time the spiritual jurisdiction had been revived: and in May, 1554, the matter was exhibited before Thornden. Bishop of Dover, Harpsfield archdeacon of Canterbury, and other commissaries in the spiritual court. His examinations took the usual course. Matter was sought against him from his own answers on the Sacrament: but it may be noted that in that early stage of the religious troubles he took not the line that was afterwards followed by Bradford, and instead of refusing demanded conference with learned men: a request which Harpsfield seems to have taken for a challenge to dispute. There was the usual allegation and the steadfast denial of the charge of heresy. "I ground my faith," said Bland, "upon all the articles of the Creed, and upon all the Holy Scriptures, Sacraments, and holy doctors of the Church, and upon all the General Councils that ever were since the Apostles' time" a profession which exactly agreed with the original scope or definition of the word Catholic. The process was not pressed in the ecclesiastical court: but the temporal magistrates used Bland strangely. By Sir John Baker and the other justices he was put in the stocks in Maidstone gaol: was ironed he was set with some other prisoners for religion among felons by the judges of assize at Rochester: and was delivered back to the spiritual court after being in prison more than a year, and attending five sessions without having his cause tried. In the mean time his living of Aderham had been taken by Thornden, who now sat in judgment upon him. He was examined orally and on articles several times: and was permitted to dispute with Miles, a priest of Christchurch Canterbury.* He was condemned, and suffered

* Among the positions which Miles took was that "the godly intent of the minister to consecrate" was to be added for validity to the words spoken by him. Bland replied that it was absurd to affirm that the word

martyrdom with the other three, after two years of trouble, July 12, of this year. He has related that some other persons, who were troubled with him, were dismissed by the court, probably upon some submission.

Of those who suffered with him the most remarkable was Shetterden, who has been discerned obscurely before, in Edward's reign, when he got into some trouble with the Council about religion, and was referred to his ordinary for the resolution of his doubts.* He was an

unlettered man of shrewd wit, not a Calvinist but a Freewiller, who amused himself in perplexing his judges, holding the foxes at the staff's end, as he said, that he might see them leap for his blood. Ignorance may always puzzle learning. It was he who invented the reductive argument, which was heard again, that it was the cup, not the wine, that was transubstantiated, if words were to be taken literally as the upholders of that doctrine insisted. But the chief value of his case is the manner in which he exhibits the lawlessness with which prisoners for religion might be treated. He was put in prison early in the reign for words spoken, before there was any law that he could break by speaking as he did. Furthermore it seems that, though he denied not having spoken as he did, he was put in prison only on suspicion of having so spoken. It was not until he had been in

:

of God could not consecrate without the intent of the priest to help it. "If that lack, ye seem to grant no consecration, though the priest speak the word and yet your Doctors say that the wickedness of the priest minisheth not the Sacrament." The same was affirmed by Harpsfield in Shetterden's examination. Fox, 310. It seems agreeable to the words of the Council of Trent, which are, "In ministris, dum Sacramenta conficiunt et conferunt, requiri intentionem saltem faciendi quod facit Ecclesia." Sess. vii. Can. 11: and it is added, "ministrum in peccato mortali existentem, modo omnia essentialia quæ ad Sacramentum conficiendum aut conferendum pertinent servaverit, conficere aut conferre Sacramentum." Can. 12.

* See Vol. III. 210 of this work.

prison three-quarters of a year that the new law was passed, on suspicion of having broken which law he could be tried. He was then had before a Commission, and was told that the cause for which he had been put in prison was the cause for which he was suspected. To the plain question what he had done, he could get no answer, but that he was suspected: and the man who at length said that it was he who suspected him, sat on the bench to judge him. He pointed out that their position was, to imprison a man without laws, and then make laws to justify the imprisonment. He was examined on articles: matter was sought against him from his own answers, in the usual way; and he was cast and burned.*

Before the same persons, Thornden, Harpsfield, Collins, and Faucet, were examined at the same time on the same articles six other persons, who suffered in the same place, in the market-place of Canterbury, a few months later: Coker, Hopper, Henry Lawrence, Collier,

* Shetterden's narrative is full of tart humour, and worth reading. Curiously enough he had a sort of private examination before Gardiner, besides the one before the Commission. Gardiner was at Canterbury on some business, and seems to have sent for him out of commiseration. He used him very gently, suggesting that he should first clear himself of suspicion, and then get a writ for false imprisonment. Shetterden properly refused to do this. In the course of the conversation he offered to confer declared that he had been ill used, since the Queen's Proclamation was that none should be compelled in religion before there were laws to compel that the things that he had learned had been openly taught and received in the realm. "It was never received," said Gardiner, "that you might speak against the Sacrament." - "But against some opinion of the Sacrament," said Shetterden, "it was openly taught." -"By no laws," said Gardiner ; "God preserved that all that while, so that no law could pass against it." Thus Gardiner acknowledged the Catholic nature of the English Reformation, even from his own point of view. But he seems to have held that illegal violence was justifiable in case of suspicion on that head, and that in all circumstances a man ought to clear himself of such suspicion. Fox, 314: Strype, v. 356.

Wright and Stere. Of whom one, in his examination, saluting Thornden with the familiar appellation of Dick of Dover, demanded to know his authority, denied the sufficiency of the Bulls and writings from Rome, which were exhibited to him, denied the sufficiency of the Queen's Commission, declaring that the Bishop of Canterbury was his diocesan, demanding to see an authority from him.* The fire had scarcely sunk that devoured these six, when it rose again in the burning of five more for Catmer, Streater, Burward, Brodbridge, Tutty, had been condemned by the same Commissioners.†

Of the jurisdiction of Griffin, Bishop of Rochester, was Margerey Polley, widow, the first woman executed for religion in the reign: Christopher Wade, and Nicolas Hall, bricklayer: of whom the last was the most absolute, who denied that the Church was his mother because he found not the word mother in the Scriptures, or that the Sacrament was taken in remembrance because it was clean contrary to that it might remember. Of Wade the execution had some picturesque circumstances: it was in a gravel pit: fruiterers came with horseloads of cherries to sell: a friar who came to preach, perhaps from Greenwich, ran away.‡

Bonner was not let alone by the lay authorities after the admonition of the King and Queen: and this summer his diocese was rich in martyrs. The Council sent to inform him of four parishes in Essex that still used the English service: requiring him to investigate, to punish, to send chaplains to preach to them.§ A letter from the Marquis of Winchester informed him of prisoners for religion, insisting that he should examine them: "There be divers prisoners come from Sussex, that be not yet

* Fox, iii. 327: end of August.

Fox, 317: July 19.

+ Fox, 351: September.

§ Burnet, from the Council Book, Pt. III. (Vol. iii. 421, Pocock).

examined before you, lying now in Newgate, which must be examined by you, since they be come to London; and so I pray they may be, and I certified of your proceeding."* In truth the resolute determination of a gentleman named Edward Gage had apprehended, as far back as the third month from the end of the year before this, two men, Carver and Launder, who were at prayer in Carver's house with others: and sent them to the Council: the Council to Newgate. Derick Carver, a brewer of beer of Berkhamsted, being now brought before the Bishop of London, held that "in the Mass in Latin, now used in the Church of England, there was no sacrifice that in it there was no salvation for a Christian man except it be said in the mother tongue, that he might understand it": and that "the faith and doctrine now taught and used in the Church of England was not agreeable to God's word." He said that the Bible and Psalter in English, and the English procession or Litany, had been read in his house a twelvemonth past: and that he and his fellows were caught while they were hearing the Gospel read in English. Launder confirmed this: that they were in Carver's house, twelve of them, saying the service in English set forth in the time of Edward the Sixth, when they were apprehended: adding that he believed in the two Sacraments, and that to teach any more Sacraments, or yet any ceremonies, was contrary to the Catholic Church, of which he was a member. Bonner drew Articles against them, mostly, it is to be observed, out of what they had said in prison, not before. He added a protestation that the proceedings were not of his devising, that he was "commanded by the authority of the Council to make process against them, so that it was

To Bonner. June 7, 1555: in Fox, iii. 317. These cases belonged to Gardiner's jurisdiction. Burnet says that Gardiner would not act, and so got the letter written to Bonner. Vol. ii. 508 (Pɔcɔck).