sent an explicit answer to Cranmer's letters to the Queen: and this second attack, as vituperative as the former, was an able and in some respects a surprising performance; vigorous though not very generous, the lavish display of charity serving to cover many hard words. He reproached his unresisting adversary with gross ignorance, incurable obstinacy, monstrous blindness, and deliberate malice that his judges saw no hope of amendment in him, and therefore on him must ensue the impending and horrible sentence of condemnation both of body and soul. He laid at him heavily for the dissimulation shown by both taking and nulling his oath to the Pope at his consecration. He had much to say on the Sacrament again. As for the pontifical laws, it was not his business to show that Cranmer had overstated his case. Cranmer made no distinction between the pontifical laws and the old episcopal laws of England: so that what he said of the inconvenience of the Pope's laws might seem applicable to all spiritual laws whatever and it seemed as if he desired no other laws, no other courts to be in the realm but the temporal. Pole, like Cranmer, made no distinction of laws: but he argued not without force that England had known by experience

he knows nothing of his other attack. The exact date at which Pole sent this Epistle to Cranmer was October 23. He wrote, on October 26, a letter to the Archbishop of Conza at Brussels, in which he says that he had not sent it to the person to whom it was addressed until three days ago: and that he would not have sent it then, if he had known previously what Soto had said of the desperate obstinacy of that wretched man (di quel misero). He adds that the dying Gardiner had given orders for it to be translated into English and published. Ven. Calendar, p. 224. Cranmer is said to have remarked, on reading this Epistle, that it was eloquent, but too sharp, and not true. "Quam epistolam Cranmerus ut legit, eloquentem videri dixit, sed quod ad rem attineret partim nimis acerbe conscriptam, partim a vero abhorrentem." Bishop Cranmer's Recantacyons, 43. At the end of it, in the Harleian volume, is written in Pole's own hand the words, "The very truth comfort you in God, you not refusing His grace. R. Pole Card. Leg."

in times past the good effects of the laws of the Church. One benefit of them he pointed out, which may have touched Cranmer: that before his time no man had been condemned for heresy save by the canon law.* But his most curious feat was denying Cranmer's main position, that the Pope was a foreign power. "The pope's power can no more be called a foreign power, coming not of man alone, but of Him that is God and Man, than may be called a foreign power that the soul of man, coming from heaven, hath in the body generated on earth. In the politic body of this realm, ruled with politic laws, to them coming the pope's laws spiritual do no other but that which the soul in the body, to give life to the same, to confirm and strengthen the same." He enlarged, not unnaturally, upon the blessings that had been shed on England in the past by those rare birds the legates a latere. "There was never notable trouble in the realm of any kind, if it dured anytime, but it was ever lightly cured and the realm established by some legate sent from the pope and the see of Rome following the prescripts of the canons and the spiritual law." Thus Pole did triumphant battle with a foe who was not allowed to return a blow.t

"It was never seen in the realm, afore the time of your malicious oath, that there was any man condemned for the crime of heresies by the mere justice that cometh of the temporal laws, but all were first declared to be such by the spiritual laws of the canons."

+ Cranmer said that at this time he was debarred the use of pen and paper, save for writing to the Queen. Letter to Mary, Remains, 454. And yet, in more than one place he speaks, or others speak, of his desire of finishing his answer to Gardiner. And he wrote the letter to the lawyer, which comes next in his curious story. Perhaps he was only forbidden to write letters, not other things. And perhaps he wrote the letter to the lawyer at some time when his imprisonment was not so strict. In "Bishop Cranmer's Recantacyons" it is said that it was considered at one time that there was too easy access to him. Pole's second letter to Cranmer is in the Harleian volume 417, No. 7 it is printed in the Oxford edition of Strype's Cranmer, vol. ii. 372 and in

But the imprisoned Archbishop was in truth less desirous to measure himself with the Legate than to defend himself against the Legate's master: less bent on a new fight than wishful to bring an old and doubtful combat to a final victory. In the month of November, some time before the expiration of the eighty days within which he was cited to appear in Rome, he contrived to fashion secretly a weapon, which he may have deemed of temper to achieve both his purposes, by the aid of an unknown lawyer resident in Oxford, to whom he conveyed a message by stealth. "I am kept here fast in prison," he said, "and yet am cited to go to Rome: I am denied the help of proctors and advocates. I have never submitted myself to judgment. I refused to answer Brooks whom the pope appointed for my judge and if I answered Martin and Story, my answers were extrajudicial, though I hear that they are registered as acts formally done in place of judgment. The quarrel is between the pope and me. If I should admit him to judge me, I should allow him to be judge in his own cause. I am resolved to appeal to a general council. So Luther appealed in his day from the pope

the Parker Soc. Remains, 534. The date is November 6, from St. James. There are several gaps or lacunæ in it: one of which may perhaps be supplied, in Latin, from "Bishop Cranmer's Recantacyons," in which there is an account of this letter: as follows. "Quid enim? utrum ignorare illum tam frequenti consessu totius Parliamenti suffragiis potestatem Pape receptam esse, an credere quod a Parliamento nuper sit constitutum eadem auctoritate pie non posse abrogari. At vero, inquiebas, non fuisse opus ut Pontificis Romani fides contra te imploraretur: si unquam ullus in hoc regno episcopus absque illius sedis decreto de gradu sacerdotali dejectus est, tamen item in regni primatem valere non debuisse. Nunc vero pontificem nullum exauctoratum unquam esse Romani antistitis injussu, quominus in Archiepiscopum aliquid novi constituendum videri, præsertim cum veteris memoriæ exempla Eborocensem archiepiscopum, Edouardo ejus nominis quarto regnante, et læsæ majestatis reum fuisse, et nonnisi Papa consulto ex sacra militia missum etiam factum," p. 44. The Latin is imperfect here.

open

to a general council. Now the form and order of an appellation belongs to men learned in the law, whereof I am ignorant. I am therefore resolved to open this design to some trusty and learned friend: and thou only hast occurred to me as a man meet in this university for my purpose. It requires great secrecy that none know of the thing till it be done. It may chance, perhaps, that you may need to ask the advice of others herein : if so, I beseech you by Christian faith and charity to to no man whose the cause is. Time presses : pray lay aside all other business and apply yourself to this only till you shall have performed it. I ought to seek to defend my life: but, to tell you the truth, my greatest desire in making this appellation is to gain time, if God please, to live long enough to finish my Answer against Marcus Antonius Constantius."* The unknown friend and scholar was, touched: he fashioned for Cranmer a skilful and weighty appellation: which Cranmer kept and used (as it will be seen) at last too late. But if he had been able to attempt to employ it to arrest the proceedings that were taken against him at Rome, rather than (as he did) to avert the consequences of them, it would have been of no avail.

Certainly not in her proudest day had the Apostolic See exercised her dominion more memorably than now, when an Archbishop of Canterbury, though dead on account of treason in the eye of English law, was called before her Tribunal as a heretic; and the Pope of the further empire, albeit at the instance of his natural prince, was judged by the Pope of Rome. A few days after the eighty days a consistory was held, November 29,† when Cardinal de Puteo the delegate reported the

* Letter to a lawyer, Remains, 455. As to the controversy with M. Ant. Constantius, i. e. Gardiner, see Vol. III. 272 huj. op.

+ Soames says that the Pope proceeded against Cranmer "long before

contents of the Process received from the subdelegate Brooks; the charges were deemed wicked and execrable; they were held to be proved, but the final determination of the matter was deferred.* The aged hierarch was now exhibiting vagaries of behaviour which raised the question whether he were crafty or crazy. Preparing for his war with Philip, he imprecated that, if he entertained any suspicion of so good and virtuous a prince, the earth might open and swallow him up. When he spoke to the French ambassador it was so tenderly that tears seemed to come into his eyes: but tears seemed to come into his eyes so tenderly it was that he spoke to the Imperial ambassador also. He professed to create cardinals by the inspiration of the Holy Ghost. Of the cardinals, whom he had, he imprisoned some in St. Angelo, and banished others. He would enter the consistory in a rage, abuse them, strike or push some, and

the eighty days had elapsed," and sent letters executory into England condemning him (ii. 506). But the citation was served (as we have seen) on Cranmer on September 7 more than eighty days had elapsed by November 29, on which day the examination was begun (see next note). It may be added that, in his letter to a lawyer, Cranmer mentions that he had been ordered to be in Rome on November 16: so that a particular day within the eighty seems to have been assigned and yet the Pope waited till the eighty were all expired. His letters executory were not issued till some weeks later still.

"Yesterday when the second consistory was held, the right reverend Cardinal Puteo, who was charged to inspect the process sent by the Queen of England against the Archbishop of Canterbury, reported its contents, and although the charges are all deemed wicked and execrable, and that they are proved, yet they did not proceed to deprive him, nor to inflict any other penalty, it having seemed fit to delay the votes until another consistory." Navagero to the Doge. Rome, 30 Nov. Ven. Cal. 257. "XXIX Mens. Nov. fuit consistorium in quo Reverendissimus Puteo multa proposuit contra Archiep. Cant. in materia fidei sed fuerunt delata ad aliud consistorium voto Reverendissimorum cum ageretur de privatione ipsius Archiepiscopi." Acta Consist. Poli Epist. v. 139: or Raynaldus, p. 525. Cranmer is decorated with some choice epithets by Raynaldus hereabouts: "schismatis signifer," "pseudoarchiepiscopus Cantuariensis."