complained of you to his majesty; but all in vain, for he will never give credit against you, whatsoever is laid to your charge: but let me or any other of the council be complained of, his grace will most seriously chide and fall out with us: and therefore you are most happy, if you can keep you in this state." It ceremonies in. The Roman zealots, having obtained this act of the Six A book of Articles, desisted not, but seconded their blow by a book laboured to be brought of " Ceremonies to be used by the Church of England," so intituled; all running after the old popish strain. proceeded all along in favour of the Roman church's superstitious ceremonies, endeavouring to shew the good signification of them. The book first begins with an index of the points touched therein; viz. "churches and churchyards, the hallowing and reconciling them. The ceremonies about the sacrament of baptism. Ordering of the ministers of the church in general. Divine service to be sung and said in the church. Matins, prime and other hours. Ceremonies used in the mass. Sundays, with other feasts. Bells. Vesture and tonsure of the ministers of the church, and what service they be bound Bearing candles upon Candlemas-day. Fasting days. The giving of ashes. The covering of the cross and images in Lent. Bearing of palms. The service of Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday before Easter. The hallowing of oil and chrism. The washing of the altars. The hallowing of the font upon Saturday in the Eastereven. The ceremonies of the resurrection in Easter-morning. General and other particular processions. Bene-75 dictions of bells or priests. Holy water and holy bread. A general doctrine to what intent ceremonies be ordained, and of what value they be." The book itself is too long Cleopatra to be here inserted; but such as have the curiosity may find it in the Cotton library, and may observe what pains unto. E. 5. p. 259. tion. : was taken to smooth and varnish over the old superstitions. I do not find this book mentioned by any of our historians. The bishop of WinchesterP, with his own pen, hath an annotation in the margin of one place in the book and I strongly suspect he was more than the reviser of it; and that it was drawn up by him and his party, and strongly pushed on to be owned as the A convoca act of the clergy: for this year there was a convocation. The king had sent his letters, written March the 12th, in the 30th year of his reign, viz. 1538, to the archbishop of Canterbury for summoning a convocation, to meet together at St. Paul's the second day of May. But this assembly, by the king's letters to him, was prorogued till November the 4th. At this convocation, I suppose, these articles were invented and propounded to the house. All this long book, in behalf of the ceremonies, did our laborious metropolitan put himself to the pains of answering, and thereby hindered the reception of it for concerning this, I do interpret that passage of Foxe, viz. That the archbishop confuted eightyeight articles devised by a convocation, and which were laboured to be received, but were not. But to return to the Six Articles. The papists rejoice. : Great triumphing now there was on the papists' side, as appears by a letter wrote from some Roman catholic member of the house of lords to his friend: which may be No. XXVI. read in the Appendix. But after some time, the king perceiving that the said archbishop and bishops did this thing, not of malice or stubbornness, but out of a zeal 。 [Cotton MSS. Cleopat. E. v. fol. 259. British Museum. Original. This book of ceremonies will also be found in the Appendix of Records and Originals of the author's Ecclesiastical Memorials.] P [Stephen Gardiner.] 9 [See Foxe's Acts and Monuments, p. 1870. ed. Lond. 1583.] they had to God's glory and the commonwealth, reformed in part the said Six Articles, and somewhat blunted the edge of them'. priories March 20, two commissions were sent to the arch- Two bishop to take the surrender of two houses of religious surrendered persons; namely, that of Christ's Church, Canterbury, bishop. and that of Rochester. to the arch bishop and Towards the latter end of this year several new bishop- The archrics were founded out of old monasteries; and several Crumwel labour with deaneries and colleges of prebends out of divers priories the king belonging to cathedral churches. Herein as Crumwel, so about the new bishopCranmer had a great hand; who laboured with the king rics. that in these new foundations there should be readers of Divinity, Greek, and Hebrew, and students trained up in religion and learning; from whence, as a nursery, the bishops should supply their dioceses with honest and able ministers and so every bishop should have a college of clergymen under his eye, to be preferred according to their merits; for it was our archbishop's regret, that the prebendaries were bestowed as they were. This complaint bishop Burnet tells us he saw in a long letter of Hist. Ref. P. i. p. 301. Cranmer's own hands. BISHOPS CONFIRMED. In archbishop Cranmer's register I find these bishops Bishops confirmed, their consecrations being omitted. this year. August the 11th, John Bell, LL.D. brought up in John Bell. Balliol College, and archdeacon of Glocester, was con-76 r [For an account of the qualification of the act of the Six Articles, see Foxe's Acts and Monuments, pp. 1230, 31.] $ [See Cotton MSS. Cleopat. E. iv. fol. 302. British Museum. Ori ginal. Burnet's Hist. of Refor- John Skyp. firmed bishop of Worcester, [Aug. 11th,] upon the resignation of bishop Latimer, in the chapel of Lambeth. He is styled in the register, the king's chaplain and counsellor. November the [20th,] John Skyp, D. D." archdeacon of Dorset, and once chaplain to queen Ann Bolen, was confirmed bishop of Hereford. The king's letter to the archbishop to consecrate him bears date November 8. CHAPTER XX. THE ARCHBISHOP IN COMMISSION. THE next year, viz. 1540, the archbishop lost his great Ann.1540. friend and assistant in carrying on the reformation; The archI mean the lord Crumwel. And when he was, by popish enemies bishop's craft and malice, taken off, their next work was to sacri- accuse him. fice Cranmer. And many were the accusations that were put up against him: and trial was made many ways to bring him to his death, or at least to bring him in disgrace with the king. and courage mission. And first, they thought to compass their ends against His honesty him by occasion of a commission now issued out from the in discharge king to a select number of bishops, whereof the arch- of a combishop was one, (which commission was confirmed by act of parliament), for inspecting into matters of religion, and explaining some of the chief doctrines of it. These commissioners had drawn up a set of articles, favouring the old popish superstitions: and meeting together at Lambeth they produced them, and vehemently urged that they should be established, and that the archbishop would yield to the allowance of them; especially seeing there was a signification, that it was the king's will and pleasure that the articles should run in that tenor. But they could not win the archbishop neither by fear nor flattery; no, though the lord Crumwel at this very time lay in the Tower. There was not one commissioner now on his part, but all shrank away and complied with the time: and even those he most trusted to, viz. bishop Hethe of Rochester, and bishop Skyp of Hereford. The archbishop, as he disliked the book already drawn up by them, so he pre |