counsellors should be a sufficient 
 number for these trials. At the passing of that act 
 the Lord Montjoy protested against it, which is the 
 single instance of a protestation against any public 
 bill through this King's whole reign. 
 
 The act about religion freed the subjects from the 
 fears under which they were before. For now the 
 laity were delivered from the hazard of burning ; and 
 the spirituality were not in danger, but upon the third 
 conviction : they might also bring their own witnesses, 
 which was a great favour to them. Yet that high 
 power which was given the King, of altering the act, 
 or any parts of it, made, that they were not absolutely
 
 PART I. BOOK III. 519 
 
 secured from their fears, of which some instances 
 afterwards appeared. But as this act was some miti- 
 gation of former severities, so it brought the reformers 
 to depend wholly on the King's mercy for their lives; 
 since he could now chain up, or let loose, the act of 
 the six Articles upon them at his pleasure. 
 
 Soon after the end of this parliament, a league was A league 
 sworn between the King and the Emperor on Trinity the'iung 
 Sunday, offensive and defensive for England, Calais, an * or Em 
 and the places about it, and for all Flanders ; with 
 many other particulars, to be found in the treaty set 
 down at large by the Lord Herbert. There is no 
 mention made of the legitimation of the Lady Mary ; 
 but it seems it was promised that she should be de- 
 clared next in the succession of the crown to Prince 
 Edward, if the King had no other children ; which 
 was done in the next parliament, without any reflec- 
 tions on her birth : and the Emperor was content to 
 accept of that, there being no other terms to be ob- 
 tained. The popish party, who had set up their rest 
 on bringing the King and Emperor to a league, and 
 putting the Lady Mary into the succession, no doubt 
 pressed the Emperor much to accept of this ; which 
 we may reasonably believe was vigorously driven on 
 by Bonner, who was sent to Spain an ambassador for 
 concluding this peace, by which also the Emperor 
 gained much ; for having engaged the crowns of 
 England and France in a war, and drawn off the King 
 of England from his league with the princes of Ger- 
 many, he was now at more leisure to prosecute his 
 designs in Germany. 
 
 But the negotiation in Scotland succeeded not to A treaty 
 the King's mind, though at first there were very good ^,* h 
 appearances. The Cardinal, by forging a will for the with tbe 
 dead King, got himself and some of his party to be 
 put into the government. But the Earl of Arran 
 (Hamilton) being the nearest in blood to the young 
 Queen, and being generally beloved for his probity, 
 was invited to assume the government, which he 
 managed with great moderation, and a universal ap- 
 plause. He summoned a parliament, which confirmed
 
 520 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 him in his power, during the minority of the Queen. 
 The King sent Sir Ralph Sadler to him to agree to 
 the marriage, and to desire him to send the young 
 Queen into England : and if private ends wrought 
 much on him, Sadler was empowered to offer another 
 marriage of the King's second daughter, the Lady 
 Elizabeth, to his son. The Earl of Arran was him- 
 self inclinable to reformation, and very much hated 
 the Cardinal : so he was easily brought to consent to 
 a treaty for the match, which was concluded in 
 August, by which the young Queen was to be bred 
 in Scotland till she was ten years of age ; but the King 
 might send a nobleman and his wife, with other per- 
 sons, not exceeding twenty, to wait on her : and for 
 performance of this, six noblemen were to be sent from 
 Scotland for hostages. The Earl of Arran being then 
 governor, kept the Cardinal under restraint till this 
 treaty was concluded; but he, corrupting his keepers, 
 made his escape, and joining with the Queen-Mother, 
 they made a strong faction against the Governor : all 
 the clergy joined with the Cardinal to oppose the 
 match with England, since they looked for ruin if it 
 succeeded. The Queen, being a sister of Guise, and 
 bred in the French court, was wholly for their inte- 
 rests ; and all that had been obliged by that court, or 
 depended on it, were quickly drawn into the party. 
 The differ. It was also said to every body, that it was much more 
 the interest of Scotland to match with France than 
 with England. If they were united to France, they 
 might expect an easy government : for the French 
 being at such a distance from them, and knowing how 
 easily they might throw themselves into the arms of 
 England, would certainly rule them gently, and avoid 
 giving them great provocations. But if they were 
 united to England, they had no remedy, but must 
 look for a heavier yoke to be laid on them. This, 
 meeting with the rooted antipathy that, by a long 
 continuance of war, was grown up among them to a 
 savage hatred of the English nation, and being in- 
 flamed by the considerations of religion, raised a 
 universal dislike of the match with England, in the
 
 French 
 party 
 
 PART I. BOOK III. 521 
 
 greatest part of the whole nation ; only a few men of 
 greater probity, who were weary of the depredations 
 and wars in the borders, and had a liking to the Re- 
 formation of the church, were still for it. 
 
 The French court struck in vigorously with their The 
 party in Scotland, and sent over the Earl of Lenox ; 
 who, as he was next in blood to the crown after the p feTails - 
 Earl of Arran, so was of the same family of the Stuarts, 
 which had endeared him to the late King. He was 
 to lead the Queen's party against the Hamiltons ; yet 
 they employed another tool, which was John Hamil- 
 ton, base brother to the Governor, who was after- 
 wards archbishop of St. Andrew's. He had great 
 power over his brother ; who, being then not above 
 four-and-twenty years of age, and having been the 
 only lawful son of his father in his old age, was never 
 bred abroad ; and so understood not the policies and 
 arts of courts, and was easily abused by his base bro- 
 ther. He assured him, that if he went about to de- 
 stroy religion, by matching the Queen to an heretical 
 Prince, they would depose him from his government, 
 and declare him illegitimate. There could be indeed 
 nothing clearer than his father's divorce from his first 
 wife : for it had been formerly proved, that she had 
 been married to the Lord Tester's son before he mar- 
 ried her, who claimed her as his wife ; upon which 
 her marriage with the Earl of Arran was declared 
 null in the year 1 507 : and it was ten years after, that 
 the Earl of Arran did marry the Governor's mother : 
 of which things the original instruments are yet ex- 
 tant. Yet it was now said, that that precontract with 
 the Lord Yester's son was but a forgery, to dissolve 
 that marriage ; and if the Earl of Lenox (who was 
 next to the crown, in case the Earl of Arran was il- 
 legitimated) should, by the assistance of France, pro- 
 cure a review of that process from Rome, and obtain 
 a revocation of that sentence by which his father's 
 first marriage was annulled, then it was plain that 
 the second marriage, with the issue by it, would be 
 of no force. All this wrought on the Governor much, 
 and at length drew him off from the match with
 
 522 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 England, and brought him over to the French inte- 
 rests : which being effected, there was no further use 
 of the Earl of Lenox ; so he, finding himself neglected 
 by the Queen and the Cardinal, and abandoned by 
 the crown of France, fled into England, where he 
 was very kindly received by the King, who gave him 
 in marriage his niece, Lady Magaret Douglass, whom 
 the Queen of Scotland had born to the Earl of Angus, 
 her second husband : from which marriage issued the 
 Lord Darnley, father to King James. 
 
 When the lords of the French faction had carried 
 things to their mind in Scotland, it was next consi- 
 dered, what they should do to redeem the hostages 
 whom the lords, who were prisoners in England, had 
 left behind them. And for this, no other remedy 
 could be found, but to let them take their hazard, and 
 leave them to the King of England's mercy : to this 
 they all agreed, only the Earl of Cassillis had too much 
 honour and virtue to do so mean a thing. Therefore, 
 after he had done all he could for maintaining the 
 treaty about the match, he went into England, and 
 offered himself again to be a prisoner ; but as generous 
 actions are a reward to themselves, so they often meet 
 with that entertainment which they deserve : and 
 upon this occasion, the King was not wanting to ex- 
 press a very great value for that lord. He called 
 him another Regulus, but used him better ; for he 
 both gave him his liberty and made him noble pre- 
 sents, and sent him and his hostages back, being re- 
 solved to have a severer reparation for the injury done 
 him. All which I have opened more fully, because 
 this will give a great light to the affairs of that king- 
 dom ; which will be found in the reigns of the suc- 
 ceeding princes, to have a great intermixture with 
 the affairs of this kingdom. Nor are they justly re- 
 presented by any who write of these times ; and, hav- 
 ing seen some original papers relating to Scotland 
 at that time, I have done it upon more certain in- 
 formation. 
 
 A war with The King of England next made war upon France : 
 trance, gpounds of this war are recited by the Lord Her-
 
 PART I. BOOK III. 523 
 
 bert. One of these is proper for me to repeat : " That 
 the French King had not deserted the Bishop of Rome, 
 and consented to a reformation, as he had once pro- 
 mised. The rest related to other things : such as the 
 seizing our ships ; the detaining the yearly pension 
 due to the King ; the fortifying Ardres, to the pre- 
 judice of the English pale ; the revealing the King's 
 secrets to the Emperor ; the having given, first his 
 daughter, and then the Duke of Guise's sister, in 
 marriage to his enemy the King of Scotland ; and his 
 confederating himself with the Turk. And satis- 
 faction not being given in these particulars a war is 
 declared." 
 
 In July the King married Katherine Parre, who 
 had been formerly married to Nevil, lord Latimer. 
 She was a secret favourer of the Reformation ; yet 
 could not divert a storm, which at this time fell on 
 some in Windsor : for that being a place to which 
 the King did oft retire, it was thought fit to make 
 some examples there. And now the league with the 
 Emperor gave the popish faction a greater interest in 
 the King's councils. There was at this time a society 
 at Windsor, that favoured the Reformation : Anthony 
 Person, a priest, Robert Testwood, and John Marbeck, 
 singing-men, and Henry Filmer, of the town of 
 Windsor, were the chief of them ; but those were much 
 favoured by Sir Philip Hobby and his Lady, and seve- 
 ral others of the King's family. During Cromwell's 
 power none questioned them ; but after his fall they 
 were looked on with an ill eye. Doctor London, who 
 had, by the most servile flatteries, insinuated himself 
 into Cromwell, and was much employed in the sup- 
 pression of monasteries, and expressed a particular 
 zeal in removing all images and relics which had been 
 abused to superstition, did now, upon Cromwell's fall, 
 apply himself to Gardiner, by whose means he was 
 made a prebendary there. And, to shew how dex- 
 terously he could make his court both ways, or to 
 make compensation for what he had formerly done, 
 he took care to gather a whole book of informations 
 against those in Windsor, who favoured the new
 
 uiuusuess. 
 
 524 BURNET'S REFORMATION- 
 
 learning 1 , (which was the modest phrase by which 
 they termed the Reformation.) He carried this book 
 to Gardiner, who moved the King in council, that a 
 commission might be granted for searching suspected 
 houses at Windsor, in which it was informed there 
 were many books against the six Articles. The King 
 granted the warrant for the town, but not for the cas- 
 tle. So those before named were seized on, and some 
 of these books were found in their houses. Dr. Hains, 
 dean of Exeter and prebendary of Windsor, being in- 
 formed against, was also put in prison ; so was like- 
 wise Sir Philip Hobby. But there was likewise some 
 papers of notes on the Bible, and of a concordance in 
 English, found in Marbeck's house, written with his 
 own hand : and he being an illiterate man, they did 
 not doubt but these were other men's works, which 
 he was writing out : so they began with him, and 
 hoped to draw discoveries from him. He was fre- 
 quently examined, but would tell nothing that might 
 do hurt to any other person. But being examined, 
 who wrote these notes, he said they were his own : 
 for he read all the books he could light on, and wrote 
 out what every man had written on any place of 
 Scripture. And for his concordance, he told them, 
 that, being a poor man, he could not buy one of the 
 Bibles when they came first out in English, but set 
 himself to write one out ; by which another, per- 
 ceiving his industry, suggested to him, that he would 
 do well to write a concordance in English ; but he 
 said, he knew not what that was ; so the other per- 
 son explaining it to him, he got a Latin concordance, 
 and an English Bible ; and having learned a little 
 Latin, when he was young, he, by comparing the 
 English with the Latin, had drawn out a concord- 
 ance, which he had brought to the letter L. This 
 seemed so extravagant a thing to Gardiner, and the 
 other bishops that examined him, that they could by 
 no means believe it : but he desired they would draw 
 out any words of the letter M, and give him the Latin 
 concordance, with the English Bible, and after a little 
 time they should see whether he had not done the
 
 PART I. BOOK III. 525 
 
 rest. So the trial was made ; and in a day's time 
 he had drawn out three sheets of paper, upon those 
 words that were given him. This both satisfied and 
 astonished the bishops, wondering at the ingenious- 
 ness and diligence of so poor a man. It was much 
 talked of, and being told the King, he said, " Marbeck 
 employed his time better than those that examined 
 him." For the others, they were kept in prison at 
 London till the 24th of July, that the King gave orders 
 to try them at Windsor. 
 
 There was a court held there on the 27th of July, Three 
 where Capon, bishop of Sarum, and Franklin, dean wiTcLor. 
 of Windsor, and Fachel, parson of Reading, and three 
 of the judges, sat on those four men. They were 
 indicted for some words spoken against the mass; 
 Marbeck only for writing out an epistle of Calvin's 
 against it, which he said he copied before the act 
 of the six Articles was made. The jury was not 
 called out of the town, for they would not trust it to 
 them, but out of the farms of the chapel. They were 
 all found guilty, and so conojemned to be burnt, which 
 was executed on three of them the next day ; only 
 Marbeck was recommended to the Bishop of Win- 
 chester's care, to procure his pardon, which was ob- 
 tained. The other three expressed great composure 
 of mind in their sufferings, and died with much Chris- 
 tian resolution and patience, forgiving their perse- 
 cutors, and committing themselves to the mercies of 
 God through Jesus Christ. 
 
 But in their trial, Doctor London, and Symonds, Their p* r - 
 a lawyer and an informer, had studied to fish out ac- *epr- 
 cusations against many of the King's servants, as Sir- jare<L 
 Philip Hobby, and Sir Thomas Cawarden, with their 
 ladies, and several others who had favoured those 
 men. With these informations, Oakam, that had been 
 the clerk of the court, was sent to Gardiner; but one 
 of the Queen's servants, who had discovered the de- 
 sign, was before him at court. Upon the advertise- 
 ment which he had brought, Oakam was seized on at 
 his coming to court, and all his papers were exa- 
 mined ; in which they discovered a conspiracy against
 
 526 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 those gentlemen, with other plots, that gave the King 
 great offence; but the particulars are not mentioned. 
 So Doctor London and Symonds were sent for, and 
 examined upon this discovery; but they, not knowing 
 that their letters were intercepted, denied there was 
 any such plot, and, being put to their oaths, swore it. 
 Then their own hand-writing was produced against 
 them; upon which, they, being thus perjured, were 
 ordered to be carried on horseback, with their faces to 
 the horse's tails, and papers on their foreheads, for 
 their perjury, and then to be set in the pillory, both 
 in Windsor, Reading, and Newbury, where the King 
 was at that time. This was accordingly executed on 
 them; but sunk so deep in Doctor London's heart, 
 that he died soon after. From all this it will appear 
 what sort of men the persecutors at that time were. 
 A con- But this was a small part of what Gardiner had 
 5nst projected; for he looked on these as persons un- 
 cranmer. worthy of his displeasure. Cranmer was chiefly 
 aimed at by him ; and therefore all that party were 
 still infusing it into the King's mind, that it was great 
 injustice to prosecute poor men with so much seve- 
 rity, and let the chief supporter of heresy stand in so 
 eminent a degree, and in such favour about him. At 
 length the King, to discover the bottom of their de- 
 signs, seemed to give ear to their accusations, and 
 desired to hear what particulars could be objected 
 against him. This gave them great encouragement ; 
 for till that time, the King would let nothing be said 
 against Cranmer: so they concluded he would be 
 quickly ruined, since the King had opened his ear 
 to their informations. Therefore many particulars 
 were quickly laid together, and put into the King's 
 hands ; who, a little after that, going to divert himself 
 on the river, ordered his bargemen to row towards 
 Lambeth, which being perceived by some of the 
 Archbishop's servants, they acquainted him with it, 
 who hasted down to his stairs to do his duty to the 
 ntiq. Brit. King. When the King saw him, he called him into 
 the barge; and they being alone, the King lamented 
 the growth of heresy, and the dissensions and con-
 
 PART I. BOOK III. 527 
 
 fusions that were like to follow upon it : and said, he 
 intended to find out the chief encourager and favourer 
 of these heresies, and make him an example to the 
 rest. And he asked the Archbishop's opinion about 
 it, who answered him, that it was a good resolution, 
 but entreated the King to consider well what heresy 
 was, and not to condemn those as heretics, who stood 
 for the word of God against human inventions. But, 
 after some discourse, the King told him he was the man, 
 who, as he was informed, was the chief encourager 
 of heresy; and then gave him the articles that were 
 brought against him and his chaplains, both by some 
 prebendaries of Canterbury, and the justices of peace 
 in Kent. When he read them, he kneeled down, and 
 desired the King would put the matter to a trial. He 
 acknowledged he was still of the same mind as he 
 was of, when he opposed the six Articles; but that 
 he had done nothing against them. Then the King 
 asked him about his wife : he frankly confessed he 
 had a wife ; but said, that he had sent her to Ger- 
 many, upon the passing the act against priests having 
 wives. His candour and simplicity wrought so on the 
 King, that he discovered to him the whole plot that 
 was laid against him; and said, that instead of bring- 
 ing him to any trial about it, he would have him try 
 it out, and proceed against those his accusers. But 
 he excused himself, and said it would not be decent 
 for him to sit judge in his own cause. But the King 
 said to him, he was resolved none other should judge 
 it, but those he should name. So he named his 
 Chancellor and his Register, to whom the King added 
 another; and a commission being given them, they 
 went into Kent, and sat three weeks, to find out the 
 first contrivers of this accusation, And now every 
 one disowned it, since they saw he was still firmly 
 rooted in the King's esteem and favour. But it being 
 observed that the commissioners proceeded faintly, 
 Cranmer's friends moved that some man of courage 
 and authority might be sent thither to canvass this 
 accusation more carefully. So Doctor Lee (or Leigh- 
 ton), dean of York, was brought up about All-hallow-
 
 528 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 tide, and sent into Kent: and he, who had been well 
 acquainted with the arts of discovering secrets, when 
 he was one of the visitors of the abbeys, managed it 
 more vigorously. He ordered a search to be made 
 of all suspected persons, among whose papers letters 
 were found, both from the Bishop of Winchester and 
 Doctor London, and some of those whom Cranmer 
 had treated with the greatest freedom and kindness, 
 in which the whole plot against him was discovered. 
 But it was now near the session of parliament, and 
 the King was satisfied with the discovery, but thought 
 it not fit to make much noise of it : and he received 
 no addresses from the Archbishop to prosecute it fur- 
 chns. ther, who was so noted for his clemency, and folio w- 
 tad. 5 " i n g our Savionr's rule of " doing good for evil," that 
 it was commonly said, the way to get his favour was 
 to do him an injury. These were the only instances 
 in which he expressed his resentments. Two of the 
 conspirators against him had been persons signally 
 obliged by him : the one was the Bishop Suffragan 
 of Dover ; the other was a civilian, whom he had 
 employed much in his business. But all the notice 
 he took of it was, to shew them their letters, and to 
 admonish them to be more faithful and honest for 
 the future : upon which he freely forgave them, and 
 carried it so to them afterwards, as if he had abso- 
 lutely forgotten what they had contrived against him. 
 And a person of quality coming to him about that 
 time to obtain his favour and assistance in a suit in 
 which he was to move the King, he went about it, 
 and had almost procured it ; but the King, calling to 
 mind that he had been one of his secret accusers, 
 asked him, whether he took him for his friend ; he 
 answered, that he did so. Then the King said, the 
 other was a knave, and was his mortal enemy ; and 
 bid him, when he should see him next, to call him a 
 knave to his face. Cranmer answered, that such lan- 
 guage did not become a bishop. But the King sul- 
 lenly commanded him to do it ; yet his modesty was 
 such, that he could not obey so harsh a command, 
 and so he passed the matter over. When these things
 
 PART I. BOOK III. 529 
 
 came to be known, all persons that were not unjustly 
 prejudiced against him, acknowledged that his beha- 
 viour was suitable to the example and doctrine of the 
 meek and lowly Saviour of the world : and very well 
 became so great a bishop, and such a reformer of 
 the Christian religion : who, in those sublime and 
 extraordinary instances, practised that which he 
 taught others to do. The year in which this fell out 
 is not expressed by those who have recorded it ; but, 
 by the concurrent circumstances, I judge it likeliest 
 to have been done this year. 
 
 Soon after this the parliament met, that was sum- 15*4. 
 moned to meet the 14th of January, in the thirty-fifth u a ment. par 
 yearofthe King's reign; in which the act of the succes- 
 sion of the crown passed. Which contains, " That the A about 
 King, being now to pass the seas, to make war upon his ** cc> 
 ancient enemy the French King, and being desirous to 
 settle the succession to the crown : it is enacted, that, 
 in default of heirs of Prince Ed ward's body, or of heirs 
 by the King's present marriage, the crown shall go to 
 the Lady Mary, the King's eldest daughter : and in de- 
 fault of heirs of her body, or if she do not observe such 
 limitations or conditions as shall be declared by the 
 King's letters-patents, under his great-seal, or by his 
 last will under his hand, it shall next fall to the Lady 
 Elizabeth and her heirs ; or if she have none, or shall 
 not keep the conditions declared by the King, it shall 
 fall to any other that shall be declared by the King's 
 letters-patents, or his last will, signed with his hand. 
 There was also an oath devised, instead of those for- 
 merly sworn, both against the Pope's supremacy, and 
 for maintaining the succession in all points, accord- 
 ing: to this act : which whosoever refused to take, 
 
 O 
 
 was to be adjudged a traitor ; and whosoever should 
 either in words, or by writing, say any thing contrary 
 to this act, or to the peril and slander of the King's 
 heirs, limited in the act, was to be adjudged a traitor." 
 This was done, no doubt, upon a secret article of the 
 treaty with the Emperor ; and did put new life into 
 the popish party, all whose hopes depended on the 
 Lady Mary. But how much this lessened the pre- 
 VUL. i. 2 M
 
 530 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 rogative, and the right of succession, will be easily 
 discerned ; the King in this affecting an unusual ex- 
 tent of his own power, though with the diminution 
 of the rights of his successors. 
 
 There was another bill about the qualifying of 
 the act of the six Articles, that was sent divers times 
 from the one House to the other. It was brought to 
 the Lords the 1st of March, and read the first time ; 
 and stuck till the 4th, when it was read the second 
 time ; on the 5th it was read the third time, and 
 passed, and was sent down to the Commons, with 
 " words to be put in, or put out of it." On the 6th, 
 the Commons sent it up with some alterations : and 
 on the 8th, the Lords sent it down again to the Com- 
 mons ; where it lay till the 17th, and then it was sent 
 up with their agreement. And the King's assent was 
 t given by his letters-patents, on the 29th of March, 
 ^g preamble was, " That whereas untrue accusa- 
 tions and presentments might be maliciously con- 
 trived against the King's subjects, and kept secret till 
 a time were espied to have them by malice convicted ; 
 therefore it was enacted, that none should be indicted 
 but upon a presentment by the oaths of twelve men, 
 to at least three of the commissioners appointed by 
 the King ; and that none should be imprisoned but 
 upon an indictment, except by a special warrant from 
 the King; and that all presentments should be made 
 within one year after the offences were committed ; 
 and if words were uttered in a sermon contrary to 
 the statute, they must be complained of within forty 
 days, unless a just cause were given why it could 
 not be so soon ; admitting also the parties indicted to 
 all such challenges as they might have in any other 
 case of felony." This act has clearly a relation to the 
 conspiracies mentioned the former year, both against 
 the Archbishop and some of the King's servants. 
 
 Another act passed, continuing some former acts 
 for revising the canon law, and for drawing up such a 
 body of ecclesiastical laws, as should have authority 
 in England. This Cranmer pressed often with great 
 vehemence ; and to shew the necessity of it, drew
 
 PART I. BOOK III. 531 
 
 out a short extract of some passages in the canon law, 
 (which the reader will find in the Collection,) to shew c<>iie. 
 how indecent a thing it was, to let a volume, in which Nl 
 such laws were, be studied or considered any longer 
 in England. Therefore he was earnest to have such 
 
 o 
 
 a collection of ecclesiastical laws made, as might 
 regulate the spiritual courts. But it was found more 
 for the greatness of the prerogative, and the authority 
 of the civil courts, to keep that undetermined ; so he 
 could never obtain his desire during this King's reign. 
 
 Another act passed in this parliament, for the remis- 
 sion of a loan of money, which the King had raised. 
 This is almost copied out of an act to the same effect, 
 that passed in the twenty-first year of the King's reign : 
 with this addition, that by this act, those who had got 
 payment, either in whole, or in part, of the sums so 
 lent the King, were to repay it back to the Exchequer. 
 All business being finished, and a general pardon 
 passed, with the ordinary exceptions of some crimes, 
 among which heresy is one, the parliament was pro- 
 rogued on the 29th of March to the 4th of November. 
 
 The King had now a war both with France and 
 Scotland upon him. And therefore to prepare for it, 
 he both enhanced the value of money, and embased 
 it : for which, he that writes his vindication o-ives this 
 
 ' O 
 
 for the reason that the coin being generally embased 
 all over Europe, he was forced to do it, lest otherwise 
 all the money should have gone out of the kingdom. 
 He resolved to begin the war with Scotland ; and sent n.. wars 
 an army by sea thither, under the command of the j^'und 
 Earl of Hartford, (afterwards Duke of Somerset,) who succeilsful - 
 landing at Grantham, a little above Leith, burnt and 
 spoiled Leith and Edinburgh, in which they found 
 more riches than they thought could possibly have 
 been there; and they went through the country, 
 burning and spoiling it every where, till they came to 
 Berwick. But they did too much if they intended to 
 gain the hearts of that people, and too little if they 
 intended to subdue them. For as they besieged not 
 the castle of Edinburgh, which would have cost them 
 more time and trouble; so they did not fortify Leith, 
 2 M 2
 
 532 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 nor leave a garrison in it ; which was such an inex- 
 cusable omission, that it seems their counsels were 
 very weak and ill laid. For Leith being fortified, 
 and a fleet kept going between it and Berwick, 
 or Tinmouth, the trade of the kingdom must have 
 been quite stopped, Edinburgh ruined, the intercourse 
 between France and them cut off, and the whole 
 kingdom forced to submit to the King. But the spoils 
 this army made, had no other effect but to enrage 
 the kingdom, and unite them so entirely to the French 
 interests, that when the Earl of Lenox was sent down 
 by the King to the western parts of Scotland, where 
 his power lay, he could get none to follow him. And 
 the Governor of Dunbritton Castle, though his own 
 lieutenant, would not deliver that castle to him, when 
 he understood he was to put it in the King of Eng- 
 land's hands, but drove him out ; others say, he fled 
 away of himself, else he had been taken prisoner. 
 
 The King was now to cross the seas : but before 
 he went, he studied to settle the matters of religion, 
 so that both parties mighthavesome content. Audley, 
 the chancellor, dying, he made the Lord Wriothesley, 
 that had been secretary, and was of the popish party, 
 lord chancellor ; but made Sir William Petre, that 
 was Cranmer's great friend, secretary of state. He 
 also committed the government of the kingdom in his 
 absence to the Queen, to whom he joined the Arch- 
 bishop of Canterbury, the Lord Chancellor, the Earl 
 of Hartford, and Secretary Petre. And if there was 
 need of any force to be raised, he appointed the Earl 
 of Hartford his lieutenant ; under whose government 
 the reformers needed not fear any thing. But he did 
 another act, that did wonderfully please that whole 
 party ; which was, the translating of the prayers for 
 the processions and litanies into the English tongue. 
 This was sent to the Archbishop of Canterbury on the 
 llth of June, with an order that it should be used 
 over all his province, as the reader will find in the 
 coUrct. Collection. This was not only very acceptable to 
 B ' that party, because of the thing itself; but it gave 
 them hope, that the King was again opening his ears
 
 PART I. BOOK III. 633 
 
 to motions for reformation, to which they had been 
 shut now about six years : and therefore they looked 
 that more things of that nature would quickly follow. 
 And as these prayers were now set out in English, so 
 they doubted not, but there being the same reason to 
 put all the other offices in the vulgar tongue, they 
 would prevail for that too. 
 
 Things being thus settled at home, the King, hav- 
 ing sent his forces over before him, crossed the seas, 
 with much pomp, the sails of his ship being of cloth 
 of gold. He landed at Calais the 14th of July. The 
 Emperor pressed his marching straight to Paris ; but 
 he thought it of more importance to take Bulloign, 
 and, after two months' siege, it was surrendered to Buiioi 
 him ; into which he made his entry with great tri- taken ' 
 umph on the 18th of September. But the Emperor, 
 having thus engaged those two crowns in a war, and 
 designing, while they should fight it out, to make him- 
 self master of Germany, concluded a treaty with the 
 French King the very next day, being the 19th of 
 September; which is set down at large by the Lord 
 Herbert. On the 30th of September, the King re- 
 turned to England : in October following, Bulloign 
 was very near lost by a surprise; but the garrison put 
 themselves in order, and beat back the French. Se- 
 veral inroads were made into Scotland, but not with 
 the same success that the former expedition had. For 
 the Scots, animated with supplies sent from France, 
 and inflamed with a desire of revenge, resumed their 
 wonted courage, and beat back the English with con- 
 siderable loss. 
 
 Next year, the French King, resolving to recover 1545. 
 Bulloign, and to take Calais, that so he might drive 
 the English out of France, intended first to make him- 
 self master of the sea. And he set out a great fleet 
 of a hundred and fifty greater ships, and sixty lesser 
 ones, besides many galleys brought from the Streights. 
 The King set out about a hundred ships. On both 
 sides, these were only merchant ships that were hired 
 for this war. But after the French fleet had looked 
 on England, and attempted to land with ill success,
 
 534 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 both in the Isle of Wight and in Sussex, and had 
 engaged in a sea-fight for some hours, they returned 
 back without any considerable action; nor did they 
 any thing at land. But the King's fleet went to Nor- 
 mandy, where they made a descent, and burnt the 
 country; so that this year was likewise glorious to 
 the King. The Emperor had now done what he 
 long designed : and therefore, being courted by both 
 crowns, he undertook a mediation, that, under the 
 colour of mediating a peace, he might the more effec- 
 tually keep up the war. 
 
 The princes of Germany saw what mischief was 
 designed against them. The council of Trent was now 
 P ene d> an d was condemning their doctrine. A league 
 was also concluded between the Pope and the Em- 
 peror, for procuring obedience to their canons and 
 decrees ; and an army was raising. The Emperor 
 was also setting on foot old quarrels with some of the 
 princes. A firm peace was concluded with the Turk. 
 So that if the crowns of England and France were not 
 brought to an agreement, they were undone. They 
 sent ambassadors to both courts to mediate a peace. 
 With them Cranmer joined his endeavours, but he 
 had not a Cromwell in the court to manage the King's 
 temper; who was so provoked with the ill treatment 
 he had received from France, that he would not come 
 to an agreement: nor would he restore Bulloign, with- 
 out which the French would hear of no peace. Cran- 
 mer had, at this time, almost prevailed with the King 
 to make some further steps in a reformation. But 
 Gardiner, who was then ambassador in the Emperor's 
 court, being advertised of it, wrote to the King; that 
 the Emperor would certainly join with France against 
 him, if he made any further innovation in religion. 
 This diverted the King from it ; and in August, this 
 year, the only great friend that Cranmer had in the 
 court died, Charles, duke of Suffolk, who had long 
 continued in the height of favour ; which was always 
 kept up, not only by an agreement of humours between 
 the King and him, but by the constant, success which 
 followed him in all his exploits. He was a favourer
 
 PART I. BOOK III. 535 
 
 of the Reformation, as far as could consist with his 
 interest at court, which he never endangered upon 
 any account. 
 
 Now Cranmer was left alone, without friend or sup- chnrch 
 port: yet he had gained one great preferment in the g^nTo""* 
 church, to a man of his own mind. The archbishop- reforme "- 
 rick of York falling void by Lee's death, Robert Hoi- 
 gate, that was bishop of Landaff, was promoted to that 
 see in January; Kitchin being made bishop of Landaff, 
 who turned with every change that was made under 
 the three succeeding princes. The Archbishop of York 
 set about the reforming of things in his province, 
 which had laid in great confusion all his predecessor's 
 time : so on the 3d of March, he took cut a license 
 from the King for making a metropolitical visitation. 
 Bell, that was bishop of Worcester, had resigned his 
 bishoprick the former year, (the reason of which is not 
 set down.) The Bishop of Rochester, Heath, was 
 translated to that see : and Henry Holbeach, that fa- 
 voured the Reformation, was made bishop of Roches- 
 ter. And, upon the translation of Sampson from Chi- 
 chester to Coventry and Lichfield, Day, that was a 
 moderate man, and inclinable to reformation, was 
 made bishop of that see. So that now Cranmer had 
 a greater party among the bishops than at any time 
 before. 
 
 But though there were no great transactions about 
 religion in England this year, there were very remark- 
 able things done in Scotland, though of a different 
 nature ; which were, the burning of Wishart, and, 
 some months after that, the killing of Cardinal Bea- 
 ton; the account of both which will not, I hope, be 
 ingrateful to the reader. 
 
 Mr. George Wishart was descended of a noble fa- want's 
 mily ; he went to finish his studies in the University *n sc 8 * 
 of Cambridge, where he was so well instructed in the ltDd- 
 principles of true religion, that, returning to Scotland, 
 anno 1544, he preached over the country, against the 
 corruptions which did then so generally prevail. He 
 stayed most at Dundee, which was the chief town in 
 these parts. But the Cardinal, offended at this, sent
 
 536 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 a threatening message to the magistrates ; upon which 
 one of them, as Wishart ended one of his sermons, 
 was so obsequious as to forbid him to preach any 
 more among them, or give them any further trouble: 
 to whom he answered, " That God knew he had no 
 design to trouble them ; but for them to reject the mes- 
 sengers of God, was not the way to escape trouble ; 
 when he was gone, God would send messengers of 
 another sort among them. He had, to the hazard of 
 his life, preached the word of salvation to them, and 
 they had now rejected him : but if it was long well 
 with them, he was not led by the Spirit of truth ; and 
 if unlooked-for trouble fell on them, he bade them re- 
 member this was the cause of it, and turn to God by 
 repentance." From thence he went to the western 
 parts, where he was also much followed. But the 
 Archbishop of Glasgow giving orders that he should 
 not be admitted to preach in churches, he preached 
 often in the fields: and when, in some places, his fol- 
 lowers would have forced the churches, he checked 
 them, and said, it was the word of peace that he 
 preached, and therefore no blood should be shed about 
 it. But after he had stayed a month there, he heard 
 that there was a great plague in Dundee, which broke 
 out the fourth day after he had left it: upon which, 
 he presently returned thither, and preached oft to 
 them, standing over one of the gates, having taken 
 care that the infected persons should stand without, 
 and those that were clean within the gate. He con- 
 tinued among them, and took care to supply the poor 
 and to visit the sick, and do all the offices of a faith- 
 ful pastor in that extremity. Once, as he ended his 
 sermon, a priest coming to have killed him, was taken 
 with the weapon in his hand ; but when the people 
 were rushing furiously on him, Wishart got him in 
 his arms and saved him from their rage; for he said 
 he had done no harm, only they saw what they might 
 look for. He became a little after this more than or- 
 dinary serious and apprehensive of his end : he was 
 seen sometimes to rise in the night, and spend the 
 greatest part of it in prayer; and he often warned his
 
 PART I. BOOK III. 637 
 
 hearers that his sufferings were at hand, but that few 
 should suffer after him, and that the light of true re- 
 ligion should be spread over the whole land. He went 
 to a great many places, where his sermons were well 
 received; and came last to Lothian, where he found 
 a greater neglect of the gospel than in other parts, 
 for which he threatened them, "That strangers should 
 chase them from their dwellings, and possess them." 
 He was lodged in a gentleman of quality's house, 
 Cockburn, of Ormeston; when, in the night, the house 
 was beset by some horsemen, who were sent by the 
 Cardinal's means to take him. The Earl of Bothwell, 
 that had the chief jurisdiction in the county, was with 
 them, who promising that no hurt should be done him, 
 he caused the gate to be opened, saying, "The blessed 
 will of God be done." When he presented himself to 
 the Earl of Bothwell, he desired to be proceeded with 
 according to law, for he said, he feared less to die 
 openly, than to be murdered in secret. The Earl pro- 
 mised, upon his honour, that no harm should be done 
 him ; and, for some time, seemed resolved to have 
 made his words good : but the Queen- Mother and Car- 
 dinal, in the end, prevailed with him to put Wishart in 
 their hands ; and they sent him to St. Andrew's, where 
 it was agreed to make a sacrifice of him. Upon this 
 the Cardinal called a meeting of the bishops to St. 
 Andrew's, against the 27th of February, to destroy him 
 with the more ceremony; but the Archbishop of Glas- 
 gow moved, that there should be a warrant procured 
 from the Lord Governor for their proceedings. To this 
 the Cardinal consented, thinking the Governor was 
 then so linked to their interests that he would deny 
 them nothing : but the Governor, bearing in his heart 
 a secret love to religion, and being plainly dealt with 
 by a gentleman of his name, Hamilton, of Preston, 
 who laid before him the just and terrible judgments 
 of God he might look for, if he suffered poor innocents 
 to be so murdered at the appetite of the clergy, sent 
 the Cardinal word not to proceed till he himself came, 
 and that he would not consent to his death, till the 
 cause was well examined ; and that if the Cardinal
 
 538 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 proceeded against him, his blood should be required 
 at his hands. But the Cardinal resolved to go on at 
 his peril; for he apprehended if he delayed it, there 
 might be either a legal or a violent rescue made : so 
 he ordered a mock citation of Wishart to appear; who 
 being brought the next day to the abbey church, the 
 process was opened with a sermon, in which the 
 preacher delivered a great deal of good doctrine, con- 
 cerning the Scriptures being the only touchstone by 
 which heresy was to be tried. After sermon, the pri- 
 soner was brought to the bar : he first fell down on his 
 knees, and after a short prayer he stood up, and gave 
 a long account of his sermons: that he had preached 
 nothing but what was contained in the Ten Command- 
 ments, the Apostles' Creed, and the Lord's Prayer ; 
 but was interrupted with reproachful words, and re- 
 quired to answer plainly to the articles objected to him. 
 Upon which he appealed to an indifferent judge: he 
 desired to be tried by the word of God, and before my 
 Lord Governor, whose prisoner he was : but the in- 
 dictment being read, he, confessing and offering to 
 justify most of the articles objected against him, was 
 judged an obstinate heretic, and condemned to be 
 burnt. All the next night he spent in prayer : in the 
 morning, two friars came to confess him, but he said 
 he would have nothing to do with them ; yet, if he 
 could, he would gladly speak with the learned man 
 that preached the day before. So he being sent to 
 him, after much conference, he asked him, if he would 
 receive the sacrament ? Wishart answered, he would 
 most gladly do it, if he might have it as Christ had 
 instituted it, under both kinds ; but the Cardinal would 
 not suffer the sacrament to be given him. And so 
 breakfast being brought, he discoursed to those that 
 were present of the death of Christ, and the ends of 
 the sacrament ; and then, having blessed and conse- 
 crated the elements, he took the sacrament himself, 
 and gave it to those that were with him. That being 
 done, he would taste no other thing, but retired to his 
 devotion. Two hours after the executioners came, and 
 put on him a coat of black linen, full of bags of pow-
 
 PART I. BOOK III. 539 
 
 der, and carried him out to the place of execution, 
 which was before the Cardinal's castle. He spake a 
 little to the people, desiring them not to be offended 
 at the good word of God, for the sufferings that fol- 
 lowed it; it was the true gospel of Christ that he had 
 preached, and for which, with a most glad heart and 
 mind, he now offered up his life. The Cardinal was 
 set in state in a great window of his castle, looking on 
 this sad spectacle. When Wishart was tied to the 
 stake, he cried aloud, " Saviour of the world, have 
 mercy upon me ! Father of heaven, I recommend my 
 spirit into thy holy hands." So the executioner kin- 
 dled the fire; but one perceiving, after some time, that 
 he was yet alive, encouraged him to call still on God ; 
 to whom he answered, "The flame hath scorched my 
 body, yet hath it not daunted my spirit ; but he who, 
 from yonder high place (looking up to the Cardinal), 
 beholdeth us with such pride, shall within few days 
 lie in the same, as ignominiously as now he is seen 
 proudly to rest himself." The executioner drawing 
 the cord that was about his neck straiter, stopped his 
 breath, so that he could speak no more, and his body 
 was soon consumed by the fire. Thus died this emi- 
 nent servant and witness of Christ; on whose suffer- 
 ings I have enlarged the more, because they proved 
 so fatal to the interests of the popish clergy ; for not 
 any one thing hastened to forward the Reformation 
 more than this did : and since he had both his edu- 
 cation and ordination in England, a full account of 
 him seems no impertinent digression. 
 
 The clergy rejoiced much at his death ; and thought 
 (according to the constant maxim of all persecutors), 
 that they should live more at ease, now when Wishart 
 was out of the way. They magnified the Cardinal 
 for proceeding so vigorously, without, or rather 
 against, the Governor's orders: but the people did 
 universally look on him as a martyr, and believed an 
 extraordinary measure of God's Spirit had rested on 
 him; since, besides great innocency and purity of 
 life, his predictions came so oft to pass, that he was 
 believed a prophet as well as a saint: and the Re-
 
 540 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 formation was now so much opened by his preaching, 
 and that was so confirmed by his death, that the na- 
 tion was generally possessed with the love of it. The 
 nobility were mightily offended with the Cardinal ; 
 and said, Wishart's death was no less than murder, 
 since the clergy, without a warrant from the secular 
 power, could dispose of no man's life: so it came 
 universally to be said, that he now deserved to die by 
 the law ; yet since he was too great for a legal trial, 
 the kingdom being under the feeble government of a 
 regency, it was fit private persons should undertake 
 it; and it was given out, that the killing an usurper 
 was always esteemed a commendable action, and so, 
 in that state of things, they thought secret practices 
 might be justified. This agreeing so much with the 
 temper of some in that nation, who had too much of 
 the heat and forwardness of their country, a few gen- 
 tlemen of quality, who had been ill used by the Car- 
 dinal, conspired his death. He was become gene- 
 rally hateful to the whole nation; and the marriage 
 of his bastard daughter to the Earl of Crawford's 
 eldest son, enraged the nobility the more against him ; 
 and his carriage towards them was insolent and pro- 
 voking. These offended gentlemen came to St. An- 
 drew's the 29th of May; and the next morning, they 
 and their attendants, being but twelve in all, first at- 
 tempted the gate of his castle, which they found open, 
 and made it sure; and though there were no fewer 
 than a hundred reckoned to be within the castle, yet 
 they, knowing the passages of the house, went with 
 very little noise to the servants' chambers, and turned 
 them almost all out of doors; and having thus made 
 the castle sure, they went to the Cardinal's door. He, 
 who till then was fast asleep, suspecting nothing, 
 perceived, at last, by their rudeness, that they were 
 not his friends, and made his door fast against them. 
 So they sent for fire to set to it; upon which he 
 treated with them, and, upon assurance of life, he 
 opened the door: but they rushing in, did most cru- 
 elly and treacherously murder him. A tumult was 
 raised in the town, and many of his friends came to
 
 PART I. BOOK III. 541 
 
 rescue him; but the conspirators carried the dead 
 body, and exposed it to their view, in the same win- 
 dow out of which he had not long before looked on 
 when Wishart was burnt, which had been universally 
 censured as a most indecent thing in a churchman, 
 to delight in such a spectacle. But those who con- 
 demned this action, yet acknowledged God's justice 
 in so exemplary a punishment; and reflecting on 
 Wishart's last words, were the more confirmed in the 
 opinion they had of his sanctity. This fact was dif- 
 ferently censured ; some justified it, and said, it was 
 only the killing of a mighty robber; others, that were 
 glad he was out of the way, yet condemned the man- 
 ner of it as treacherous and inhuman. And though 
 some of the preachers did afterwards fly to that castle 
 as a sanctuary, yet none of them were either actors or 
 consenters to it: it is true they did generally exte- 
 nuate it, yet I do not find that any of them justified 
 it. The exemplary and signal ends of almost all the 
 conspirators, scarce any of them dying an ordinary 
 death, made all people the more inclined to condemn 
 it. The day after the Cardinal was killed, about a 
 hundred and forty came into the castle and prepared 
 for a siege. The house was well furnished in all 
 things necessary; and it lying so near the sea, they 
 expected help from King Henry, to whom they sent 
 a messenger for his assistance, and declared for him. 
 So a siege following, they were so well supplied from 
 England, that, after five months, the Governor was 
 glad to treat with them, apprehending much the foot- 
 ing the English might have, if those within, being 
 driven to extremities, should receive a garrison from 
 King Henry. They had the Governor also more at 
 their mercy ; for as the Cardinal had taken his eldest 
 son into his house under the pretence of educating 
 him, but really as his father's hostage, designing like- 
 wise to infuse in him a violent hatred of the new 
 preachers; so the conspirators, finding him in the 
 castle, kept him still to help them to better terms. A 
 treaty being agreed on, they demanded their pardon 
 for what they had done, together with an absolution,
 
 512 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 to be procured from Rome, for the killing of the Car- 
 dinal; and that the castle, and the Governor's son, 
 should remain in their hands till the absolution was 
 brought over. Some of the preachers, apprehending 
 the clergy might revenge the Cardinal's death on 
 them, were forced to fly into the castle; but one of 
 them, John Rough (who was afterwards burnt in 
 England in Queen Mary's time), being so offended at 
 the licentiousness of the soldiers that were in the cas- 
 tle, who were a reproach to that which they pretended 
 to favour, left them, and went away in one of the ships 
 that brought provisions out of England. When the 
 absolution came from Rome, they excepted to it, for 
 some words in it that called the killing of the Cardi- 
 nal crimen irremissibile, an unpardonable crime; by 
 which they said the absolution gave them no security, 
 since it was null, if the fact could not be pardoned. 
 The truth was, they were encouraged from England ; 
 so they refused to stand to the capitulation, and re- 
 jected the absolution. But some ships and soldiers 
 being sent from France, the castle was besieged at 
 land, and shut up also by sea; and, which was worst 
 of all, a plague broke out within it, of which many 
 died. Upon this, no help coming suddenly from 
 England, they were forced to deliver up the place, on 
 no better terms than their lives should be spared ; but 
 they were to be banished Scotland, and never to re- 
 turn to it. The castle was demolished, according to 
 the canon law, that appoints all places, where any 
 cardinal is killed, to be rased. This was not com- 
 pleted this year, and not till two years after; only I 
 thought it best to join the whole matter together, and 
 set it down all at once. 
 
 A pariia- In November following a new parliament was 
 
 mem s .w. j^j^ . wnere ^ toward the expense of the King's wars, 
 
 the convocation of the province of Canterbury granted 
 
 a continuation of the former subsidy of six shillings 
 
 in the pound, to be paid in two years : but, for the 
 
 chapters temporality, a subsidy was demanded from them of 
 
 *r n i d s ch "v" n an ther kind : there were in the kingdom several 
 
 t. the Kin S -colleges, chapels, chantries, hospitals, and fraterni-
 
 PART I. BOOK III. 543 
 
 ties, consisting of secular priests, who enjoyed pen- 
 sions for saying- mass for the souls of those who had 
 endowed them. Now the belief of purgatory being 
 left indifferent by the doctrine set out by the bishops, 
 and the trade of redeeming souls being condemned, 
 it was thought needless to keep up so many endow- 
 ments to no purpose. Those priests were also gene- 
 rally ill-affected to the King's proceedings, since their 
 trade was so much lessened by them. Therefore 
 many of them had been dealt with to make resigna- 
 tions ; and four-and-twenty of them had surrendered 
 to the King. It was found, also, that many of the 
 founders of these houses had taken them into their 
 own hands ; and that the master, wardens, and go- 
 vernors of them had made agreements for them, and 
 given leases of them : therefore now, a subsidy being 
 demanded, all these were given to the King by act 
 of parliament ; which also confirmed the deeds that 
 any had made to the King : empowering him, in any 
 time of his life, to issue out commissions for seizing 
 on these foundations, and taking them into his own 
 possession : which, being so seized on, should belong 
 to the King and his successors for ever. They also 
 granted another subsidy for the war. When all their 
 business was done, the King came to the House, and 
 made a long speech, of which I cannot sufficiently 
 wonder that no entry is made in the Journals of the 
 House of Lords ; yet it is not to be doubted but he 
 made it, for it was published by Hall soon after. 
 
 When the Speaker of the House of Commons had 
 presented the bills, with a speech full of respect and 
 compliment, as is usual upon these occasions, the 
 King answered " Thanking them for the subsidy, xh King-* 
 and the bill about the colleges and chantries ; and * e e h 
 assured them, that he should take care both for sup- IIoas "- 
 plying the ministers, for encouraging learning, and 
 relieving the poor ; and that they should quickly per- 
 ceive, that, in these things, their expectations should 
 be answered, beyond what they either wished or de- 
 sired. And, after he had expressed his affection to 
 them, and the assurance he had of their duty and
 
 544 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 fidelity to him, he advised them to amend one thing ; 
 which was, that, instead of charity and concord, dis- 
 cord and division ruled every where. He cited St. 
 Paul's words : ' That charity was gentle, and not en- 
 vious, nor proud :' but when one called another he- 
 retic, and the other called him papist, and pharisee, 
 were these the signs of charity ? The fault of this he 
 charged chiefly on the fathers and teachers of the 
 spirituality, who preached one against another, with- 
 out charity or discretion ; some being too stiff in their 
 old mumpsimus, others too busy and curious in their 
 new sumpsimus ; and few preached the word of God 
 truly and sincerely. And how could the poor peo- 
 ple live in concord, when they sowed debate among 
 them ? Therefore he exhorted them to set forth God's 
 word by true preaching, and giving a good example ; 
 or else he, as God's vicar and high minister, would 
 see these enormities corrected, which if he did not 
 do he was an unprofitable servant and an untrue of- 
 ficer. He next reproved them of the temporality, who 
 railed at their bishops and priests : whereas, if they 
 had any thing to lay to their charge, they ought to 
 declare it to the King or his council, and not take 
 upon them to judge such high points : for, though 
 they had the Scriptures given them in their mother- 
 tongue, yet that was only to inform their own con- 
 sciences, and instruct their children and families; but 
 not to dispute, nor from thence to rail against priests 
 and preachers, as some vain persons did. He was 
 sorry that such a jewel as the word of God was so ill 
 used ; that rhymes and songs were taken out of it : 
 but much more sorry that men followed it so little ; 
 for charity was never fainter, a godly life never less 
 appeared, and God was never less reverenced and 
 worshipped. Therefore he exhorted them to live as 
 brethren in charity together, to love, dread, and serve 
 God ; and then the love and union between him and 
 them should never be dissolved. And so exhorting 
 them to look to the execution of the laws which them- 
 selves had desired, he gave his royal assent to the 
 bills, and dismissed the parliament."
 
 PART I. BOOK III. 545 
 
 The King gave at this time a commission to the 
 Bishops of Westminster, Worcester, and Chichester, 
 and the Chancellor of the court of Augmentation, Sir 
 Edward North, containing, " That whereas the King 
 had founded many cathedrals, in which he had given 
 large allowances, both to be distributed to the poor, 
 and to be laid out for the mending of highways ; to 
 Canterbury, 100/. for the poor, and 40/. for the high- 
 ways : to Rochester, 20/. for the poor, and 20/. for 
 the highways : to Westminster, 100/. for the poor, 
 and 40/. for the high ways : to Winchester, 100 marks 
 for the poor, and 50 for the highways : to Bristol, 
 Gloucester, Chester, Burton-upon-Trent, Thornton, 
 Peterborough, and Ely, 20/. a-piece for the poor, and 
 as much for the highways : to Worcester, 40/. for the 
 poor, and 40/. for the highways : to Duresme, 100 
 marks for the poor, and 40/. for the highways : and 
 to Carlisle, 15/. for the poor, and as much for the 
 highways : in all, about 550/. a-year to the poor, and 
 about 400/. a-year for the highways : they were to 
 inquire how this money was distributed ; and, if they 
 saw cause, they might order it to be applied to any 
 other use which they should judge more charitable 
 and convenient." But what followed upon this, does 
 not appear by the Records. 
 
 After the parliament was dissolved, the Universities 
 made their applications to the King, that they might 
 not be included within the general words in the act 
 of dissolution of colleges and fraternities. And Dr. 
 Cox, tutor to the Prince, wrote to Secretary Paget, to 
 " represent to the King the great want of schools, 
 preachers, and houses for orphans ; that beggary would 
 drive the clergy to flattery, superstition, and the old 
 'dolatry : there were ravenous wolves about the King 
 That would devour universities, cathedrals, and chan- 
 3ries, and a thousand times as much. Posterity would 
 wonder at such things : therefore he desired the Uni- 
 versities might be secured from their spoils." But the 
 King did quickly free them from these fears. 
 
 Now I enter into the last year of this King's reign. 
 The war in France was managed with doubtful suc- 
 
 VOL. i. 2 N
 
 546 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 cess : yet the losses were greater on the English side. 
 And the forces being commanded by the Earl of Surrey , 
 who was brave, but unsuccessful ; he was not only 
 blamed, but recalled, and the Earl of Hartford sent 
 to command in his room : but he, being a man of a 
 high spirit, and disdaining the Earl of Hartford, who 
 was now preferred before him, let fall some words of 
 high resentment and bitter contempt, which not long 
 after wrought his ruin. The King was now alone in 
 the war, which was very chargeable to him ; and ob- 
 serving the progress that the council of Trent was 
 making, where Cardinal Pole being one of the legates, 
 he had reason to look for some severe decree to be 
 made against himself; since none of the heretics of 
 Germany were so much hated by the court of Rome 
 as he was : therefore he listened to the counsels of 
 peace. And though he was not old, yet he felt such 
 decays in his strength, that, being extremely corpu- 
 lent, he had no reason to think he could live very long : 
 therefore, that he might not leave his young son in- 
 peace with volved in a war of such consequence, peace was con- 
 cluded in June, which was much to the King's honour ; 
 though the taking and keeping of Bulloign, (which 
 by this peace the King was to keep for eight years) 
 cost him above 1,300,000/. 
 
 Anewde- Upon the peace, the French admiral, Annebault, 
 refoml- came over to England. And now, again, a resolution 
 tion. O f going on with a reformation was set on foot : for it 
 was agreed between the King and the Admiral, that 
 in both kingdoms the mass should be changed into a 
 communion ; and Cranmer was ordered to draw a form 
 of it. They also resolved to press the Emperor to do 
 the like in his dominions, otherwise to make war upon 
 him : but how this project failed does not appear. 
 The animosities which the former war had raised be- 
 tween the two Kings were converted into a firm friend- 
 ship : which grew so strong on Francis's part, that he 
 never was seen glad at any thing, after he had the 
 news of the King's death. 
 
 sh.xtoD-8 But now one of the King's angry fits took him at 
 >UCJ " the reformers, so that there was a new persecution of
 
 Numb.SR. 
 
 PART I. BOOK III. 547 
 
 them. Nicholas Shaxton, that was bishop of Salis- 
 bury, had been long a prisoner ; but this year he had 
 said, in his imprisonment in the Compter in Bread 
 Street, " That Christ's natural body was not in the 
 sacrament, but that it was a sign and memorial of his 
 body that was crucified for us." Upon this he was 
 indicted, and condemned to be burnt. But the King 
 sent the Bishops of London and Worcester to deal 
 with him to recant ; which, on the 9th of July, he 
 did, acknowledging, " That that year he had fallen, 
 in his old age, in the heresy of the sacramentaries : 
 but that he was now convinced of that error, by their 
 endeavours whom the King had sent to him ; and 
 therefore he thanked the King for delivering him both 
 from temporal and eternal fire :" and subscribed a 
 paper of articles, which will be found in the Collec- collect, 
 tion. Upon this, he had his pardon and discharge 
 sent him the 13th of July, and soon after preached 
 the sermon at the burning of Anne Askew ; and wrote 
 a book in defence of the articles he had subscribed. 
 What became of him all Edward the Sixth's time I 
 cannot tell ; but I find he was a cruel persecutor and 
 burner of protestants in Queen Mary's days : yet it 
 seems those to whom he went over did not consider 
 him much, for they never raised him higher than to be 
 suffragan to the Bishop of Ely. Others were also in- 
 dicted upon the same statute, who got off by a recan- 
 tation, and were pardoned. But Anne Askew 's trial 
 had a more bloody conclusion. 
 
 She was nobly descended, and educated beyond i tr 
 what was ordinary in that age to those of her sex : but A^ 
 she was unfortunately married to one Kyme, who, A * kew - 
 being a violent papist, drove her out of his house, 
 when he found she favoured the Reformation : so she 
 came to London, where, information being given of 
 some words that she had spoken against the corporal 
 presence in the sacrament, she was put in prison : upon 
 which, great applications were made by many of her 
 friends to have her let out upon bail. The Bishop of 
 London examined her, and, after much pains, she was 
 brought to set her hand to a recantation, by which she 
 
 2x2
 
 548 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 acknowledged, " That the natural body of Christ was 
 present in the sacrament after the consecration, whe- 
 ther the priest were a good or an ill man ; and that, 
 whether it was presently consumed or reserved in the 
 pLv, it was the true body of Christ." Yet she added 
 to her subscription, that she believed all things ac- 
 cording to the catholic faith, and not otherwise. With 
 this the Bishop was not satisfied ; but, after much ado 
 and many importunate addresses, she was bailed in 
 the end of March this year. But not long after that 
 she was again apprehended, and examined before the 
 King's council, then at Greenwich, where she seemed 
 very indifferent what they did with her. She answered 
 them in general words, upon which they could fix 
 nothing, and made some sharp repartees upon the 
 Bishop of Winchester. Some liked the wit and free- 
 dom of her discourse ; but others thought she was 
 too forward. From thence she was sent to Newgate, 
 where she wrote some devotions and letters, that shew 
 her to have been a woman of most extraordinary parts. 
 She wrote to the King, " That as to the Lord's supper, 
 she believed as much as Christ had said in it, and as 
 much as the catholic church from him did teach." 
 Upon Shaxton's recantation, they sent him to her to 
 prevail with her : but she, instead of yielding to him, 
 charged his inconstancy home upon him. She had 
 been oft at court, and was much favoured by many 
 great ladies there ; and it was believed the Queen had 
 shewed kindness to her. So the Lord Chancellor ex- 
 amined her of what favour or encouragement she had 
 from any in the court, particularly from the Duchess 
 of Suffolk, the Countess of Hartford, and some other 
 ladies : but he could draw nothing from her, save that 
 one in livery had brought her some money, which he 
 said came from two ladies in the court : but they 
 resolved to extort further confessions from her ; and, 
 therefore, carrying her to the Tower, they caused her 
 to be laid on the rack, and gave her a taste of it. Yet 
 she confessed nothing. That she was racked is very 
 certain ; for I find it in an original Journal of the 
 transactions in the Tower, written by Anthony An-
 
 PART I. BOOK III. 549 
 
 thony. But Fox adds a passage that seems scarce 
 credible ; the thing is so extraordinary, and so unlike 
 the character of the Lord Chancellor, who, though he 
 was fiercely zealous for the old superstition, yet was 
 otherwise a great person : it is, that he commanded 
 the Lieutenant of the Tower to stretch her more, but shec B du 
 he refused to do it; and being further pressed, told th * rtok 
 him plainly he would not do it ; the other threatened 
 him, but to no purpose ; so the Lord Chancellor, 
 throwing off his gown, drew the rack so severely, that 
 he almost tore her body asunder, yet could draw no- 
 thing from her ; for she endured it with unusual pa- 
 tience and courage. When the King heard this, he 
 blamed the Lord Chancellor for his cruelty, and ex- 
 cused the Lieutenant of the Tower. Fox does not 
 vouch any warrant for this ; so that though I have set 
 it down, yet I give no entire credit to it: if it was true, 
 it shews the strange influence of that religion, and 
 that it corrupts the noblest natures ; yet the poor gen- 
 tlewoman's being racked, wrought no pity in the King 
 towards her, for he left her to be proceeded against ac- 
 cording to her sentence : she was carried to the stake 
 in Smithfield a little after that in a chair, not being 
 able to stand through the torments of the rack. There 
 were brought with her, at the same time, one Nicholas And u 
 Belenian, a priest, John Adams, a tailor, and John 
 Lassels, one of the King's servants ; (it is likely he 
 was the same person that had discovered Queen Ka- 
 therine Howard's incontinency ; for which all the 
 popish party, to be sure, bore him ho good will.) They 
 were all convicted upon the statute of the six Arti- 
 cles, for denying the corporal presence of Christ in 
 the sacrament. When they were brought thither, 
 Shaxton, to complete his apostacy, made a sermon of 
 the sacrament, and inveighed against their errors ; 
 that being ended, they were tied to the stake ; and 
 then the Lord Chancellor sent and offered them 
 their pardon, which was ready passed under the seal, 
 if they would recant : but they loved not their lives 
 so well as to redeem them by the loss of a good con- 
 science ; and therefore encouraging one another to 
 
 but in 
 
 w u 
 some 
 
 ounl'j.
 
 550 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 suffer patiently for the testimony of the truth, so they 
 endured to the last, and were made sacrifices by fire 
 unto God. There were also two in Suffolk, and one in 
 Norfolk, burnt on the same account a little before this. 
 A new But that party at court, having incensed the King 
 against much against those heretics, resolved to drive it fur- 
 craomer., t ner . an( j t o wor k the rum both of the Archbishop 
 of Canterbury and of the Queen : concluding, that, 
 if these attempts were successful, they should carry 
 every thing else. They therefore renewed their com- 
 plaints of the Archbishop of Canterbury ; and told 
 the King, that though there were evident proofs ready 
 to be brought against him, yet, because of his great- 
 ness and the King's carriage upon the former com- 
 plaints, none durst appear against him : but if he 
 were once put in the Tower, that men might hope to 
 be heard, they undertook to bring full and clear evi- 
 dences of his being a heretic. So the King consented 
 that he should be the next day called before the coun- 
 cil and sent to the Tower, if they saw cause for it. 
 And now they concluded him ruined ; but, in the 
 night, the King sent Sir Anthony Denny to Lambeth 
 to bring the Archbishop to speak with him : and when 
 he came, the King told him what informations had 
 been brought against him, and how far he had yielded 
 to them, that he should be sent to the Tower next 
 day : and, therefore, desired to hear from himself 
 what he had to say upon it. Cranmer thanked him 
 that he had not left him in the dark to be surprised 
 in a matter that concerned him so nearly : he acknow- 
 ledged the equity of the King's proceedings ; and all 
 that he desired was, that he might be brought to make 
 his answer ; and that, since he was to be questioned 
 for some of his opinions, judges might be assigned 
 who understood those matters. The King heard this 
 with astonishment, wondering to see a man so little 
 concerned in his own preservation ; but pleasantly 
 The King-, told him, " he was a fool that looked to his own safety 
 of'him"* so little : for did he think that if he were once put 
 in prison, abundance of false witnesses would not 
 be suborned to ruin him? therefore, since he did not
 
 PART I. BOOK III. 651 
 
 take care of himself, he would look to it." And so 
 he ordered him to appear next day before the council, 
 upon their summons ; and, when things were objected 
 to him, to say, that since he was a privy-counsellor, 
 he desired they would use him, as they would look to 
 be used in the like case ; and, therefore, to move that 
 his accusers might be brought face to face, and things 
 be a little better considered before he was sent to the 
 Tower. And if they refused to grant that, then he 
 was to appeal personally to the King (who intended 
 to be absent that day), and in token of it should shew 
 them the King's seal-ring which he wore on his finger, 
 and was well known to them all. So the King, giving 
 him his ring, sent him privately home again. Next 
 morning a messenger of the council came early, and 
 summoned him to appear that day before the council : 
 so he went over, but was long kept waiting in the 
 lobby before he was called in. At this unusual sight 
 many were astonished : but Dr. Buts, the King's phy- 
 sician, that loved Cranmer, and presumed more on 
 a diseased King than others durst do, went and told 
 the King what a strange thing he had seen : " the 
 Primate of all England waiting at the council-door 
 among the footmen and servants." So the King sent 
 them word, that he should be presently brought in ; 
 which being done, they said, that there were many 
 informations against him, that all the heresies that 
 were in England came from him and his chaplains. 
 To which he answered as the King had directed him. 
 But they insisting on what was before projected, he 
 said he was sorry to be thus used by those with whom 
 he had sat so long at that board, so that he must ap- 
 peal from them to the King : and with that took out 
 the King's ring and shewed it. This put them in a 
 wonderful confusion ; but they all rose up and went 
 to the King, who checked them severely for using the 
 Archbishop so unhandsomely. He said, "bethought 
 he had a wiser council than now he found they were. 
 He protested, by the faith he owed to God, laying 
 his hand on his breast, that if a prince could be 
 obliged by his subject he was by the Archbishop ;
 
 A52 BURN EX'S REFORMATION. 
 
 and that he took him to be the most faithful subject 
 he had, and the person to whom he was most be- 
 holden." The Duke of Norfolk made a trifling ex- 
 cuse, and said, " they meant no harm to the Arch- 
 bishop, but only to vindicate his innocencv by such a 
 trial, which would have freed him from the aspersions 
 that were cast on him." But the King answered, " he 
 would not suffer men that were so dear to him to be 
 handled in that fashion. He knew the factions that 
 were among them, and the malice that some of them 
 bore to others, which he would either extinguish or 
 punish very speedily." So he commanded them all 
 to be reconciled to Cranmer ; which was done with 
 the outward ceremony of taking him by the hand, and 
 was most real on his part, though the other party did 
 not so easily lay down the hatred they bore him. This 
 I place at this time ; though Parker, who related it, 
 names no year nor time in which it was done ; but he 
 ramer. j ea( j s us verv near j^ ^y saying, it was after the Duke 
 
 of Suffolk's death ; and this being the only time after 
 that in which the King was in an ill humour against 
 the reformers, I conclude it fell out at this time.* 
 Another That party, finding it was in vain to push at Cran- 
 
 design r J ' o . f 
 
 gainst mer any more, did never again endeavour it: yet one 
 0'^. design failing, they set on another against the Queen. 
 She was a great favourer of the reformers, and had 
 frequently sermons in her privy-chamber by some of 
 those preachers; which were not secretly carried, but 
 became generally known. When it came to the King's 
 ears, he took no notice of it: and the Queen carried 
 herself, in all other things, not only with an exact 
 conduct, but with that wonderful care about the King's 
 
 * o 
 
 person, which became a wife that was raised by him 
 to so great an honour, that he was much taken with 
 her; so that none durst venture on making any com- 
 plaints against her. Yet the King's distempers in- 
 creasing, and his peevishness growing with them, he 
 
 * This story concerning Cranmer must belong to the former year, for Buts, 
 that bore a share in it, died on the 17th of November, 1545 ; as appears by 
 the inscription on his tomb-stone in Fulham church : so this passage, being aftet 
 the Duke of Suffolk's death, which was in August that year, should be placed 
 between August and November, 1545.
 
 PART I. BOOK III. 653 
 
 became more uneasy ; and whereas she had frequently 
 used to talk to him of religion, and defend the opi- 
 nions of the reformers, in which he would sometimes 
 pleasantly maintain the argument, now, becoming 
 more impatient, he took it ill at her hands. And she 
 had sometimes in the heat of discourse gone very far. 
 So one night, after she had left him, the King being 
 displeased vented it to the Bishop of Winchester that 
 stood by: and he craftily and maliciously struck in 
 with the King's anger, and said all that he could 
 devise against the Queen, to drive his resentments 
 higher; and took in the Lord Chancellor into the de- 
 sign to assist him. They filled the King's head with 
 many stories of the Queen, and some of her ladies : 
 and said they had favoured Anne Askew, and had 
 heretical books amongst them ; and he persuaded the 
 King that they, were traitors as well as heretics. The 
 matter went so far that articles were drawn against 
 her, which the King signed; for without that it was 
 not safe for any to impeach the Queen. But the Lord 
 Chancellor putting up that paper carelessly, it dropped 
 from him ; and being taken up by one of the Queen's 
 party, was carried to her. Whether the King had 
 really designed her ruin or not, is differently repre- 
 sented by the writers who lived near that time : but 
 she, seeing his hand to such a paper had reason to 
 conclude herself lost. Yet by advice of one of her 
 friends, she went to see the King, who, receiving her 
 kindly, set on a discourse about religion. But she 
 answered, " that women, by their first creation, were 
 made subject to men ; and they, being after the image 
 of God, as the women were after their image, ought 
 to instruct their wives, who were to learn of them : 
 and she much more was to be taught by his Majesty, 
 who was a prince of such excellent learning and wis- 
 dom." " Not so, by St. Mary," said the King, " you 
 are become a doctor able to instruct us, and not to be 
 instructed by us." To which she answered, "that it 
 seemed he had much mistaken the freedom she had 
 taken to argue with him, since she did it partly to en- 
 gage him in discourse, and so put over the time, and
 
 554 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 make him forget his pain; and partly to receive in- 
 structions from him, by which she had profited much." 
 "And is it even so?" said the King, "then we are 
 friends again." So he embraced her with great af- 
 fection, and sent her away with very tender assurances 
 of his constant love to her. But the next day had 
 been appointed for carrying her and some of her ladies 
 to the Tower. The day being fair, the King went to 
 take a little air in the garden, and sent for her to bear 
 him company. As they were together, the Lord Chan- 
 cellor came in, having about forty of the guard with 
 him, to have arrested the Queen. But the King 
 stepped aside to him; and after a little discourse he 
 was heard to call him knave, fool, and beast, and he 
 bade him get him out of his sight. The innocent 
 Queen, who understood not that her danger was so 
 near, studied to mitigate the King's displeasure, and 
 interceded for the Lord Chancellor. But the King 
 told her, she had no reason to plead for him. 
 
 So this design miscarried; which, as it absolutely 
 disheartened the papists, so it did totally alienate the 
 King from them, and in particular from the Bishop 
 of Winchester, whose sight he could never after this 
 endure. But he made a humble submission to the 
 King ; which, though it preserved him from further 
 punishment, yet could not restore him to the King's 
 The caues favour. But the Duke of Norfolk, and his son the 
 Dul^of Earl of Surrey, fell under a deeper misfortune. The 
 dis rf ^ ks -D u k e f Norfolk had been long lord treasurer of 
 England : he had done great services to the crown on 
 many signal occasions, and success had always ac- 
 companied him. His son, the Earl of Surrey, was 
 also a brave and noble person: witty and learned to 
 a high degree, but did not command armies with such 
 success. He was much provoked at the Earl of Hart- 
 ford's being sent over to France in his room ; and upon 
 that had said, " That within a little while they should 
 smart for it;" with some other expressions that sa- 
 voured of revenge, and a dislike of the King, and a 
 hatred of the counsellors. The Duke of Norfolk had 
 endeavoured to ally himself to the Earl of Hartford,
 
 PART I. BOOK III. 555 
 
 and to his brother Sir Thomas Seymour, perceiving 
 how much they were in the King's favour, and how 
 great an interest they were like to have under the suc- 
 ceeding prince. And therefore would have engaged 
 his son, being then a widower, to marry that Earl's 
 daughter: and pressed his daughter the Duchess of 
 Richmond, widow to the King's natural son, to marry 
 Sir Thomas Seymour. But though the Earl of Surrey 
 advised his sister to the marriage projected for her, 
 yet he would not consent to that designed for himself, 
 nor did the proposition about his sister take effect. 
 The Seymours could not but see the enmity the Earl 
 of Surrey bore them, and they might well be jealous 
 of the greatness of that family; which was not only 
 too big for a subject of itself, but was raised so high 
 by the dependance of the whole popish party, both at 
 home and abroad, that they were like to be very dan- 
 gerous competitors for the chief government of affairs, 
 if the King were once out of the way, whose disease 
 was now growing so fast upon him, that he could not 
 live many weeks. Nor is it unlikely that they per- 
 suaded the King, that, if the Earl of Surrey should 
 marry the Lady Mary, it might embroil his son's go- 
 vernment, and perhaps ruin him. And it was sug- 
 gested, that he had some such high project in his 
 thoughts, both by his continuing unmarried, and by 
 his using the arms of Edward the Confessor, which 
 of late he had given in his coat without a diminution. 
 But to complete the Duke of Norfolk's ruin, his 
 Duchess, who had complained of his using her ill, 
 and had been separated from him about four years, 
 turned informer against him. His son and daughter 
 were also in ill terms together. So the sister informed 
 all that she could against her brother. And one 
 Mrs. Holland, for whom the Duke was believed to 
 have an unlawful affection, discovered all she knew: 
 but all amounted to no more than some passionate ex- 
 pressions of the son and some complaints of the father, 
 who thought he was- not beloved by the King and his 
 counsellors, and that he was ill used in not being 
 trusted with the secret of affairs. And all persons
 
 556 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 being encouraged to bring informations against them, 
 Sir Richard Southwell charged the Earl of Surrey in 
 some points that were of a higher nature; which the 
 Earl denied, and desired to be admitted, according to 
 the martial law, to fight in his shirt with Southwell. 
 But that not being granted, he and his father were 
 committed to the Tower. That which was most in- 
 sisted on was, their giving the arms of Edward the Con- 
 fessor, which were only to be given by the kings of Eng- 
 land. This the Earl of Surrey justified, and said, they 
 gave their arms according to the opinion of the King's 
 heralds. But all excuses availed nothing, for his father 
 and he were designed to be destroyed upon reasons of 
 state ; for which some colours were to be found out. 
 1547. The Earl of Surrey, being but a commoner, was 
 of^ey brought to his trial at Guildhall, and put upon an in- 
 ecute<i. q ues t of commoners, consisting of nine knights and 
 three esquires, by whom he was found guilty of trea- 
 son, and had sentence of death passed upon him, 
 which was executed on the 19th of January at Tower- 
 Hill. It was generally condemned as an act of high 
 injustice and severity, which loaded the Seymours 
 with a popular odium, that they could never over- 
 come. He was much pitied, being a man of great parts 
 and high courage, with many other noble qualities. 
 The Duke's But the King, who never hated nor ruined any body 
 Ih'Tto by halves, resolved to complete the misfortunes of that 
 the KiDg. f am iiy by the attainder of the father. And as dl his 
 eminent services were now forgotten, so the submis- 
 sions he made could not allay a displeasure that was 
 only to be satisfied with his life and fortune. He wrote 
 to the King, protesting his innocency: " that he had 
 never a thought to his prejudice, and could not ima- 
 gine what could be laid to his charge : he had spent 
 his whole life in his service, and did not know that 
 ever he had offended any person ; or that any were 
 displeased with him, except for prosecuting the break- 
 ers of the act about the sacrament of the altar. But 
 in that, and in every thing else, as he had been always 
 obedient to the King's laws, so he was resolved still 
 to obey any laws he should make. He desired he
 
 PART I. BOOK III. 557 
 
 might be examined with his accusers face to face, 
 before the King, or at least before his council ; and 
 if it did not appear that he was wrongfully accused, 
 let him be punished as he deserved. In conclusion, 
 he begged the King would have pity on him and re- 
 store him to his favour ; taking all his lands, or goods 
 from him, or as much of them as he pleased." Yet all 
 this had no effect on the King. So he was desired to 
 make a more formal submission; which he did on the 
 12th of January under his hand, ten privy-counsellors 
 being witnesses. In it he confessed, " First, his disco- 
 vering the secrets of the King's council. Secondly, 
 his concealing his son's treason, in using to give the 
 arms of St. Edward the Confessor, which did only 
 belong to the King, and to which his son had no 
 right. Thirdly, that he had, ever since his father's 
 death, borne in the first quarter of his arms the arms 
 of England, with a difference of the labels of silver, 
 that are the proper arms of the Prince ; which was 
 done in prejudice of the King and the Prince ; and 
 gave occasion for disturbing or interrupting the suc- 
 cession to the crown of the realm. This he acknow- 
 ledged was high treason ; he confessed he deserved 
 to be attainted of high treason, and humbly begged 
 the King's mercy and compassion." He yielded to all 
 this, hoping by such a submission and compliance to 
 have overcome the King's displeasure ; but his expec- 
 tations failed him.. 
 
 A parliament was called, the reason whereof was Th 
 pretended to be the coronation of the Prince of Wales : 
 but it was thought the true cause of calling it was to 
 attaint the Duke of Norfolk ; for which they had not 
 colour enough to do it in a trial by his peers. There- 
 fore an attainder by act of parliament was thought the 
 better way. So it was moved, that the King, intend- 
 ing to crown his son Prince of Wales, desired they 
 would go on with all possible haste in the attainder 
 of the Duke of Norfolk ; that so those places, which 
 he held by patent, might be disposed of by the King 
 to such as he thought fit, who should assist at the 
 coronation. And upon this slight pretence, since a 
 
 meat meets.
 
 558 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 better could not be found, the bill of attainder was 
 read the first time on the 18th of January; and on 
 the 19th and 20th it was read the second and third 
 The Duke time : and so passed in the House of Lords ; and was 
 Lainled. sent down to the Commons : who on the 24th sent it up 
 also passed. On the 27th the Lords were ordered to 
 be in their robes, that the royal assent might be given 
 to it ; which the Lord Chancellor, with some others 
 joined in commission, did give by virtue of the King's 
 letters-patents. And it had been executed the next 
 morning, if the King's death had not prevented it. 
 Upon what grounds this attainder was founded, I can 
 only give this account from the thirty-fourth act of 
 the first parliament of Queen Mary ; in which this act 
 is declared null and void by the common law of the 
 land ; for I cannot find the act itself upon record. In 
 the act of repeal it is said, "that there was no special 
 matter in the act of attainder, but only general words 
 of treasons and conspiracies : and that, out of their 
 care of the preservation of the King and the Prince 
 they passed it. But the act of repeal says, also, that 
 the only thing with which he was charged, was, for 
 bearing of arms, which he and his ancestors had borne 
 within and without the kingdom ; both in the King's 
 presence and in the sight of his progenitors; which 
 they might lawfully bear and give, as by good and 
 substantial matter of record it did appear. It is also 
 added, that the King died after the date of the com- 
 mission; that the King only empowered them to give 
 his assent, but did not give it himself; and that it did 
 not appear by any record, that they gave it. That the 
 King did not sign the commission with his own hand, 
 his stamp being only set to it ; and that not to the upper 
 but the nether part of it, contrary to the King's custom." 
 All these particulars, though cleared afterwards, I 
 mention now, because they give light to this matter. 
 HIS death As soon as the act was passed, a warrant was sent 
 bIhe tsd to the Lieutenant of the Tower to cut off his head the 
 King's. nex t morning : but the King dying in the night, the 
 Lieutenant could do nothing on that warrant. And 
 it seems it was not thought advisable to begin the new
 
 PART I. BOOK III. 559 
 
 King's reign with such an odious execution. And 
 thus the Duke of Norfolk escaped very narrowly. Both 
 parties descanted on this differently. The conscien- 
 tious papists said, it was God's just judgment on him 
 (who had in all things followed the King's pleasure, 
 oftentimes against his own conscience), that he should 
 smart under that power which himself had helped so 
 considerably to make it be raised so high. The pro- 
 testants could not but observe a hand of God, in mea- 
 suring out such a hard measure to him, that was so 
 heavy on all those poor people that were questioned FOX. 
 for heresy. But Cranmer's carriage in this matter 
 was suitable to the other parts of his life ; for he with- 
 drew to Croydon, and would not so much as be pre- 
 sent in parliament, when so unjust an act was passed ; 
 and his absence at this time was the more considerable, 
 since the King was so dangerously ill, that it must 
 be concluded it could be no slight cause that made 
 him withdraw at such a time. But the Duke of Nor- 
 folk had been his constant enemy, therefore he would 
 not so much as be near the public councils when so 
 strange an act was passing.* But, at the same time, 
 the Bishop of Winchester was officiously hanging on 
 in the court : and though he was forbid to come to 
 council, yet always, when the counsellors went into 
 the King's bedchamber, he went with them to the 
 door, to make the world believe he was still one of 
 the number, and staying at the door till the rest came 
 out he returned with them : but he was absolutely 
 lost in the King's opinion. 
 
 There is but one other step of foreign business in The Em. 
 this reign ; which was an embassy sent over by the Sj* 
 Duke of Saxony,- to let the King know of the league aga 
 between the Pope and the Emperor, for the extirpation 
 of heresy : and that the Emperor was making war 
 on him, and the other princes : in pursuance of that 
 league therefore he desired the King's assistance. But, 
 at the same time, the Emperor did by his agents every 
 
 * This appears to be contradicted by the Journals of the House, which re- 
 present the Primate to have been present every time the Bill was read, as 
 well as on the day on which it received the royal assent.
 
 560 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 where disown that the war was made upon a religious 
 account ; and said it was only to maintain the rights 
 of the empire, which those princes had affronted. So 
 the King answered, that as soon as it did appear to 
 him that religion was the cause of the war, he would 
 assist them. But that which made this so involved 
 was, that, though at Rome the Pope declared it was 
 a holy war, and ordered prayers and processions to 
 be made for success, yet the Emperor in all his de- 
 clarations took no notice of religion : he had also di- 
 vided the protestant party, so that some of them 
 joined with him, and others were neutrals. And when, 
 in Germany itself, this matter was so little understood, 
 it was easy to abuse strangers by giving them a wrong 
 account of it. 
 
 The King-! The King was now overgrown with corpulency 
 and fatness, so that he became more and more un- 
 weildy. He could not go up or down stairs, but as 
 he was raised up or let down by an engine. And an 
 old sore in his leg became very uneasy to him ; so 
 that all the humours in his body sinking down into 
 his leg, he was much pained, and became exceeding 
 froward and intractable, to which his inexcusable 
 severity to the Duke of Norfolk and his son may be 
 in a great measure imputed. His servants durst scarce 
 speak to him, to put him in mind of his approaching 
 end. And an act of parliament, which was made for 
 the security of the King's life, had some words in it 
 against the foretelling of his death, which made every 
 one afraid to speak to him of it ; lest he, in his angry 
 and imperious humours, should have ordered them to 
 be indicted upon that statute. But he felt nature de- 
 clining apace, and so made the will that he had left 
 behind him, at his last going into France, be written 
 over again ; with this only difference, that Gardiner, 
 bishop of Winchester, whom he had appointed one 
 of the executors of his will, and of the counsellors to 
 his son till he came of age, was now left out : of 
 which, when, Sir Anthony Brown put the King in 
 mind, apprehending it was only an omission, he an- 
 swered, that he knew Gardiner's temper well enough,
 
 PART I. BOOK III. 561 
 
 and though he could govern him, yet none of them 
 would be able to do it, and that he would give them 
 much trouble. And when Brown at another time re- 
 peated the motion to the King, he told him, if he 
 spake more of that he would strike him out of his 
 will too. The will was said to be signed the 30th 
 of December. It is printed at large by Fuller, and 
 the most material parts of it by Heylin : so I need 
 say little of it, only the most signal clause in it was, 
 that he excluded the line of Scotland out of the suc- 
 cession, and preferred the two daughters of the French 
 Queen by Charles Brandon to them ; and this leads 
 me to discover several things concerning this will 
 which have been hitherto unknown. I draw them 
 from a letter written to Sir William Cecil, then secre- 
 tary of state to Queen Elizabeth (afterwards Lord 
 Burghleyjby William Maitland, of Lethingtoun, secre- 
 tary of state to the Queen of Scotland. This Mait- 
 land was accounted a man of the greatest parts of 
 any in his nation at that time, though his treachery 
 in turning over to the party that was against the Queen 
 very much blemished his other qualities : but he ex- 
 piated his fault by a real repentance, which appeared 
 in his returning to his duty, and losing all afterwards 
 in her quarrel. His letter will be found in the Col- c *- 
 lection. The substance and design of it is, to clear 
 the right his mistress had to the crown of England, ", 1 * I J 
 in case the Queen should die without heirs of her ge'ry. 
 body. Therein, after he had answered other ob- 
 jections, he comes to this of the will. To it he says : 
 " That, according to the act of parliament, the King's 
 will was to be signed with his own hand ; but this will 
 was only signed by the stamp. Then the King never 
 ordered the stamp to be put to it : he had been often 
 desired to sign it, but had always put it off; but when 
 they saw his death approaching, one William Clark, 
 servant to Thomas Hennage, put the stamp to it, and 
 some gentlemen that were waiting without were called 
 in to sign it as witnesses. For this he appealed to 
 the deposition of the Lord Paget, and desired the 
 Marquis of Winchester and Northampton, the Earl 
 VOL. i. 2 o
 
 562 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 of Pembroke, Sir William Petre, Sir Henry Nevil, 
 Sir Maurice Berkeley, Sir Anthony Denny, Doctor 
 Buts, and some others, might be examined ; and that 
 their depositions might be entered in the Chancery. 
 He also appealed to the original will, by which it 
 would appear that it was not signed, but only stamped ; 
 and that not being according to the act of parliament, 
 which in such extraordinary things must be strictly 
 taken, the will was of no force." Thus it appears 
 what vulgar errors pass upon the world : and though 
 for seventy-five years the Scottish race has enjoyed 
 the crown of England, and after so long a possession 
 it is very superfluous to clear a title which is universally 
 acknowledged, yet the reader will not be ill pleased 
 to see how ill-grounded that pretence was, which some 
 managed very seditiously during the reign of Queen 
 Elizabeth, for excluding that line. 
 
 But if this will was not signed by the King, other 
 grants were certainly made by him on his death-bed ; 
 one was to the city of London, of five hundred marks 
 a-year for endowing an hospital, which was called 
 Christ's Hospital ; and he ordered the church of the 
 Franciscans, a little within Newgate, to be opened, 
 which he gave to the Hospital : this was done the 
 3d of January. Another was of Trinity College, in 
 Cambridge, one of the noblest foundations in Chris- 
 tendom. He continued in a decay till the 27th of 
 the month ; and then many signs of his approaching 
 end appearing, few would adventure on so unwelcome 
 a thing as to put him in mind of his change, then im- 
 minent : but Sir Anthony Denny had the honesty and 
 courage to do it, and desired him to prepare for death, 
 and remember his former life, and to call on God for 
 mercy through Jesus Christ. Upon which the King 
 expressed his grief for the sins of his past life ; yet he 
 said he trusted in the mercies of Christ, which were 
 greater than they were. Then Denny asked him, if 
 any churchman should be sent for; and he said, if 
 any, it should be Archbishop Cranmer : and after he 
 had rested a little, finding his spirits decay apace he 
 ordered him to be sent for to Croydon, where he was
 
 PART I. BOOK III. 563 
 
 then. But before lie could come the King was speech- 
 less : so Cranmer desired him to give some sign of 
 his dying in the faith of Christ, upon which he 
 squeezed his hand and soon after died, after he had 
 reigned thirty-seven years and nine months, in the 
 six-and-fiftieth year of his age. His death was kept 
 up three days ; for the journals of the House of Lords 
 shew, that they continued reading bills and going on 
 in business till the 31st ; and no sooner did the Lord 
 Chancellor signify to them that the King was dead, 
 and that the parliament was thereby dissolved. It is 
 certain the parliament had no being after the King's 
 breath was out; so their sitting till the 31st shews, 
 that the King's death was not generally known all those 
 three days. The reasons of concealing it so long, 
 might either be, that they were considering what to do 
 with the Duke of Norfolk, or that the Seymours were 
 laying their matters so as to be secure in the govern- 
 ment before they published the King's death. I shall 
 not adventure on adding any further character of him, 
 to that which is done with'so much wit and judgment 
 by the Lord Herbert, but shall refer the reader wholly 
 to him ; only adding an account of the blackest part 
 of it, the attainders that passed the last thirteen years 
 of his life ; which are comprehended within this book, 
 of which I have cast over the relation to the conclu- 
 sion of it. 
 
 In the latter part of his reign there were many tilings *" ac- 
 
 , , it ,1 count of 
 
 that seem great seventies, especially as they are repre- the K;, 
 sented by the writers of the Roman party ; whose re- ^lifi 
 lations are not a little strengthened by the faint ex- f^ A 
 cuses and the mistaken accounts that most of the pro- 
 testant historians have made. The King was naturally 
 impetuous, and could not bear provocation ; the times 
 were very ticklish ; his subjects were generally ad- 
 dicted to the old superstition, especially in the northern 
 parts ; the monks and friars were both numerous and 
 wealthy ; the Pope was his implacable enemy ; the 
 Emperor was a formidable Prince, and, being then 
 master of all the Netherlands, had many advantages 
 for the war he designed against England. Cardinal 
 
 2 o 2
 
 5G4 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 Pole, his kinsman, was going over all the courts of 
 Christendom to persuade a league against England; 
 as being a thing of greater necessity and merit than a 
 war against the Turk. This being, without the least 
 aggravation, the state of affairs at that time, it must be 
 confessed he was sore put to it; a superstition that 
 was so blind and headstrong, and enemies that were 
 both so powerful, so spiteful, and so industrious, made 
 rigour necessary : nor is any general of an army more 
 concerned to deal severely with spies and intelli- 
 gencers, than he was to proceed against all the Pope's 
 adherents, or such as kept correspondence with Pole. 
 He had observed in history, that, upon much less 
 provocation than himself had given, not only several 
 emperors and foreign princes had been dispossessed 
 of their dominions ; but two of his ancestors, Henry 
 the Second and King John, had been driven to great 
 extremities, and forced to unusual and most inde- 
 cent submissions, by the means of the popes and their 
 clergy. 
 
 The Pope's power over the clergy was so absolute, 
 and their dependence and obedience to him was so 
 implicit ; and the popish clergy had so great an inte- 
 rest in the superstitious multitude, whose consciences 
 they governed ; that nothing but a stronger passion 
 could either tame the clergy or quiet the people. If 
 there had been the least hope of impunity, the last 
 part of his reign would have been one continued re- 
 bellion ; therefore, to prevent a more profuse effusion 
 of blood, it seemed necessary to execute laws severely 
 in some particular instances. 
 
 There is one calumny that runs in a thread through 
 all the historians of the popish side, which not a few 
 of our own have ignorantly taken up, that many were 
 put to death for not swearing the King's supremacy. 
 It is an impudent falsehood ; for not so much as one 
 person suffered on that account ; nor was there any 
 law for any such oath before the parliament in the 
 twenty-eighth year of the King's reign, when the un- 
 sufferable bull of Pope Paul the Third engaged him 
 to look a little more to his own safety. Then, indeed,
 
 PART I. BOOK III. 665 
 
 in the oath for maintaining the succession of the crown, 
 the subjects were required, under the pains of treason, 
 to swear that the King was supreme head of the church 
 of England ; but that was not mentioned in the former 
 oath that was made in the twenty-fifth, and enacted 
 in the twenty-sixth year of his reign. It cannot but 
 be confessed, that to enact, under pain of death, that 
 none should deny the King's titles, and to proceed 
 upon that against offenders, is a very different thing 
 from forcingthem to swear the King to be the supreme 
 head of the church. 
 
 The first instance of these capital proceedings was in 1533. 
 Easter Term, in the beginning of the twenty-seventh ^^"' 
 year of his reign. Three priors and a monk, of the e f *. 
 Carthusian order, were then indicted of treason, for >g <** 
 saying that the King was not supreme head under pr^y" 
 Christ of the church of England. These were John 
 Houghton, prior of the Charter-house, near London ; 
 Augustin Webster, prior of Axholme ; Robert Lau- 
 rence, prior of Bevoll ; and Richard Reynolds, a monk 
 of Sion : this last was esteemed a learned man for that 
 time and that order. They were tried in Westminster- 
 hall, by a commission of Oyer and Terminer : they 
 pleaded not guilty, but the jury found them guilty, 
 and judgment was given that they should suffer as 
 traitors. The record mentions no other particulars ; 
 but the writers of the popish side make a splendid 
 recital of the courage and constancy they expressed 
 both in their trial and at their death. It was no dif- 
 ficult thing for men so used to the legend, and the 
 making of fine stories for the saints and martyrs of 
 their orders, to dress up such narratives with much 
 pomp. But as their pleading not guilty to the in- 
 dictment shews no extraordinary resolution, so the ac- 
 count that is given by them of one Hall, a secular 
 priest, that died with them, is so false, that there is 
 good reason to suspect all. He is said to have suf- 
 fered on the same account; but the record of his at- And iuii. 
 tainder gives a very different relation of it. * pri ' st> 
 
 O - v a lor con- 
 
 He and Robert Feron were indicted, at the same 'p mn R 
 time, for having said many spiteful and treasonable ST 
 
 '
 
 5GG BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 things; a*, " that the King was a tyrant, a heretic, a 
 robber, and an adulterer; that they hoped he should 
 die such a death as King John and Richard III. died ; 
 that they looked when those in Ireland and Wales 
 should invade England; and they were assured that 
 three parts of four in England would be against the 
 King : they also said, that they should never live mer- 
 rily till the King and the rulers were plucked by the 
 pates and brought to the pot; and that it would never 
 be well with the church till that was done." Hall had 
 not only said this, but had also written it to Feron, 
 the 10th of March that year. When they were 
 brought to the bar, they at first pleaded not guilty ; 
 but full proof being brought, they themselves con- 
 fessed the indictment, before the jury went aside, and 
 put themselves on the King's mercy: upon which, this 
 being an imagining and contriving both war against 
 the King and the King's death, judgment was given 
 as in cases of treason : but no mention being made 
 of Feron's death, it seems he had his pardon. Hall 
 suffered with the four Carthusians, who were hanged 
 in their habits. 
 
 Three They proceeded no further in Easter Term ; but in 
 monL Trinity Term there was another commission of Oyer 
 executed. an( j Termincr, by which Humphrey Middlemore,Wil- 
 liam Exmew, and Sebastian Nudigate, three monks 
 of the Charter-house, near London, were indicted of 
 treason, for having said, on the 25th of May, " that 
 they neither could nor would consent to be obedient 
 to the King's Highness, as true, lawful, and obedient 
 subjects ; to take him to be supreme head on earth of 
 the church of England." They all pleaded not guilty, 
 but were found guilty by the jury ; and judgment 
 was given. When they were condemned, they de- 
 sired that they might receive the body of Christ before 
 their death ; but (as Judge Spelman wrote) the court 
 would not grant it, since that was never done in such 
 cases, but by order from the King. Two days after 
 that, they were executed. Two other monks of that 
 same order, John Rochester and James Wolver, suf- 
 fered on the same account at York, in May this year.
 
 PART I. BOOK III. 507 
 
 Ten other Carthusian monks were shut up within 
 their cells, where nine of them died ; the tenth was 
 hanged in the beginning of August. Concerning 
 those persons, I find this said in some original letters, 
 that they had brought over into England, and vented 
 in it, some books that were written beyond sea, against 
 the King's marriage, and his other proceedings, which, 
 being found in their house, they were pressed to 
 peruse the books that were written for the King, but 
 obstinately refused to do it ; they had also been in- 
 volved in the business of the Maid of Kent ; for 
 which, though all the accomplices in it, except those 
 who suffered for it, were pardoned by act of parlia- 
 ment, yet such as had been concerned in it were still 
 under joalousy : and it is no wonder that, upon new 
 provocations, they met with the uttermost rigour of 
 the law. 
 
 These trials made way for two others that were Fiber's 
 more signal : of the Bishop of Rochester and Sir death*" 
 Thomas More. The first of these had been a prisoner 
 above a year, and was very severely used : he com- 
 plained in his letters to Cromwell, that he had neither 
 clothes nor fire, being then about fourscore. This 
 was understood at Rome ; and upon it, Pope Clement, 
 by an officious kindness to him, or rather in spite to 
 King Henry, declared him a cardinal, and sent him 
 a red hat. When the King knew this, he sent to exa- 
 mine him about it ; but he protested he had used no 
 endeavours to procure it, and valued it so little, that, 
 if the hat were lying at his feet, he would not take it 
 up. It never came nearer him than Picardy : yet this 
 did precipitate his ruin. But if he had kept his opi- 
 nion of the King's supremacy to himself, they could 
 not have proceeded further. He would not do that, 
 but did, upon several occasions, speak against it ; so 
 he was brought to his trial on the 17th of June. The 
 Lord Chancellor, the Duke of Suffolk, and some other 
 lords, together with the judges, sat upon him by a 
 commission of Oyer and Terminer. He pleaded not 
 guilty ; but being found guilty, judgment was passed 
 on him to die as a traitor ; but he was, by a warrant
 
 racier. 
 
 568 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 from the King, beheaded. Upon the 22d of June, 
 being the day of his execution, he dressed himself 
 with more than ordinary care ; and when his man 
 took notice of it, he told him he was to be that day a 
 bridegroom. As he was led to the place of execution, 
 being stopped in the way by the crowd, he opened 
 his New Testament, and prayed to this purpose : that 
 as that book had been his companion and chief comfort 
 in his imprisonment, so then some place might turn 
 up to him that might comfort him in his last passage. 
 This being said, he opened the book at a venture, in 
 which these words of St. John's Gospel turned up : 
 " This is life eternal to know thee the only true God, 
 and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent." So he shut 
 the book with much satisfaction, and all the way was 
 repeating and meditating on them. When he came 
 to the scaffold, he pronounced the Te Deum ; and, 
 after some other devotions, his head was cut off', 
 cha- Thus died John Fisher, bishop of Rochester, in the 
 eightieth year of his age. He was a learned and 
 devout man, but much addicted to the superstitions 
 in which he had been bred up : and that led him to 
 great severities against all that opposed them. He 
 had been for many years confessor to the King's 
 grandmother, the Countess of Richmond ; and it was 
 believed that he persuaded her to those noble designs 
 for the advancement of learning, of founding two col- 
 leges in Cambridge, St. John's and Christ's College, 
 and divinity professors in both universities : and, in 
 acknowledgment of this, he was chosen Chancellor 
 of the University of Cambridge. Henry VII. gave 
 him the bishoprick of Rochester ; which he, follow- 
 ing the rule of the primitive church, would never 
 change for a better; he used to say his church was 
 his wife, and he would never part with her because 
 she was poor. He continued in great favour with the 
 Kinor till the business of the divorce was set on foot : 
 
 O ' 
 
 and then he adhered so firmly to the Queen's cause, 
 and the Pope's supremacy, that he was carried by 
 that headlong into great errors, as appears by the 
 business of the Maid of Kent. Many thought the
 
 PART I. BOOK III. 569 
 
 King ought to have proceeded against him rather 
 upon that, which was a point of state, than upon the 
 supremacy, which was matter of conscience. But the 
 King was resolved to let all his subjects see there was 
 no mercy to be expected by any that denied his being 
 supreme head of the church ; and therefore made him 
 and More two examples for terrifying the rest. This 
 being much censured beyond sea, Gardiner, that was 
 never wanting in the most servile compliances, wrote 
 a vindication of the King's proceedings. The Lord 
 Herbert had it in his hands, and tells us it was written 
 in elegant Latin ; but that he thought it too long, and 
 others judged it was too vehement, to be inserted in 
 his History. 
 
 On the 1st of July, Sir Thomas More was brought More-* 
 to his trial. The special matter in his indictment is, &*&"* 
 that, on the 7th of May preceding, before Cromwell, 
 Bedyl, and some others, that were pressing him con- 
 cerning the King's supremacy, he said he would not 
 meddle with any such matter, and was fully resolved 
 to serve God, and think upon his passion, and his 
 own passage out of this world. He had also sent 
 divers messages by one George Gold to Fisher, to 
 encourage him in his obstinacy ; and said, " the act 
 of parliament is like a sword with two edges ; for if 
 a man answer one way, it will confound his soul, and 
 if he answer another way, it will confound his body." 
 He had said the same thing on the 3d of June, in the 
 hearing of the Lord Chancellor, the Duke of Norfolk, 
 and others ; and that he would not be the occasion 
 of the shortening his own life. And when Rich, the 
 King's solicitor, came to deal with him further about 
 it, but protested that he came not with any authority 
 to examine him, they discoursed the matter fully; 
 Rich pressed him, " that, since the parliament had 
 enacted that the King was supreme head, the subjects 
 ought to agree to it ; and, said Rich, what if the par- 
 liament should declare me King, would you not ac- 
 knowledge me? I would, said More, quid (as it is 
 in the indictment) rex per parliamentum fieri potest, 
 et per parliamentum deprivari : but More turned the
 
 570 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 argument on Rich, and said, what if the parliament 
 made an act that God was not God ? Rich acknow- 
 ledged it could not bind ; but replied to More, that 
 since he would acknowledge him King, if he were 
 made so by act of parliament, why would he not ac- 
 knowledge the King supreme head, since it was en- 
 acted by parliament? To that More answered, that 
 the parliament had power to make a king, and the 
 people were bound to acknowledge him whom they 
 made ; but for the supremacy, though the parliament 
 had enacted it, yet those in foreign parts had never 
 assented to it." This was carried by Rich to the King; 
 and all these particulars were laid together, and judged 
 to amount to a denial of the supremacy. Judge Spel- 
 man wrote, that More, being on his trial, pleaded 
 strongly against the statute that made it treason to 
 deny the supremacy, and argued that the King could 
 not be supreme head of the church. When he was 
 brought to the bar, he pleaded not guilty ; but being 
 found guilty, judgment was given against him as a 
 traitor. He received it with that equal temper of 
 mind which he had shewed in both conditions of life, 
 and then set himself wholly to prepare for death ; he 
 expressed great contempt of the world, and that he 
 was weary of life, and longed for death ; which was 
 so little terrible to him, that his ordinary facetiousness 
 remained with him even oji the scaffold. It was cen- 
 sured by many as light and indecent ; but others said, 
 that way having been so natural to him on all other 
 occasions, it was not at all affected ; but shewed that 
 death did no way discompose him, and could not so 
 much as put him out of his ordinary humour : yet his 
 rallying every thing on the scaffold was thought to 
 have more of the stoic than the Christian in it. After 
 some time spent in secret devotions, he was beheaded 
 on the 6th of July. 
 
 Thus did Sir Thomas More end his days, in the 
 fifty-third year of his age.* He was a man of rare 
 virtues and excellent parts. In his youth he had freer 
 
 * The year of Sir Thomas More's birth is uncertain. According to Eras- 
 mus, it was in the year 1479; some say 1480, and others 1484.
 
 PART I. BOOK III. 571 
 
 thoughts of things, as appears by his Utopia and his 
 Letters to Erasmus; but afterwards he became super- 
 stitiously devoted to the interests and passions of the 
 popish clergy: and as he served them when he was 
 in authority, even to assist them in all their cruelties, 
 so he employed his pen in the same cause, both in 
 writing against all the new opinions in general, and, 
 in particular, against Tindal, Frith, and Barnes ; as 
 also an unknown writer, who seemed of neither party, 
 but reproved the corruptions of the clergy, and con- 
 demned their cruel proceedings. More was no divine 
 at all ; and it is plain to any that reads his writings, 
 that he knew nothing of antiquity, beyond the quo- 
 tations he found in the canon law, and in the master of 
 the sentences (only he had read some of St. Austin's 
 treatises) ; for, upon all points of controversy, he 
 quotes only what he found in these collections : nor 
 was he at all conversant in the critical learning upon 
 the Scriptures; but his peculiar excellency in writing 
 was, that he had a natural easy expression, and pre- 
 sented all the opinions of popery with their fair side 
 to the reader, disguising or concealing the black side 
 of them with great art; and was no less dexterous in 
 exposing all the ill consequences that could follow on 
 the doctrine of the reformers: and had, upon all oc- 
 casions, great store of pleasant tales, which he applied 
 wittily to his purpose. And in this consists the great 
 strength of his writings, which were designed rather 
 for the rabble than for learned men. But for justice, 
 contempt of money, humility, and a true generosity of 
 mind, he was an example to the age in which he lived.* 
 
 * The credit Burnet is disposed to give to Sir Thomas More, for " a true 
 generosity of mind," is fairly enough questioned by Collier, and indeed what 
 Burnet himself admits in this very page, namely, that when in authority, he 
 assisted the Popish Clergy in all their cruelties, ought to have made him more 
 guarded in his expressions. A letter he wrote to Erasmus on the death of 
 (Ecolampadius, would, one should think, be sufficient to destroy his claim to 
 any true generosity of mind. Through an infatuation, that could not have got 
 the better of a truly generous mind, he i;/< i< ,/ in the death of that learned and 
 amiable man, because he happened to be an Anti-Romanist ; and this, in a 
 letter to Erasmus, who was under great obligations to (Ecolampadius. After 
 all, the bearings of religious infatuation are not to be accounted for ; the Hin- 
 doos, who encmirage the Sutteet, or burning of wives in India, are siill said to be 
 " constitutionally kind-hearted." Bishop Heber's Journal : and Collier him- 
 self, vol. ii. 99. seems backward to attribute the severities of Sir Thumas to 
 " any sivage or sanguinary humour." N.
 
 572 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 But there is one thing unjustly added to the praise 
 of these two great men, or rather feigned, on design 
 to lessen the King's honour; that Fisher and he penned 
 the book which the King wrote against Luther. This 
 Sanders first published ; and Bellarmin, and others, 
 since have taken it up upon his authority. Strangers 
 may be pardoned such errors ; but they are inexcus- 
 able in an Englishman : for in More's printed works 
 there is a letter written by him out of the Tower to 
 Cromwell, in which he gives an account of his be- 
 haviour concerning the King's divorce and supremacy : 
 among other particulars, one is, "that when the King 
 shewed him his book against Luther, in which he had 
 asserted the Pope's primacy to be of Divine right, 
 More desired him to leave it out : since, as there had 
 been many contests between popes and other princes, 
 so there might fall in some between the Pope and the 
 King : therefore he thought it was not fit for the King 
 to publish any thing which might be afterwards made 
 use of against himself, and advised him either to leave 
 out that point, or to touch it very tenderly." But the 
 King would not follow his counsel, being perhaps so 
 fond of what he had wrote, that he would rather run 
 himself upon a great inconvenience, than leave out 
 any thing that he fancied so well written. This shews 
 that More knew that book was written by the King's 
 own pen;* and either Sanders never read this, or- 
 maliciously concealed it, lest it should discover his 
 foul dealing. 
 
 These executions so terrified all people, that there 
 were no further provocations given : and all persons 
 either took the oaths, or did so dexterously conceal 
 their opinions, that, till the rebellions of Lincolnshire 
 and the north broke out, none suffered after this upon 
 a public account. iBut when these were quieted, then 
 
 * But see the note above, p. 51, which seems to decide that Henry did not 
 write the work, and that, upon the testimony of Sir Thomas More himself. It 
 may however be observed, that at all events, the book was to pass for a book 
 written by the King's own pen, and to be presented to the Pope as such. Nor 
 should it be forgotten or overlooked, that the King in his answer to Luther, 
 positively declared it to be his own ; nor would it be difficult to prove, from pa- 
 pers still in existence, that with some help as to the Latin, he was theologian 
 enough to have written such a work. N.
 
 PART I. BOOK III. 573 
 
 the King resolved to make the chief authors and lead- 
 ers of those commotions public examples to the rest. 
 The Duke of Norfolk proceeded against many of them 
 by martial law ; there were also trials at common law 
 of a great many more that were taken prisoners, and 
 sent up to London. The Lords Darcy and Hussey were 
 tried by their peers ; the Marquis of Exeter sitting 
 steward. And a commission of Oyer and Terminer 
 being issued out for the trial of the rest, Sir Robert was quieted - 
 Constable, Sir John Bulmer and his Lady, Sir Francis 
 Pigot, Sir Stephen Hamilton, and Sir Thomas Piercy, 
 and Ask, that had been their captain ; with the Abbots 
 of Walley, Jerveux, Bridlington, Lenton,Woburn, and 
 Kingstead, and Mackrall the monk, that first raised 
 the Lincolnshire rebellion, with sixteen more, were 
 indicted of high treason for the late rebellions. And 
 after all the steps of the rebellion were reckoned up, 
 it is added, in the indictment, that they had met to- 
 gether on the 17th of January, and consulted how to 15.17. 
 renew it, and prosecute it further, being encouraged 
 by the new risings that were then in the north ; by 
 which they had forfeited all the favour to which they 
 could have pretended, by virtue of the indemnity that 
 was granted in the end of December, and of the par- 
 dons which they had taken out. They were all found 
 guilty, and had judgment as in cases of treason ; 
 divers of them were carried down into Lincolnshire 
 and Yorkshire, and executed in the places where their 
 treasons were committed ; but most of them suffered at 
 London, and, among others, the Lady Bulmer (whom HIII. 
 others call Sir John Bulmer's harlot) was burnt for it 
 in Smithfield. 
 
 The only censure that passed on this was, that ad- cen snre . 
 vantages were taken on too slight grounds to break Sj^tt. 
 the King's indemnity and pardon ; since it does not 
 appear that, after their pardon, they did any thing 
 more than meet and consult. But the kingdom was 
 so shaken with that rebellion, that if it had not been 
 for the great conduct of the Duke of Norfolk, the King 
 had by all appearance lost his crown: and it will not 
 seem strange that a King (especially so tempered as
 
 574 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 this was), had a mind to strike terror into the rest ot 
 his subjects by some signal examples, and to put out 
 of the way the chief leaders of that design : nor was 
 it to be wondered at, that the abbots and other cler- 
 gymen, who had been so active in that commotion, 
 were severely handled. It was by their means that 
 the discontents were chiefly fomented ; they had taken 
 all the oaths that were enjoined them, and yet conti- 
 nued to be still practising against the state ; which, 
 as it was highly contrary to the peaceable doctrines 
 of the Christian religion, so it was, in a special man- 
 ner, contrary to the rules which they professed ; that 
 obliged them to forsake the world, and to follow a 
 religious and spiritual course of life. 
 38. The next example of justice was, a year after this, 
 v'oca- of one Forrest, an Observant friar ; he had been, as 
 y 1 Sanders says, confessor to Queen Katherine, but it 
 seems departed from her interests; for he insinuated 
 himself so into the King, that he recovered his good 
 opinion. Being an ignorant and lewd man, he was 
 accounted by the better sort of that house, to which 
 he belonged in Greenwich, a reproach to their order 
 (concerning this, I have seen a large account in an 
 original letter, written by a brother of the same house). 
 Having regained the King's good opinion, he put all 
 those who had favoured the divorce under great fears, 
 for he proceeded cruelly against them : and one Rains- 
 croft, being suspected to have given secret intelli- 
 gence of what was done among them, was shut up, 
 and so hardly used, that he died in their hands, which 
 was (as that letter relates) done by Friar Forrest's 
 means. This Friar was found to have denied the 
 King's supremacy : for though he himself had sworn 
 it, yet he had infused it into many in confession, that 
 the King was not the supreme head of the church. 
 Being questioned for these practices, which were so 
 contrary to the oath he had taken, he answered, " that 
 he took that oath with his outward man, but his in- 
 ward man had never consented to it." Being brought 
 Haii. to his trial, and accused of several heretical opinions 
 that he held, he submitted himself to the church.
 
 PART I. BOOK III. 575 
 
 Upon this lie had more freedom allowed him in the 
 prison ; but some coming to him diverted him from 
 the submission he had offered; so that when the pa- 
 per of abjuration was brought him, he refused to set 
 his hand to it: upon which he was judged an obsti- 
 nate heretic. The records of these proceedings are 
 lost, but the books of that time say that he denied the 
 gospel ; it is like it was upon that pretence, that, with- 
 out the determination of the church, it had no autho- 
 rity ; upon which, several writers of the Roman com- 
 munion have said indecent and scandalous things of 
 the Holy Scriptures. He was brought to Smithfield, 
 where were present the lords of the council, to offer 
 him his pardon if he would abjure. Latimer made 
 a sermon against his errors, and studied to persuade 
 him to recant ; but he continued in his former opi- 
 nions, so he was put to death in a most severe manner. 
 He was hanged in a chain about his middle, and the 
 great image that was brought out of Wales was broken 
 to pieces, and served for fuel to burn him. He shewed 
 great unquietness of mind, and ended his life in an 
 ungodly manner, as Hall says; who adds this charac- 
 ter of him, "that he had little knowledge of God and 
 his sincere truth, and less trust in him at his ending." 
 
 In winter that year a correspondence was disco- Thepr*. 
 vered with Cardinal Pole, who was barefaced in his WHIM* 
 treasonable designs against the King. His brother, p"" 1 
 Sir Geofrey Pole, discovered the whole plot: for which frien<ij - 
 the Marquis of Exeter (that was the King's cousin-ger- 
 man by his mother, who was Edward the Fourth's 
 daughter), the Lord Montacute, the Cardinal's bro- 
 ther, Sir Geofrey Pole, and Sir Edward Nevill, were 
 sent to the Tower in the beginning of November. They 
 were accused for having maintained a correspondence 
 with the Cardinal, and for expressing a hatred of the 
 King, with a dislike of his proceedings, and a readi- 
 ness to rise upon any good opportunity that might 
 offer itself. 
 
 The special matter brought against the Lord Mon- 
 tacute and the Marquis of Exeter, who were tried by 
 their peers on the 2d and 3d of December, in the
 
 576 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 thirtieth year of this reign, is, " that whereas Cardinal 
 Pole and others had cast off their allegiance to the 
 King, and gone and submitted themselves to the Pope, 
 the King's mortal enemy; the Lord Montacute did, 
 on the 24th of July, in the twenty-eighth year of the 
 King's reign, a few months before the rebellion broke 
 out, say that he liked well the proceedings of his bro- 
 ther the Cardinal, but did not like the proceedings of 
 the realm ; and said, I trust to see a change of this 
 world ; I trust to have a fair day upon those knaves 
 that rule about the King ; and I trust to see a merry 
 world one day." Words to the same purpose were also 
 charged on the Marquis. The Lord Montacute fur- 
 ther said, " I would I were over the sea with my bro- 
 ther, for this world will one day come to stripes ; it 
 must needs come to pass, and I fear we shall lack 
 nothing so much as honest men. He also said, he 
 had dreamed that the King was dead, and, though he 
 was not yet dead, he would die suddenly; one day 
 his leg will kill him, and then we shall have jolly 
 stirring ; saying, also, that he had never loved him 
 from his childhood, and that Cardinal Wolsey would 
 have been an honest man if he had had an honest 
 master. And the King having said to the lords, he 
 would leave them one day, having some apprehensions 
 he might shortly die, that Lord said, if he will serve 
 us so, we shall be happily rid ; a time will come, I 
 fear we shall not tarry the time, we shall do well 
 enough. He had also said, he was sorry the Lord 
 Abergavenny was dead, for he could have made ten 
 thousand men ; and for his part he would go and live 
 in the west, where the Marquis of Exeter was strong : 
 and had also said, upon the breaking of the northern 
 rebellion, that the Lord Darcy played the fool, for 
 he went to pluck away the council, but he should 
 have begun with the head first ; but I beshrew him 
 for leaving off so soon." These were the words 
 charged on those lords, as clear discoveries of their 
 treasonable designs ; and that they knew of the rebel 
 lion that brake out, and only intended to have kept 
 it off to a fitter opportunity. They were also accused
 
 PART I. BOOK III. 577 
 
 of correspondence with Cardinal Pole, that was the 
 King's declared enemy. Upon these points the lords 
 pleaded not guilty, but were found guilty by their 
 peers, and so judgment was given. 
 
 On the 4th of December were indicted, Sir Geofrey 
 Pole, for holding correspondence with his brother the 
 Cardinal, and saying that he approved of his proceed- 
 ings, but not of the King's ; Sir Edward Nevill, bro- 
 ther to the Lord Abergavenny, for saying the King 
 was a beast, and worse than a beast ; George Crofts, 
 chancellor of the cathedral of Chichester, for saying 
 the King was not, but the Pope was, the supreme 
 head of the church ; and John Collins, for saying the 
 King would hang in hell one day for the plucking 
 down of abbeys. All those (Sir Edward Nevill only 
 excepted) pleaded guilty, and so they were con- 
 demned : but Sir Geofrey Pole, was the only person 
 of the number that was not executed, for he had dis- 
 covered the matter. At the same time, also, Cardinal 
 Pole, Michael Throgmorton, gentleman, John Hil- 
 liard, and Thomas Goldwell, clerks, and William 
 Peyto;* a Franciscan of the Observance, were attainted 
 in absence, because they had cast off their duty to 
 the King, and had subjected themselves to the Bishop 
 of Rome, Pole being made cardinal by him ; and for 
 writing treasonable letters, and sending them into 
 England. On the 4th of February following, Sir 
 Nicholas Carew, that was both master of the horse 
 and knight of the garter, was arraigned for being an 
 adherent to the Marquis of Exeter; and, having 
 spoke of his attainder as unjust and cruel, he was 
 also attainted and executed upon the 3d of March. 
 When he was brought to the scaffold, he openly ac- 
 knowledged the errors and superstition in which he 
 had formerly lived, and blessed God for his imprison- 
 ment ; " for he then began to relish the life and sweet- 
 ness of God's holy word, which was brought him by 
 
 Thuanus calls him William, and says he was Loci Ignobilis ; hut his true 
 name, by which he was made cardinal, was Peter : whether he was so chris- 
 tened, or assumed it only when he became a friar, is not certain. He was 
 descended from an ancieut and eminent family in Warwickshire. 
 
 VOL. I. 2 P
 
 Some at- 
 tainders 
 
 578 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 his keeper, one Phillips, who followed the Reforma- 
 tion, and had formerly suffered for it." 
 1539. After these executions, followed the parliament in 
 the year 1539, in which not only these attainders that 
 
 without were a l rea dy passed were confirmed, but new ones of 
 
 riDg IT-IP 11- 
 
 the P ar- a strange and unheard-ot nature were enacted. 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 capa- 
 ble of no excuse. It was, the attainting of some per- 
 sons whom they held in custody, without bringing 
 them to a trial. Concerning whicn, I shall add what 
 4 instit. the great Lord Chief Justice Coke writes : " Although 
 I question not the power of the parliament, for with- 
 out question the attainder stands of force in law, yet 
 this I say of the manner of proceeding, auferat oblivio, 
 si potest, si non utcumque silentium tegat. For the 
 more high and absolute the jurisdiction of the court 
 is, the more just and honourable it ought to be in the 
 proceedings, and to give example of justice to inferior 
 courts." The chief of these were the Marchioness 
 of Exeter, and the Countess of Sarum. The special 
 matter charged on the former is, her confederating 
 herself to Sir Nicholas Carew in his treasons ; to 
 which is added, " that she had committed divers 
 other abominable treasons." The latter is said " to 
 have confederated herself with her son the Cardinal," 
 with other aggravating words. It does not appear 
 by the Journal that any witnesses were examined ; 
 only that day that the bills were read the third time 
 in the House of Lords, Cromwell shewed them a coat 
 of white silk, which the Lord Admiral had found 
 among the Countess of Sarum's clothes, in which the 
 arms of England were wrought on the one side, and 
 the standard that was carried before the rebels was 
 on the other side. This was brought as an evidence 
 that she approved of the rebellion. Three Irish priests 
 were also attainted for carrying letters out of Ireland 
 to the Pope and Cardinal Pole ; as also Sir Adrian 
 Fortescue, for endeavouring to raise rebellion ; Tho- 
 mas Dingley, a knight of St. John of Jerusalem, and
 
 PART I. BOOK HI. 579 
 
 Robert Granceter, merchant, for going to several 
 foreign princes, and persuading them to make war 
 upon the King, and assist the Lords Darcy and Hussey 
 in the rebellion they had raised. Two gentlemen, a 
 Dominican friar and a yeoman, were, by the same 
 act, attainted for saying that " that venemous serpent, 
 the Bishop of Rome, was supreme head of the church 
 of England." Another gentleman, two priests, and 
 a yeoman were attainted for treason in general, no par- 
 ticular crime being specified. Thus sixteen persons 
 were in this manner attainted ; and if there was any 
 examination of witnesses for convicting them, it was 
 either in the star-chamber or before the privy-council ; 
 for there is no mention of any evidence that was 
 brought in the Journals. There was also much haste 
 made in the passing this bill ; it being brought in 
 the 10th of May, was read that day for the first and 
 second time, and the llth of May for the third time. 
 The Commons kept it five days before they sent it 
 back, and added some more to those that were in the 
 bill at first ; but how many were named in the bill 
 originally, and how many were afterwards added, 
 cannot be known. Fortescue and Dingley suffered 
 the 10th of July. As for the Countess of Sarum, the 
 Lord Herbert saw in a record, that bulls from the Pope 
 were found in her house ; " that she kept correspon- 
 dence with her son, and that she forbid her tenants 
 to have the New Testament in English, or any of the 
 books that had been published by the King's autho- 
 rity." She was then about seventy years of age, but 
 shewed, by the answers she made, that she had a vi- 
 gorous and masculine mind. She was kept two years 
 prisoner in the Tower, after the act had passed ; the 
 King, by that reprieve, designing to oblige her son to 
 a better behaviour; but, upon a fresh provocation, 
 by a new rebellion in the north, she was beheaded, 
 and in her the name and line of Plantagenet deter- 
 mined. The Marchioness of Exeter died a natural 
 death. In November this year were the Abbots ot 
 Glastenbury and Colchester attainted of treason ; of 
 which mention was made formerly. 
 2 P 2
 
 580 BURNET'S REFORM ATIOJN. 
 
 19. In the parliament that sat in the year 1540, they 
 went on to follow that strange precedent which they 
 had made the former year. By the fifty-sixth act, 
 Giles Heron was attainted of treason, no special 
 matter being mentioned. 
 
 By the fifty-seventh act, Richard Fetherstoun, Tho- 
 mas Abell, and Edward Powel, priests, and William 
 Horn, a yeoman, were attainted, for denying the King's 
 supremacy, and adhering to the Bishop of Rome : by 
 the same act, the wife of one Tirrell, esquire, was at- 
 tainted for refusing her duty of allegiance, and deny- 
 ing Prince Edward to be prince and heir of the crown : 
 and one Laurence Cook, of Doncaster, was also at- 
 tainted for contriving the King's death. 
 
 By the fifty-eighth act, Gregory Buttolph, Adam 
 Damplip, and Edward Brindeholm, clerks, and Cle- 
 ment Philpot, gentleman, were attainted for adhering 
 to the Bishop of Rome, for corresponding with Car- 
 dinal Pole, and endeavouring to surprise the town of 
 Calais; by the same act, Barnes, Gerrard, and Jerome 
 were attainted ; of whose sufferings an account has 
 been already given. 
 
 By the fifty-ninth act, William Bird, a priest, and 
 chaplain to the Lord Hungerford, was attainted for 
 having said to one that was going to assist the King 
 against the rebels in the north, " I am sorry thou goest; 
 seest thou not how the King plucketh down images 
 and abbeys every day ? And if the King go thither 
 himself, he will never come home again, nor any of 
 them all which go with him, and in truth it were pity 
 he should ever come home again. And at another 
 time, upon one's saying, ' O good Lord, I ween all the 
 world will be heretics in a little time ;' Bird said, 
 ' Dost thou marvel at that ? I tell thee it is no mar- 
 vel, for the great master of all is a heretic, and such 
 an one, as there is not his like in the world.'" 
 
 By the same act, the Lord Hungerford was likewise 
 attainted. The crimes specified are, " that he, know- 
 ing Bird to be a traitor, did entertain him in his house 
 as his chaplain ; that he ordered another of his chap- 
 lains, Sir Hugh Wood, and one Doctor Maudlin, to
 
 PART I. BOOK III. 581 
 
 use conjuring, that they might know how long the 
 King should live, and whether he should be victori- 
 ous over his enemies or not : and that these three 
 years last past he had frequently committed the de- 
 testable sin of sodomy with several of his servants :" 
 all these were attainted by that parliament. The Lord 
 Hungerford was executed the same day with Crom- 
 well ; he died in such disorder, that some thought he 
 was frantic ; for he called often to the executioner 
 to dispatch him, and said he was weary of life and 
 longed to be dead ; which seemed strange in a man 
 that had so little cause to hope in his death. For 
 Powel, Fetherstoun, and Abell, they suffered the same 
 day with Barnes and his friends, as hath been already 
 shewn. 
 
 This year Sampson, bishop of Chichester, and one 
 Doctor Wilson, were put in the Tower, upon suspi- 
 cion of correspondence with the Pope. But upon 
 their submission, they had their pardon and liberty. 
 In the year 1541, five priests and ten secular persons, 1541. 
 some sf them being gentlemen of quality, were rais- 
 ing a new rebellion in Yorkshire ; which was sup- 
 pressed in time, and the promoters of it, being ap- 
 prehended, were attainted and executed ; and this 
 occasioned the death of the Countess of Sarum, after 
 the execution of the sentence had been delayed almost 
 two years. 
 
 The last instance of the King's severity was in the IMS. 
 year 1543, in whica one Gardiner, tnat was the bishop 
 of Winchester's kinsman and secretary, and three 
 other priests, were tried for denying the King's supre- 
 macy, and for which Gardiner was executed. But 
 what special matter was laid to the charge of the 
 others cannot be known, for the record of their at- 
 tainder is lost. 
 
 These were the proceedings of this King against The coo- 
 those that adhered to the interests of Rome ; in which, cl1 
 though there is great ground for just censure, for as 
 the laws were rigorous, so the execution of them was 
 raised to the highest that the law could admit ; yet 
 there is nothing in them to justify all the clamours
 
 582 BURNET'S REFORMATION. 
 
 which that party have raised against King Henry, and 
 by which they pursue his memory to this day ; and 
 are far short, both in number and degrees, of the 
 cruelties of Queen Mary's reign, which yet they en- 
 deavour all that is possible to extenuate or deny. 
 
 To conclude : we have now gone through the reign 
 of King Henry the Eighth, who is rather to be reckon- 
 ed among the great, than the good princes. He ex- 
 ercised so much severity on men of both persuasions, 
 that the writers of both sides have laid open his faults, 
 and taxed his cruelty. But as neither of them were 
 much obliged to him, so none have taken so much 
 care to set forth his good qualities, as his enemies 
 have done to enlarge on his vices : I do not deny that 
 he is to be numbered among the ill princes, yet I can- 
 not rank him with the worst. 
 
 KNO OF BOOK. JJI,
 
 ADDENDA. 
 
 After some of the sheets of this history were wrought 
 off, I met with manuscripts of great authority, out 
 of which I have collected several particulars, that 
 give a clear light to the proceedings in those times ; 
 
 . which, since they came too late to my knowledge to 
 be put in their proper places, I shall here add them, 
 with references to the places to which they belong. 
 
 Adpag. 350. tin. 28. 
 
 r |THE articles of religion, of which an abstract is 
 there set down, are indeed published by Fuller : 
 but he saw not the original with all the subscriptions 
 to it, which I have had in my hands ; and therefore I 
 have put it in the Collection, with three other papers, collect. 
 which were soon after offered to the King by Cranmer. Ji e b nd j' 
 
 The one is in the form of fifteen queries, concern- collect, 
 ing some abuses by which the people had been de- N^b J . 
 ceived ; as, namely, by these doctrines : that without 
 contrition sinners may be reconciled to God ; that it 
 is in the power of the priest to pardon or not to pardon 
 sin at his pleasure ; and that God's pardon cannot be 
 obtained without priestly absolution. Also he com- 
 plained that the people trusted to outward ceremonies; 
 and their curates, for their own gain, encouraged them 
 in it. It was observed, that the opinion of clergy- 
 men's being exempted from the secular judge was ill- 
 grounded ; that bishops did ordain without due care 
 and trial ; that the dignified clergy misapplied their 
 revenues, did not follow their first institution, and did 
 not reside upon their benefices. 
 
 And, in fine, he moves that the four sacraments, 
 which had been left undetermined by the former 
 Articles, might be examined : the outward signs and 
 actions, the promises made upon them, and the efficacy 
 that was in them, being well considered. 
 
 The second paper consists of two resolutions made C "*"- 
 concerning confirmation by the Archbishop of Can- *.*.
 
 584 ADDENDA. 
 
 terbury, and Stokesley, bishop of London. There are 
 several other papers concerning confirmation, but these 
 are only subscribed ; and the rest do generally follow 
 these two prelates, who were then the heads of two 
 different parties. The Archbishop went on this 
 ground, that all things were to be tried by the Scrip- 
 ture ; but Stokesley, and almost the whole clergy, 
 were for receiving the tradition of the church, as not 
 much inferior to the Scriptures ; which he asserts in 
 his subscription. 
 
 coiled. The third paper was offered to the King by Cran- 
 Numb" 4!' nier, to persuade him to proceed to a further reforma- 
 tion ; that things might be long and well considered 
 before they were determined ; that nothing might be 
 declared a part of God's faith, without good proofs 
 from Scripture ; the departing from which rule had 
 been the occasion of all the errors that had been in the 
 church ; that now men would not be led as they had 
 been, but would examine matters ; that many things 
 were now acknowledged to be truths, such as the un- 
 lawfulness of the Pope's usurped power, for which 
 many had formerly suffered death. Whereupon he 
 desires that some points might be examined by Scrip- 
 ture; as, whether there is a purgatory; whether de- 
 parted souls ought to be invocated ; whether tradition 
 ought to be believed ; whether there be any satisfac- 
 tion besides the satisfaction of Christ ; whether free 
 will may dispose itself to grace ; and whether images 
 ought to be kissed, or used to any other end, but as 
 representations of a piece of history ? In all these he 
 desired the King would suspend his judgment ; and, 
 in particular, that he would not determine against the 
 lawfulness of the marriage of the clergy, but would 
 for some time silence both parties. He also proposed 
 that this point might, by order from the King, be ex- 
 amined in the Universities before indifferent judges: 
 that all the arguments against it might be given to the 
 defenders twelve days before the public disputation ; 
 and he offered, that if those who should defend the 
 lawfulness of priests' marriage, were, in the opinion 
 of indifferent judges, overcome, they should willingly
 
 Addenda. 
 ib. 5. 
 
 ADDENDA. 585 
 
 suffer death for it ; but if otherwise, all they desired 
 was, that, in that point, the King might leave them in 
 the liberty to which the word of God left them. 
 
 Adpag. 400. tin. 38. 
 
 I have seen a much fuller paper concerning orders 
 and ecclesiastical functions (which the reader will find 
 in the Collection) signed by Cromwell, the two Arch- c.,iiect. 
 bishops, and eleven bishops, and twenty divines and ^ 
 canonists, declaring, that the power of the keys, and 
 other church-functions, is formally distinct from the 
 power of the sword: that this power is not absolute, 
 but to be limited by the rules that are in the Scrip- 
 ture : and is ordained only for the edification and 
 good of the church : that this power ought to be still 
 preserved, since it was given by Christ as the mean 
 of reconciling sinners to God. Orders were also de- 
 clared a sacrament, since they consisted of outward 
 action instituted by Christ, and an inward grace con- 
 ferred with them : but that all inferior orders, janitors, 
 lectors, &c. were brought into the church to beautify 
 and adorn it, and were taken from the temple of the 
 Jews : and that in the New Testament there is no 
 mention made but of deacons or ministers, and priests 
 or bishops : nor is there belonging to orders any other 
 ceremony mentioned in the Scripture but prayer and 
 imposition of hands. This was signed either in the 
 year 1537 or 1538; since it is subscribed both by John 
 Hilsey, bishop of Rochester, and Edward Fox, bishop 
 of Hereford; for the one was consecrated in 1537, 
 and the other died in May, 1 538. 
 
 On this paper I will add two remarks : the one is, 
 that after this I do never find the inferior degrees 
 under a deacon mentioned in this church ; so it seems, 
 at this time, they were laid aside. They were first 
 set up in the church about the end of the second, or 
 the beginning of the third century, in the middle of 
 which we find both Cornelius, bishop of Rome, and 
 St. Cyprian mentioning them as orders that were then 
 established ; and it seems they were designed as pre- 
 vious steps to the sacred functions, that none might
 
 586 ADDENDA. 
 
 be ordained to these, but such as had been long be- 
 fore separated from a secular state of life, and had 
 given proofs of themselves in these lower degrees. 
 But it turned in the church of Rome to be only a 
 matter of form ; and many took the first tonsure, that 
 they might be exempted from the secular power, 
 and be qualified for commendams, and some other 
 worldly advantages, to which these lower orders were 
 sufficient, by those rules which the canonists had 
 brought in. 
 
 Another thing is, that both in this writing, and in the 
 Necessary Erudition of a Christian Man, bishops and 
 priests are spoken of as one and the same office. In 
 the ancient church they knew none of those subtilties 
 which were found out in the latter ages. It was then 
 thought enough that a bishop was to be dedicated to 
 his function by a new imposition of hands, and that 
 several offices could not be performed without bishops, 
 such as ordination, confirmation, &c. but they did 
 not refine in these matters so much as to inquire, 
 whether bishops and priests differed in order and 
 office, or only in degree. But after the schoolmen 
 fell to examine matters of divinity with logical and 
 unintelligible niceties, and the canonists began to 
 comment upon the rules of the ancient church, they 
 studied to make bishops and priests seem very near 
 one another, so that the difference was but small.* 
 They did it with different designs : the schoolmen, 
 having set up the grand mystery of transubstantiation, 
 were to exalt the priestly office as much as was pos- 
 sible : for the turning the host into God was so great 
 an action, that they reckoned there could be no office 
 higher than that which qualified a man to so mighty 
 a performance : therefore, as they changed the form 
 of ordination from what it was anciently believed to 
 consist in, to a delivering of the sacred vessels, and 
 
 Though most of the schoolmen asserted bishops and priests to be of the 
 same order, for the reason here specified, their being equally appointed to the 
 consecration of the eucharist, which they thought to be the highest, and most 
 perfect function ; yet they allowed the bishops a superiority of jurisdiction, 
 which some of them were content to call a superior order ; as the canonists 
 did also generally, notwithstanding their endeavours to depress the episcopal 
 authority for the advancement of the papal.
 
 ADDENDA. 587 
 
 held that a priest had his orders by that rite, and not 
 by the imposition of hands ; so they raised their order 
 or office so high, as to make it equal with the order 
 of a bishop : but as they designed to extol the order 
 of priesthood, so the canonists had a great mind to 
 depress the episcopal order. They generally wrote 
 for preferment, and the way to it was to exalt the 
 papacy. Nothing could do that so effectually as to 
 bring down the power of bishops. This only could 
 justify the exemptions of the monks and friars, the 
 popes setting up legantine courts, and receving at first 
 appeals, and then original causes before them ; toge- 
 ther with many other encroachments on their juris- 
 diction : all which were unlawful, if the bishops had, 
 by Divine right, jurisdiction in their dioceses : there- 
 fore it was necessary to lay them as low as could be, 
 and to make them think that the power they held was 
 rather as delegates of the apostolic see, than by a 
 commission from Christ or his apostles : so that they 
 looked on the declaring episcopal authority to be of 
 Divine right, as a blow that would be fatal to the 
 court of Rome ; and therefore they did after this, at 
 Trent, use all possible endeavours to hinder any such 
 decision. It having been then the common style of 
 that age to reckon bishops and priests as the same 
 office, it is no wonder if at this time the clergy of this 
 church, the greatest part of them being still leavened 
 with old superstition, and the rest of them not having 
 enough of spare time to examine lesser matters, re- 
 tained still me former phrases in this particular. 
 
 On this I have insisted the more, that it may ap- 
 pear how little they have considered things, who are 
 so far carried with their zeal against the established 
 government of this church, as to make much use of 
 some passages of the schoolmen and canonists that 
 deny them to be distinct offices : for these are the very 
 dregs of popery ; the one raising the priests higher 
 for the sake of transubstantiation, the other pulling 
 the bishops lower for the sake of the Pope's supre- 
 macy, and by such means bringing them almost to an 
 equality. So partial are some men to their particular
 
 588 ADDENDA. 
 
 conceits, that they make use of the most mischievous 
 topics when they can serve their turn, not considering 
 how much further these arguments will run if they 
 ever admit them. 
 
 Adpag. 410. tin. 34. 
 
 The princes of Germany did always press the King 
 to enter into a religious league with them : the first 
 league that was made in the year 1536, was conceived 
 in general terms against the Pope, as the common 
 enemy, and for setting up true religion according to 
 the gospel : but they did afterwards send over ambas- 
 sadors to treat about particulars ; and they having 
 presented a memorial of these, there were conferences 
 appointed between them and some bishops and divines 
 of this church. I find no divines were sent over hi- 
 ther but Frederick Miconius, minister of Gotha, by 
 whom Melancthon, who could not be spared out of 
 Germany, sent several letters to the King ; the fullest 
 
 collect, and longest of them will be found in the Collection. 
 
 Hum", e' It is all to this purpose ; to persuade the King to go 
 on vigorously in the reforming of abuses, according to 
 the word of God. The King sent over the particu- 
 lars which they proposed, in order to a perfect agree- 
 ment, to Gardiner, who was then at Paris : upon which 
 he sent back his opinion, touching them all ; the ori- 
 ginal of which, under his own hand, I have seen, but 
 it relates so much to the other paper that was sent 
 him, which I never saw, that without it his meaning 
 can hardly be understood ; and therefore I have not 
 put it in the Collection. The main thing in it, at 
 which it chiefly drives, is to press the King to finish 
 first a civil league with them, and to leave those par- 
 ticulars concerning religion to be afterwards treated 
 of. The King followed his advice so far as to write 
 to the German princes to that effect. But when the 
 King declared his resolution to have the six Articles 
 established, all that favoured the Reformation were 
 much alarmed at it, and pressed their friends in Ger- 
 many to interpose with the King for preventing it. I 
 have seen an original letter of Hains, dean of Exeter,
 
 ADDENDA. 589 
 
 in which he laments the sad effects that would follow 
 on that act, which was then preparing ; that all the 
 corruptions in the church rose from the establishing 
 some points without clear proofs from Scripture : he 
 wished the Germans would consider of it, for if the 
 King and parliament should make such a law, this 
 was a precedent for the Emperor to make the like in 
 the diet of the empire. Neither were the German 
 ambassadors backward in doing their friends in Eng- 
 land all the service they could: for, after they had 
 held several conferences with those that were ap- 
 pointed by the King to treat with them, they, finding 
 they could not prevail with them, wrote a long and 
 learned letter to the King, against the taking away 
 the chalice in the sacrament, and against private 
 masses and the celibate of the clergy, with some 
 other abuses, which the reader will find in the Col- 
 lection, as it is copied from the original, which I have 
 seen. To this I have added the answer which the da 
 King wrote to it: he employed Tonstal, bishop of Numb. a. 
 Duresme, to draw it ; for I have seen a rude draught 
 of a great part of it written with his hand. By both 
 these compared together, every indifferent reader will 
 clearly see the force and simplicity of the arguments 
 on the one hand, and the art and shuffling that was 
 used on the other side. As soon as the act was 
 passed, notwithstanding all their endeavours to the 
 contrary, they, in an audience before the King, re- 
 presented the great concern their masters would have, 
 when the King, on whom they had relied so much as 
 the defender of the faith, should proceed with the se- 
 verity expressed in that act, against those that agreed 
 with him in doctrine, and pressed the King earnestly 
 to put a stop to the execution of it. The King pro- 
 mised he would see to it, and that though he judged 
 the act necessary to restrain the insolence of some of 
 his subjects, yet it should not be executed but upon 
 great provocation : he also proposed the renewing a 
 civil league with them, without mentioning matters 
 of religion. To this the princes made answer, that 
 the league, as it was at first projected, was chiefly
 
 590 ADDENDA. 
 
 upon a design of religion ; and therefore, without a 
 common consent of all that were in their league, they 
 could not alter it : they lamented this passing of the 
 late act, but wrote their thanks to the King for stop- 
 ping the execution of it, and warned him that some 
 of his bishops, who set him on to these courses, were 
 in their hearts still for all the old abuses, and for the 
 Pope's supremacy, and were pressing on the King to 
 be severe against his best subjects, that they might 
 thereby bring on a design which they could not hope 
 to effect any other way : they advised the King to 
 beware of such counsels. They also proposed, that 
 there might be a conference agreed on between such 
 divines as the King would name, and such as they 
 should depute, to meet either in Gueldres, Hamburgh, 
 Bremen, or any other place that should be appointed 
 by the King, to examine the lawfulness of private 
 masses, of denying the chalice, and the prohibiting 
 the marriage of the clergy. On these things they con- 
 tinued treating till the divorce of Anne of Cleves, and 
 Cromwell's fail ; after which I find little correspon- 
 dence between the King and them. 
 
 Adpag. 411. lin. 29. 
 
 collect. When I mentioned the King's letters, directing 
 IIS'J tne bishops how to proceed in a reformation, I had 
 not seen them ; but I have since seen an original of 
 them subscribed by the King's hand. In these he 
 challenged the clergy as guilty of great indiscretions : 
 that the late rebellion had been occasioned by them ; 
 therefore he required the bishops to take care that 
 the Articles formerly published should be exactly 
 obeyed ; and to go over their dioceses in person, and 
 preach obedience to the laws, and the good ends of 
 those ceremonies that were then retained, that the 
 people might neither despise them, nor put too much 
 trust in them : and to silence all disputes and conten- 
 tions concerning things indifferent; and to signify 
 to the King's council, if there were any priests in 
 their dioceses that were married, and yet did dis- 
 charge any part of the priestly office. All which
 
 ADDENDA. 591 
 
 will be better understood by the letter itself, that I 
 have put into the Collection. 
 
 Ad pag. 414. I'm. 40. 
 
 I do there acknowledge, that I knew not what ar- 
 guments were used against the necessity of auricular 
 confession : but I have made, since that time, a con- 
 siderable discovery in this particular, from an ori- 
 ginal letter written all with the King's own hand to 
 Tonstal ; by which it appears, there had been con- 
 ferences in the House, and that the Archbishop of 
 York, the Bishop of Winchester, and Duresme, had 
 pleaded much for it, as necessary by a Divine insti- 
 tution ; and that both the King and the Archbishop 
 of Canterbury had maintained, that though it was 
 good and profitable, yet it was not necessary by any 
 precept of the gospel : and that though the bishops 
 brought several texts out of Scripture and ancient 
 doctors, yet these were so clearly answered by the 
 King and the Archbishop, that the whole House was 
 satisfied with it : yet Tonstal drew up in a writing 
 all the reasons he had made use of in that debate, and 
 brought them to the King, which will be found in 
 the Collection, with the annotations and reflections coii**. 
 which the King wrote on the margin, with his own JIS. 11 , 1 ^ 
 hand, taken from the original ; together with the Collect - 
 
 , . i i Addenda, 
 
 King s letters written in answer to them : by this it Numb. n. 
 will appear that the King did set himself much to 
 study points of divinity, and examined matters with 
 a scrupulous exactness. The issue of the debate was, 
 that though the popish party endeavoured to have 
 got auricular confession declared to be commanded 
 by Christ, as a part of the sacrament of penance, yet 
 the King overruled that ; so it was enacted, " that 
 auricular confession was necessary and expedient to 
 be retained in the church of God." These debates were 
 in the House of Lords, which appears not only by the 
 King's letter, that speaks of the House, but by the act 
 of parliament; in the preamble of which it is said, that 
 the King had come himself to the parliament, and had 
 opened several points of high learning to them.
 
 592 ADDENDA. 
 
 Adpag. 421. tin. 36. 
 
 There I mention the King's diligence in drawino- 
 an act of parliament with his own hand ; but since 
 that was printed, I have seen many other acts and 
 papers, if not originally penned by the King, yet so 
 much altered by his corrections, that in some sort 
 they may be esteemed his draughts. There are two 
 draughts of the act of the six Articles, both corrected 
 in many places by the King ; and in some of these 
 the correction is three lines long. There is another 
 act concerning pre-contracts of marriage, likewise 
 corrected very much by his pen. Many draughts of 
 proclamations, particularly those about the use of the 
 Bible in English, are yet extant, interlined and al- 
 tered with his pen. There is a large paper written 
 by Tonstal, of arguments for purgatory, with copious 
 animadversions on it, likewise written by the King ; 
 which shew that then he did not believe there was a 
 purgatory. I have also seen the draught of that part 
 of the Necessary Erudition for a Christian Man, 
 which explains the Creed, full of corrections with 
 the King's own pen ; as also the queries concerning 
 the sacraments, mentioned page 464, with large an- 
 notations written with his hand on the margin ; like- 
 wise an extract, all written with his own hand, of 
 passages out of the fathers against the marriage of 
 the clergy ; and, to conclude, there is a paper, with 
 AdS a , which the Collection ends, containing the true notion 
 Numb. 12. of the catholic church, which has large emendations 
 added with the King's hand ; those I have set by 
 themselves on the margin of the paper. 
 
 END OF VOL> I. 
 
 Printed !)y A. SVYEKTING, lf>, Bart left's IJuihliiiijs.
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY, LOS ANGELES 
 
 COLLEGE LIBRARY 
 
 This book is due on the last date stamped below. 
 
 
 
 
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 UCLA-College Library 
 
 BR 375 B93 1837 v.1 
 
 College 
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 375 
 
 B93 
 
 1837 
 
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 UC SOUTHERN REGONAL LIBRARY FACjLITy 
 
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