and year of that king who was chief author of the schism!" So Pole reviewed the events of England. In the meantime, to elucidate his office as it regarded France and the Empire, he composed an Oration on peace. * Goldwell came from Rome, and was at Calais on 1 December. Lord Howard wrote from Calais to know whether he must let him cross into England. Calend. Foreign, p. 34. He was detained at Calais some time, and it was at least two months later when he got Pole's "Instructions": for the Queen's letter to Pole, to which the Instructions were an indirect answer, was of January 23, according to the Venetian Calendar, or else of January 28, as appears in the Instructions. See them in Strype's Cranmer, App. LXXV. His criticism of the Acts of the late Parliament is interesting. Observe the position, that the restoration of the old services had been hasty and premature, the kingdom not being yet reconciled. Compare above, p. 25. Observe also that Pole charitably opened the door to individuals on that point his language is strong: he says that to prevent an individual, whether of high or low degree, from returning to the obedience of the Church until all the others were convinced would be like refusing to let a single patient in a pest-house take a remedy proposed for him because it could not be taken simultaneously by all the others. To his Agent: Ven. Cal. p. 496. Pole's Chronology. The reader may accept an imperfect sketch of Pole's letters and matters connected with him: indicating points that I have taken up here or may take up elsewhere. 29 July. Consistory on Edward's death. 2 Aug. Pope Julius to Pole (to be legate.) Raynaldus, 467. 5 6 7 13 20 2222 27 28 Consistory Pole appointed legate. Papal letters sent to the Emperor, to the French King, to Pole to the Pope (the good news of Mary's accession), Pole to Mary, to the Pope, to Dandino the Flanders Pole to the Emperor. Information for the Emperor sent by Pole through Fior- Pole to Mary (to renounce supreme head) Ib. 395. 8 Sept. Pole to the Master of the Sacred Palace (whether the free Pole to Dandino (religious matters ought to be discussed Of Bale the mind was more prolific and powerful than of Pole and savage denunciation is a fruit of another flavour than the high alarms of academic expostulation. But at the time when the future legate was pouring forth his posts and letters, the late Bishop of in the first parliament of a new reign, but it might be rash to go as legate) Ib. 409. 10 15 19 28 1 Oct. 2 8 ཁ་ 21 28 Sorango, Venet. amb. in Engd. to Doge. (Pole had better not go to England) Ib. 410. Consistory in favour of delay. The same to the same (about Commendone's movements) Ib. 411. Pole to the pope (suggests a Jubilee for England) Ib. 412. Pole to the pope, from Trent. (that Mary asks absolution for herself) Ib. 413. Pole to eight persons, among them Q. Mary. (that England had gone from schism to heresy, the Sacraments being abolished) Ib. 419. Mary to Pole (hopes that Parliament will repeal antipapal statutes) Ib. 425. Pole to the pope, from Dillingen (terrible perils) Ib. 428. Report of Pole's messenger from England, to be made to the pope. (the queen desired to be absolved, and that the Bp. of Winchester might crown her without sin, even though the absolution of the whole kingdom ought to come first-Gardiner's opening speech in ParliamentMary's coronation oath-her anointing oil from Brussels) Ib. 429. Pole to the pope : (that the Emperor stops him) Ib. 434. Mary to Pole (that Parliament detests the pope, and hates legates that she will not wear Supreme Head) written in Latin. Poli Epist. iv. 118. 15 Nov. Mary to Pole (that the people are adverse to his coming) Latin. Ib. 121. 1 Dec. Pole to Mary (complains that she wrote in Latin) Ib. Goldwell at Calais. Foreign Cal. p. 34. 8 1554. Pope Julius to Pole (go to England as a private person). 23 Jan. Mary to Pole (should she apply to him or the pope for 28 'Pole's Instructions to Goldwell, in answer to the Queen's letters (criticising Parliament-that the realm had no right to the Sacraments before reconciliation to the Holy See etc.) Strype's Cran. App. LXXV. 66 go Ossory sent from his retreat at Rouen a stern pseudonymous warning to Gardiner and Bonner, in which with fierce rancour of style were mingled the counsels of soberness, and a truer perception of the state of things than can be discerned in the effusions of the elegant votary of Rome. 'God," said he to the English bishops, "has marvellously saved you from the hands of them that hated you and has set you in a high dignity more than ever you had in your life. And doubtless to do good and not evil, to correct and amend things amiss: not to destroy and break down things that are in good order. But your proceedings begin strangely. You are the first to about to refuse the Word of God: to set aside Christ's institution: and to call the realm to blindness and error. In time past ye nothing favoured the Scriptures to be in English: but winced and kicked at them. You were wont to allege that you did nothing but as a common councillor: you obtested by God that, when men were burned for the truth's sake, you nothing procured it, but did all that you might to the contrary.* If now you raise a new persecution, it will be manifest to all that you were guilty of all the blood that was shed for the Word of God in time before. What is your Latin Mass, to edify therewith the Church of England? And Bonner hath set up again in Paul's the Salisbury Latin portas; whereof the laymen understand no word, God knoweth no more do the great part of the portas patterers. If the most godly and perfect Book of Service (which even you yourself have both in preaching and writing commended) please not Bonner, why doth he not set out his own church service in English? Because he knows there are most monstrous things in it. The English boys would laugh, such lies are in the * He refers no doubt to the death of Mekins, Barnes, and others in the persecutions under the Six Articles. legends of the saints. Yet must these occupy the place, to make folk believe that in the Latin tongue there is some great and holy mystery. How is the Holy Communion observed in your private masses? You have not one word of Scripture to maintain this profanation of Christ's institution. You deprive married priests of their offices and livings: you have no word of God for this. You tell the Queen that the people desire the Mass, and that they never favoured the Scriptures: you tell the people that the Queen's pleasure is they should receive again the Mass and popery. It is proferred to you to dispute by the Holy Scriptures and by the doctors of the primitive Church: but ye know ye can have no advantage that way. As little honour will come to you in disputing as is already won in writing.* Your old arguments, which your preachers do now most earnestly beat into the people's ears at Paul's Cross, are, surely fire and faggot despatcheth at once. Happy are ye that such arguments were not made against you. But the Word of God has not been all so barren as ye would it had been. Men have some knowledge between a Latin satisfactory mass and Christ's Communion truly ministered and know the difference between a single life and a chaste life."+ fell Another stroke from the same hand followed and upon the same prelates: a stroke which one of them, * He alludes to Cranmer's challenge: and to Gardiner's former controversy on the Sacrament with Cranmer. + "Admonition to the Bishops of Winchester, London, and others. From Roane by Michael Wood, Anno 1553. The first of October." Published pseudonymously. I have missed out the vituperation that disfigured this not unseasonable tract. It is full of the weakness and strength of the age. Thus, in the midst of these exhortations to mercy, the writer can find nothing better to say of More, Fisher, and Friar Forrest than that they "desperately died in the contempt of the Gospel." Mentioning Dudley, he says that he was deceived by hope of pardon, and blasphemed the Gospel in the hour of death. : the greater, was destined to feel frequently during the brief remainder of his life. Gardiner had figured among the ablest of the apologists of Henry the Eighth in his rejection of the Papacy. His book De Vera Obedientia was twenty years old: it had remained in Latin and after one reprint, ostensibly performed in a foreign city, it had slept forgotten almost from the year of its first appearance. Now suddenly it came forth in English twice was it issued in successive months, so great was the demand: and the arguments by which the Chancellor of Mary had formerly despatched the claims of the Apostolic See and defended the Divorce were spread before the eyes of all men at the moment when he was about to bear his great part in the reconciliation of England to Rome. Gardiner had furnished arms against himself. Full often, in the miserable work of examining the prisoners for religion, he was to feel their sharpness, being convicted of inconsistency by the witness of his own mouth. This English version of his book contained the mysterious preface, pretendedly written by the then youthful Bonner, which had accompanied the foreign reprint of the Latin.* It was furnished besides with another, a new and sprightly preface, which swept not only Gardiner and Bonner, but also the rest of the surviving band of the Henrician apologists into the same condemnation for therein, while the venerable Tunstall was described, though with some mixture of respect, as a dreaming Saturn ever imagining mischief, the unlucky Sampson of Coventry and Litchfield was It is noticed in the Chronicle of Queen Jane and Mary, Nichols, P. 33, thus. "About Christmas Eve there came forth a book entitled De Vera Obedientia, imprinted, as it is said, at Roane, where it was translated. An Oration made by the Bishop of Winchester, with the preface of Bonner bishop of London; The translation thereof." It really came out in October, see next note. The notice given to a book, in a Chronicle, or record of events, shows the impression it made. |