and belying and misreporting us at their pleasure: nor are we suffered to come forth and answer them. May it please you to consider this calamity of your subjects: call us to your presence: give us liberty either by word of mouth or writing in the English tongue to answer before indifferent arbiters such articles of controversy as our adversaries condemn us of, as of heinous heresies. We shall make it plainly appear that we are true and faithful Christians, and neither heretics nor teachers of heresy, nor cut off from the true Catholic universal Church of Christ. If we be not able by the testimony of Christ, the prophets, apostles, and godly fathers, to prove that the doctrine of the Church, the Homilies and Service set forth in the reign of Edward the Sixth, is the true doctrine of Christ's Catholic Church, and most agreeable to the articles of the Christian faith; we offer ourselves to the most heavy punishment that it shall please your majesties to appoint.” * The London confessors strove with invincible courage to recall the realm to justice. That legislative assembly in the meantime (for we return to Westminster) to which Hooper and his fellows would have appealed, that senate to which they would have confided the decision of belief, was continuing its ecclesiastical labours by making the Court and the Legate a present of heretics, without defining what heresy might be. This was the very contrary of that which Hooper and those who thought with him would have had them do. I have noticed formerly in this work the perfect readiness of all Parliaments of the period of the Reformation to sacrifice heretics. At the opening of the Reformation * Fox: Bradford's Writings, p. 403. The initials H. F. T. B. P. R. S. which this document bears, are usually interpreted as in the text. It is entitled, "A Supplication unto the King and Queen's most excellent Majesties, and to their most honourable and high Court of Parliament." one of their complaints against the clergy had been the captious difficulty and subtlety of the questions put in the spiritual courts to persons charged with heretical pravity for that reason among others they had then transferred the jurisdiction to some extent to laymen, abrogating at the same time one of the old Lancastrian laws against Lollards, and taking away from the number of heresies things said or done against the pontifical laws, the decrees of the Bishops of Rome: though on the other hand, at that time they confirmed two other old statutes against Lollards.* They were now about to re-enact and put in force all three those statutes: to make heresy again of all things said or done against the Bishops of Rome: to lay the brand and danger of heresy thereby upon any of their countrymen who might choose to abide by the proceedings of the realm for the last twenty-five and to return the jurisdiction to the former holders without limit or definition. Before so doing they performed a ceremony. They sent a post to Rome, acquainting the Pope that they would grant nothing in his behalf until he confirmed them in their purchases, and settled their sales of the abbey lands and the chantries.† Assured of this they proceeded: and the brief Act, which heated again the furnaces of the Lancastrian kings, originating in the Commons, passed both Houses with rapidity, and was ordered to come in ure on the twentieth * Vol. I. p. 194 of this work. years: + Fox, Strype, v. 257. 1 Phil. and Mary 6. No bill ever went quicker through Parliament than this fatal "Bill to revive three old Acts for the punishment of heresies," as it is called in the Journals: the bill that lighted Smithfield. It came into the Commons 12 Dec.: was sent up 15 Dec.: passed the Lords 18 Dec. The Acts that it revived were 5 R. II. 2, c. 5: 2 H. IV. 15: 2 H. V. i. c. 7. Renard observes that it passed the lower house without much hesitation, but "la Chambre haulte y faict difficulté, pour ce que l'authorité et jurisdiction des eveques est autorisée et renouvellée, et que la peine semble trop griefve." He had no doubt however that it would pass. To the Emperor, Dec. 24. Granvelle, iv. 347. of the January next, for the express reason that heresies were much increased of late, and the ordinaries lacked authority to proceed against them that were infected with them. The performance of the forbidden English rite in private, perhaps even secession from the Church of England, appears to have been caused or promoted by the Queen's proceedings: and now it was held necessary to pass a sharp measure against those who schismatically assembled themselves in conventicles in profane or unconsecrated places, and there prayed against the Queen, that either she might be turned from idolatry to the true faith or her days might be shortened.* Of these charitable aspirations there were some notable instances about this time. Of the great statute of repeal of the Acts of the Henrician Reformation, which followed in fulfilment of the promise made by the Estates to the Legate,† the robust beauties and the exact arrangement have been anxiously pointed out by admirers. One of these * 1 Phil. and Mary 9. The language of this Act is very curious. + Above, p. 271. Philips observes, "There is a remarkable order and propriety in the division of the articles of this statute, which leads the reader from one to another with no less distinction than if he was to be brought acquainted with only a single one of them; and each is enounced with an energy suitable to the subject matter. The ancient phrase in which they are penned gives a gravity to the composition beyond all the graces which our present language can boast; and our best writers will admire in what was written above two hundred years ago those manly beauties which are so much superior to all the polish of modern art." Life of Pole, ii. 142. Lingard draws attention to "the accuracy with which the Act distinguishes between the civil and ecclesiastical jurisdiction, and the care with which it guards against any encroachment on the part of the latter." He adds that it contains implicitly the heads under which the papal jurisdiction within the realm was comprised. It may be observed that this admiration was not exactly shared by Pole himself at the time. According to Renard he so disliked the double form, the joining of the repeal and the confirming of the laity in church goods, that he declared he would go back to Rome and leave the business rather than consent to have the repentance of the realm made a bargain of (la dicte obedience avoir estè rachetez): - beauties was a double head: for the Act bore the title of 66 An Act repealing all statutes, articles and provisions made against the See Apostolic of Rome since the twentieth year of King Henry the Eighth, and also for the establishment of all spiritual and ecclesiastical possessions and hereditaments conveyed to the laity." It was of prodigious length, and showed the labour of the joint committee that drew it: nor was it ready until the year had expired. In the Lords the only dissentient was Bonner, who misliked a clause confirming Lord Wentworth in some of the London lands: who seemed to have been backed by the Commons, for they returned the bill, requesting that this clause might be struck out, and two new provisos added. The Lords altered one of these, and Bonner again dissented, being joined this time by the Bishop of Lichfield and Lord Montague: and, curious to tell, as the clause about the London lands still remained, Gardiner cut it out with a penknife and the jesting remark that now he used the office of a chancellor.* In language at least the Act showed a difference and that the King had vainly tried to get the Council to manage that there should be two separate Acts, instead of one double one. Granvelle, iv. 346. Another spirit may be discerned in the objection which, according to the same authority, was urged by the lawyers against the confirmation of goods. "Ceulx de la loi d'Angleterre ont voulu maintenir n'estre nécessaire, pour ce que de tout temps, anciens et immemoriaux, les roys d'Angleterre ont eu toute jurisdiction sur les dicts biens immeubles ecclesiastiques, sans aulcun moyen." Ib. : * This curious entry may be worth transcribing, "Eo die allatæ sunt a domo Communi tres Billæ tertia, Repealing all statutes, articles, and provisions made against the See Apostolic of Rome since the 20 year of King H. 8 and for the establishment, &c., with two new provisos added thereto by the Commons and also a request that the two clauses, containing nineteen lines concerning the Bp. of London, &c., and the Lord Wentworth, &c., should be cleanly put out. Whereof one of the Provisos, for the manner of penning thereof, being misliked to the House, another to the same effect was commanded to be drawn, which being three times read, and agreed unto by the whole House, except the Viscount Montacute, and the Bp. of Lond. and Covent. and Lichf. was sent down to the Com nons where being also thrice read and agreed unto, it was brought from the numerous Acts which it repealed. The Marian legislators made no scruple of applying to the papal jurisdiction or authority within the realm the term supremacy, which I have shown to have been so carefully avoided by the Henrician lawgivers, by the Henrician apologists. But they provided that nothing in their Act should be explained to impair any authority or prerogative belonging to the Crown before the twentieth year of Henry: and, as the supremacy belonged to the Crown before the twentieth year of Henry, the supremacy was not impaired by their Act. As the first Parliament of Mary had carried the retrogression to the end of Henry's reign, so now her third Parliament undertook to carry it to the beginning of Henry's Reformation. As for the title of Supreme Head, they denied with truth the antiquity of it, and dismissed with disgust that tasteless and unnecessary appellation. In an humble preamble they confessed the sin of schism: but they implored that some of the chief things done in schism might be overlooked that bishoprics, cathedral churches and colleges now established might be confirmed for ever: that marriages made within degrees contrary to the laws of the Church, but not to the laws of God, might stand: that all institutions into benefices, and all judicial processes might be confirmed; and, above all, that there might be no difficulty about monastic lands. They then repealed the Acts about pluralities, citations, appeals, annates, Submission of clergy, exactions, Supreme Head, suffragans, ecclesiastical laws, authority of Pope, release of dispensations, prohibited degrees, erecting bishoprics, up again as an Act fully assented unto by both Houses: nor the said nineteen lines were not razed nor taken out of the Act: but the Lord Chancellor in the sight of all the Lords with a knife cut them, saying these words, I now do rightly the office of a Chancellor." Lords' Journ. 4 Jan. Comp. Burnet. * Vol. I. 147, 427 of this work. |