pressions on the graver and better affections of the mind; the scene must be laid in England, and king Henry the Eighth and his three children, with the changes that were in their times, seemed to afford very plentiful matter for a man of wit and fancy, who knew where he could dexterously shew his art; and had boldness enough to do it without shame, or the reverence due, either to crowned heads, or to persons that were dead. Yet because he knew not how he could hold up his face to the world, after these discoveries were made, which he had reason to expect, this was concealed as long as he lived; and after he had died for his faith (that is, in rebellion, which I shall shew is the faith in his style) this work of his was published. The style is generally clean, and things are told in an easy and pleasant way; only he could not use his art so decently, as to restrain that malice which boiled in his breast, and often fermented out too palpably in his pen.

The book served many ends well, and so was generally much cried up, by men who had been long accustomed to commend any thing that was useful to them, without troubling themselves with those impertinent questions, whether they were true or false; yet Rishton, and others since that time, took the pencil again in their hands, and finding there were many touches wanting, which would give much life to the whole piece, have so changed it, that it was afterwards reprinted, not only with a large continuation, that was writ by a much more unskilful poet, but with so many and great additions, scattered through the whole work, whereby it seemed so changed in the vamping, that it looked new.

If any will give themselves the trouble, to compare his fable with the History that I have written, and the certain undoubted authorities I bring in confirmation of what I assert, with the slender, and (for the most part) no authorities, he brings, they will soon be able to discern where the truth lies: but because all people have not the leisure or opportunities for laying things so critically together, I was advised, by those whose counsels directed me in this whole work, to sum up, in an Appendix, the most considerable falsehoods

and mistakes of that book, with the evidences upon which I rejected them. Therefore I have drawn out the following extraction, which consists of errors of two sorts. The one is, of those in which there is indeed no malice, yet they shew the writer had no true information of our affairs, but commits many faults, which tho' they leave not such foul imputations on the author, yet tend very much to disparage , and discredit his work. But the others are of an higher guilt, being designed forgeries to serve partial ends; not only without any authority, but manifestly contrary to truth, and to such records as (in spite of all the care they took in Q. Mary's time by destroying them, to condemn posterity to ignorance in these matters) are yet reserved, and serve to discover the falsehood of those calumnies in which they have traded so long. I shall pursue these errors in the series in which they are delivered in Sanders his book, according to the impression at Colen 1628, which is that I have. I first set down his errors, and then a short confutation of them, referring the reader for fuller information to the foregoing History.

1. Sanders says;

"That when prince Arthur and his Page 2. princess were bedded, king Henry the 7th ordered a grave matron to lie in the bed, that so they might not "consummate their marriage."

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This is the ground-work of the whole fable; and should have been some way or other proved. But if we do not take so small a circumstance upon his word, we treat him rudely; and who will write histories, if they be bound to say nothing but truth! but little thought our author that there were three depositions upon record, pointblank against this; for the duchess of Norfolk, the viscount of Fitzwater and his lady, deposed they saw them bedded together, and the bed blessed after they two were put in it; besides that such an extravagant thing was never known done in any place.

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2. Sanders says;

"Prince Arthur was not then fifteen Ibid.

years of age, and was sick of a lingering disease."

The plot goes on but scurvily, when the next thing that

Page 2.

Page 3.

Page 4.

is brought to confirm it is contradicted by records. Prince Arthur was born the 20th of September in the year 1486, and so was 15 years old and two months passed at the 14th of November 1501, in which he was married to the princess, and was then of a lively and good complexion, and did not begin to decay till the Shrovetide following, which was imputed to his excesses in the bed, as the witnesses depose.

3. He says; "Upon the motion for the marrying of his "brother Henry to the princess, it was agreed to by all, "that the thing was lawful."

It was perhaps agreed on at Rome, where money and other political arts sway their counsels; but it was not agreed to in England: for which we have no meaner authority than Warham archbishop of Canterbury, who, when examined upon oath, deposed that himself then thought the marriage was not honourable, nor well pleasing to God, and that he had thereupon opposed it much, and that the people murmured at it.

4. He says; "There was not one man in any nation "under heaven, or in the whole church, that spake against " it."

The common style of the Roman church, calling the see of Rome the catholick church, must be applied to this, to bring off our author; otherwise I know not how to save his reputation. Therefore by all the nations under heaven must be understood only the divines at Rome, though when it came to be examined, they could scarce find any who would justify it all the most famous universities, divines, and canonists, condemned it, and Warham's testimony contradicts this plainly, besides the other great authorities that were brought against it, for which see lib. 2. from pag. 182. to pag. 207. 5. "The king once said, He would not marry the queen." Here is a pretty essay of our author's art, who would make us think it was only in a transient discourse, that the king said he would not marry queen Katherine; but this was more maturely done, by a solemn protestation, which he read himself before the bishop of Winchester, that he would never marry her, and that he revoked his consent given

under age. This was done when he came to be of age, see pag. 71. it is also confessed by Sanders himself.

6. He says; daughters."

"The queen bore him three sons and two Ibid.

All the books of that time speak only of two sons, and one daughter: but this is a flourish of his pen to represent her a fruitful mother.

7. He says; "The king had sometimes two, sometimes Page 5. "three concubines at once.

It does not appear he had ever any but Elizabeth Blunt; and if we judge of his life, by the letters the popes wrote to him, and many printed elogies that were published then, he was a prince of great piety and religion all that while.

8. He says; "The lady Mary was first desired in mar- Page 6. "riage by James the 5th of Scotland, then by Charles the "5th the emperor; and then Francis asked her, first for "the dolphin, then for the duke of Orleance, and last of all "for himself."

But all this is wrong placed; for she was first contracted to the dolphin, then to the emperor, and then treated about to the king of Scotland; after that it was left to Francis his choice, whether she should be married to himself, or his second son the duke of Orleance: so little did our poet know the publick transactions of that time.

9. He says; "She was in the end contracted to the dol- Ibid. "phin: from whence he concludes, that all foreign princes were satisfied with the lawfulness of the marriage."

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She was first of all contracted to the dolphin. Foreign princes were so little satisfied of the lawfulness of the marriage, that though she being heir to the crown of England, was a match of great advantage; yet their counsellors excepted to it, on that very account, that the marriage was not good. This was done in Spain, and she was rejected, as a writer who lived in that time informs us; and Sanders confesses it was done by the French ambassador.

10. He says; "Wolsey was first bishop of Lincoln, then Page 7. "of Duresme, after that of Winchester, and last of all arch

Page 8.

Page 9.

Ibid.

"bishop of York; after that he was made chancellor, then "cardinal and legate."

The order of these preferments is quite reversed; for Wolsey soon after he was made bishop of Lincoln, upon cardinal Bembridge his death, was not only promoted to the see of York, but advanced to be a cardinal in the 7th year of the king's reign and some months after that, he was made lord chancellor; and seven years after that, he got the bishoprick of Duresme, which six years after he exchanged for Winchester. He had heard perhaps that he enjoyed all these preferments; but knowing nothing of our affairs beyond hearsay, he resolved to make him rise as poets order their heroes, by degrees, and therefore ranks his advancement not according to truth, but in the method he liked best himself.

11. He says; 66 Wolsey first designed the divorce, and "made Longland, that was the king's confessor, second his "motion for it."

The king not only denied this in publick, saying, that he himself had first moved it to Longland in confession; and that Wolsey had opposed it all he could: but in private discourse with Grinæus, told him, he had laboured under these scruples for seven years; septem perpetuis annis trepidatio. Which, reckoning from the year 1531, in which Grinæus wrote this to one of his friends, will fall back to the year 1524, long before Wolsey had any provocation to tempt him to it.

12. He says; "In the year 1529, in which the king was "first made to doubt of his marriage, he was resolved then "whom to marry when he was once divorced."

But by his other story, Anne Boleyn was then but fifteen years old, and went to France at that age, where she stayed a considerable time before she came to the court of England. 13. He says; "The king spent a year in a private search, to see what could be found, either in the scriptures, or the pope's bull, to be made use of against his "marriage; but they could find nothing."

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