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stopped and dropped in the later days of the session in the House of Lords: and the opposition to them was led by Paget.* Once more the Commons had shown what has been remarked of them throughout the varying course of the Reformation, their perfect readiness to make a sacrifice of heretics. And yet it might occasion some surprise that they were willing to agree with the Court in including, as they must have known that they were doing, under that dread name their countrymen who had proceeded on their own ordinances and had accepted the books which their own authority had established. At the same time they endeavoured to relieve themselves of a not unfounded anxiety by formulating a bill "that the Bishop of Rome, nor any other bishop, shall not convent any person for any abbey lands." It would however have been absurd to have limited in a particular point a power that was denied altogether by law; and the bill was laid aside by the lords, some assurance being given at the same time that the landowners should not be disturbed. The session was closed by Mary in person, who made a speech that was again and again interrupted by cries of God save the Queen: the most part of them that were there wept at her eloquence and graciousness: and to the foreign ambassadors on her return she expressed her happy confidence that God would restore tranquillity to her realm. Her sad meaning was that to her in private the peers had withdrawn or modified their

Six Articles that there was no Henry now to snatch his prey from his grasp. As to that, look at Vol. II. p. 124 of this work. There is no proof that Gardiner desired the Lollard laws revived: and it seems safer to exclaim with Burnet, "so forward were the Commons to please the Queen, or such operation had Spanish gold on them!

* "Quant l'on a parlé de la peine des heretiques, il a solicité les Sieurs pour non y consenter, n'y donner lieu a peyne de mort." Renard to Charles. Tytler, ii. 386.

+ Burnet, who gives some other considerations that were urged in the House of Lords, without saying whence he got them.

opposition to the threatened persecution. Paget, their leader, presented himself to her after one of her Masses, and begged pardon for his conduct, excusing himself by inculpating another. "I opposed the bill for treason against the Prince of Spain, because Lord Rich persuaded me that the intention of it was to wrest the goods of the Church from those who hold them: I opposed the bill against heretics through ignorance and inadvertence." * He was forgiven; but the disagreement between him and Gardiner broke out again, and seemed extreme. Either of them was said to be uplifting a blow not less than fatal at the other.† The Queen, and the expectant Pole, can not indeed have been satisfied with this Parliament: which took no notice of the papal pretensions. But it was something if the realm without the Pope were almost prepared to maintain with penal severity such opinions as were codified in the Six Articles. It was something that the Commons felt the shadow of the Pope growing larger.

The example of the clergy who found their way to the continent in those days through fear of that which was to come, was followed at this time by some eminent laymen. Moryson, Cheke, and Cook, three knights of fame, withdrew themselves to Strasburg: Hoby selected the baths of Italy: and Paget, whether he went or not, asked leave to seek the same refreshment. The alarm

* Tytler, ii. 392.

+ Paget is said to have forcibly detained and examined a friend of Gardiner's in his own house; thereby rendering himself liable, as the Chancellor was not slow to perceive, to the danger of the laws for having illegally turned his house into a private prison. Gardiner is said to have apprehended lest Paget and his faction should find a pretext for putting him in the Tower, and to have tried to anticipate matters by sending thither them. Tytler, ii. 394.

Strype's Cranmer, B. III. ch. 9.

§ Tytler, ii. 386, 391. Hoby had a bad character with Renard, and Cheke and Moryson not much better. "He is the most obstinate heretic and the worst subject that the Queen has he will continue his bad offices when he is away from this country: as it is thought that Cheke and

created by the attempt of the House of Commons to begin the persecution was wide: in particular the proposed revival of the terrible instrument of the Six Articles spread consternation through the realm and beyond the realm. It was the occasion of the entrance into history itself of an historian of various estimation but unrivalled influence and from the distance of Basle, in the name of the exiles for religion, the terrors of the times were pathetically touched in an expostulation addressed to the Parliament of England by one of the expelled Oxford fellows, John Fox. "The ears and mouths of all,” said the future martyrologist, "receive and expect not a conjecture only, but the constant and confident assertion that you, high and holy fathers, design to recall that bloody code, the Six Articles, from hell to upper air. The public grief, the sad and mournful aspect of humanity, the sighs of good men, protest how portentous a doing that would be. Not their sighs only, their tears bursting forth in the anguish of their grief, the daily flight of the innocent, the ghastly dejection of the State (if yet a state there be), the secret sessions of the breast and torturing wounds of conscience (but of that I say no more), the horror of nigh all, the actual deaths of some in the tumults and troubles: these calamities, issuing from the mere image and remembrance of the past, if they so wring your countrymen, what will be the effect when those intolerable laws themselves are pressed upon their necks? Life will go after liberty: nor only life, conscience will be taken from mankind. Illustrious lords, ye have it in your hand to be happy or miserable! If ye rate so low the blood of your countrymen, and so little regard the former slaughters caused by those laws, why then

Moryson (Shich et Morison) have done. A very scandalous and seditious ballad that has been flung broadcast on the streets is imputed to them." Ib. 406 and see 412.

bring in the Trojan horse, and possess the city in desolation! But if charity, patriotism, our prayers, your country, the church of Christ can move you, be entreated: let the public safety prevail over the solicitations of a few. For what have your fellow countrymen given you authority, but that you may give them security: why is reverence paid to you, if you return not tranquillity? You have a noble Queen, ready to listen to sound and temperate measures and a Chancellor of excellent learning, and of no bad disposition, if the persuasions of some were away. But there are those who are preposterous in religion and savage by nature: who lead the crowd to cruelty, and vitiate the minds of princes, and do it for their own gain. To them nothing seems right but what they do themselves at their own arbitrament they would alter and amend the whole of religion, yea Scripture itself. Whatever pleases not them is heretical. And nothing can please them that is not straight by their rule, however wide of the mark it may be to truth."*

The Convocation, like the Parliament, was summoned to Oxford, and continued to London. In the summons it was observed that the Queen bore not the title of Supreme Head. The president was Bonner, who delivered an oration upon the dignity of the priesthood, containing a strange comparison, that cannot be quoted.+ Weston was the prolocutor presented by Harpsfield: and he

* Strype's Cranmer, App. LXXVI.

This seems by the style to have been addressed to the House of Lords rather than the Commons. It is curious that Fox should begin by owning that wily Winchester, the "insensible ass," on whom he was anon to break his vials and empty his terbottles, was not so bad in himself. Fox was a fine Latinist.

+ Fox, "The Writ for summoning it was directed not to the Queen and Chapter of Canterbury, but immediately to Bonner." So it is affirmed in a note by "G. A." (George Abbot ?), contained in a MS. belonging to the Dean and Chapter of St. Paul's (No. 204, 5), p. 159. I have to thank the Dean and Chapter, Canon Gregory and Dr. Simpson for their courtesy in letting me examine this MS.

*

addressed the fathers in an oration concerning the fallen and ruined state of the Catholic faith in the Church of England. The first business was the choice of some of the lower house to dispute, or entreat of certain points of religion with the three bishops, who were now conjoined in prison, as in destiny, Cranmer, Ridley, and Latimer. For this purpose Weston, Oglethorpe, Chedsey, Seton, Cole, Jeffery, Feckenham, and Harpsfield were deputed, April 5 but the disputation was not to be held in London: nor were the eight representatives of the Convocation deemed sufficient. The rumour prevailed that in the former combat in St. Paul's the victory had remained with the comparatively undistinguished maintainers of the reformed opinions. Another scene was chosen, in Oxford, for the encounter with the more renowned champions: and the numerous brigade of the doctors was to be reinforced upon the field by an academical contingent drawn from each of the Universities. To Oxford they bent their course as soon as they were chosen and thither their imprisoned opposites were sent to meet them about the same time. The business of Convocation languished in their absence: but at length, near the end of the month, they returned, having achieved the adventure and on April 27 they presented to the House under the seal of the University that they had visited, the process of the memorable examination that had been held in St. Mary's. A few days afterwards,

* Harpsfield presented Weston, "facta solemni et ornata oratione in laudem dicti Referendarii ac de ejus virtutibus et piis qualitatibus. Idem Referendarius etiam orationem præfatis Reverendis Patribus Prælatis fecit pie et devote: ostendendo et declarando calamitatem et ruinam fidei Catholicæ in Ecclesia Anglicana ratione hæresis infra paucos annos in dicta Ecclesiæ ingruente et exorta." Bonner's Register, fol. 339.

+ April. "Comparuerunt in domo capitulari S. Pauli London. prolocutor et allii doctores, viz. theologiæ professores et legum utriusque universitatis nuper ad universitatem Oxoniæ destinati, et præsentaverunt processum super examinatione Thomæ Cranmer, Nicolai Ridley, et

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