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the chapel, and sang the Mass.* On St. Giles's day, September 7, there was a procession round the parish of St. Giles, with the Sacrament and the canopy and the lights, and as goodly a Mass sung as ever was heard. On the eve of St. Katherine's day, lights perambulated the battlements of St. Paul's, with singing and the saint carried in procession. On St. Nicolas's day, in December, a boy bishop was elected and dressed, after the old fashion: who was taken with singing all over London, received into their houses by many, and treated with good cheer for luck. All burials, obsequies, and anniversaries were the occasion of gorgeous and significant ceremonies. Profane interludes, in which in several parts of the country ridicule was cast upon these observances, were sternly repressed.§ Paul's Cross, once the throne of Latimer and Hooper, now echoed to the voices of Peryn the eloquent Dominican of Smithfield, of Sydenham the Franciscan preacher of Greenwich, of Bishop White: and witnessed the curious penances which at times illustrated their exhortations. ||

The abdication of Charles the Fifth, which took place about the beginning of the year, made the crownless King of England master of the most extensive dominion that had arisen in Europe from the fall of Rome. In the letters which he wrote, all of one form, to the various kingdoms, states and cities he resigned to his son, the Emperor affirmed that the ruling motive of his policy had been to reduce Germany to the unity of the Church, so to procure quietness to assemble and assist at a general Council for reformation, and to draw home those who had separated themselves, and were swerved from

* Machyn, 106, 107.

+ Machyn, 115, 119, 121: Strype, v. 507.

Machyn passim: Strype, v. 471, 2.

§ Burnet, iii. 441 (Pocock): Strype, v. 448, and Originals, No. 52. || Machyn, 100, 108.

the Catholic faith: that, after bringing this design to good point, he had been frustrated by France.* The false conception of unity, which was the calamity of the age, may be seen here: the desire of peace and the thought of a council may be traced among the concerns of the year. A Bull came forth from the Pope in March, on the eve of the infamous war which with the aid of France and of the Grand Turk he was about to wage on the new King of Spain, commanding prayers for peace among Christian princes, granting a plenary indulgence to all who should confess and receive the Sacrament at the ensuing Easter. This came into England, and was sent by Pole to Bonner to be published throughout the province.+ To Carne, the English ambassador at Rome, the Pope avowed himself resolved to hold a general Council. He told him that the King of the Romans called on him daily for amendment, which could not be without a general Council: and that the King of Poland was in the like case, beset with powerful sects, and had made petition for license for priests to marry and the laity to communicate under both kinds: such matters as should be referred to a general Council. He said further that the general Council should be held in Rome the common country of the world, in St. John's Lateran, the head church of Christendom, where many holy Councils had been held before: and that he himself would preside at it, for that it was thought that more good was done in Councils at which Popes were present. In like manner the papal Legate

* Burnet, Pt. III. Bk. v. and Records, No. xxxix. (Pocock, iii. 435: vi. 381). + Wilkins, iv. 143: Strype, v. 487.

Carne to Queen Mary, June, Calend. of State Papers, Foreign, 227. Burnet, Part II. Bk. ii. Coll. No. 31. (Pocock, v. 464.) The letters in the Calendars, Foreign and Venetian, of State Papers, confirm the account given by Sarpi of transactions of this time and the strange temper of the Pope. He spoke against reassembling Trent: "that it was

and nephew Cardinal Caraffa in Paris advanced to the English resident Wotton the same delusive scheme. "He made long discourse that his mission was to treat of a peace, and also of a general œcumenic council to be kept at Rome, because the Holy Father, being aged and unable to travel, would yet be present thereat himself, not only intending to do what may be done for the extirpation of schisms and heresies, but also for reformation of abuses in men's living, and specially of the spirituality."* His Holiness was also particular in regard to provision for any vacant English diocese, and money to be paid in that behalf. He promised all expedition in the cases of Winchester and Chester: he desired a process, which Pole had made to find the yearly value of the former, to be committed to certain cardinals, who were to report it to the Consistory before the new tax should be made: † and Cardinal Morone, the viceprotector of England, received money for the despatch of Winchester and the other bishoprics that suffered change at this time.‡

The furious and crafty temper of the strange old man to whom the modern papacy owes its bent continued to alarm the world. "From the beginning of his pontificate," wrote Vannes, "he has shown his mind by words, deeds, and tokens: he takes the time of year and the weariness of princes as it may be propitious for his long imagined devices: he has brought the French King and other potentates to his practice: and though no

great vanity to send into the mountains threescore bishops of the least able, and fourscore doctors of the most insufficient, as was twice done already; and to believe that by those the world could be better regulated than by the Vicar of Christ with the College of all the Cardinals," &c. Council of Trent, Lib. v. (p. 374).

* Wotton to Petre, July, Cal. of State Papers, Foreign, 236.

+ Carne to Queen Mary, June. Ib. 227.

Cal. of State Papers: Venetian, pp. 448, 477.

doubt each minds his own advancement, in the meantime they serve the Pope's turn under an honourable pretext called the protection of Christ's Vicar and the conservation of the Catholic Church." Against the imperial adversaries of this combination his rage knew no bounds. The Emperor he called a schismatic and a heretic, threatening to deprive him "of the empire, of his realms, and of his existence as a human being and as a Christian." Philip was to him a nobody, untried, of no account. These and such expressions he repeated continually to Navagero the Venetian ambassador at Rome. "The least abusive and defamatory word that he applied to Charles was heretic, and simpleton to Philip." He repeated them in all companies, holding long monologues, saying the same things again and again: sometimes firing at a word, sometimes kindling spontaneously, springing up, pacing about, baring his arm to the elbow and fiercely shaking it. He interspersed his menaces with remarks on his desire for peace and the benignity of his disposition. It was vain for Navagero to urge him to consider his dignity, to regard decency, to reflect that, after all, the potentates whom he so abused had never withdrawn their obedience to the Holy See, which the French King, whom he praised, had done. In truth the words heretic and schismatic were now come to bear frankly the only meaning toward which they had been tending long enough. They now denoted merely a man who happened not to wish something that the Pope wished. They were applied indiscriminately the one or the other, as it might chance. A man might be called a heretic without being called a schismatic, or a schismatic without being called a heretic, or both a heretic and a schismatic: it made no matter, it marked no distinction. of conduct or position. As ecclesiastical terms the words had ceased to be significant. This Pope called

the whole Spanish nation schismatic and heretic: and on one occasion when a cardinal had the boldness to utter a caution, hoping that by want of some slight concession there might not be a worse schism under an exemplary pontiff than ever had happened under popes who led foul and evil lives, he replied, "You also are a schismatic." As for the cardinals, he told them that they were not to advise him, but only corroborate what he said, and that it was not their business to speak when he spoke: that he would degrade them from the cardinalate, and cut off their heads. He spent much time in the Inquisition. To political prisoners he hesitated not to apply the rack or the strappado, or the torture of a diet of salted meat without any water to drink. "They have confessed everything," he said on one occasion, "but we choose to know more: leave these rogues with their arms on the cord until we know their accomplices." And yet he was able to regulate his ebullitions at will. When with outward humility the hostile Alva sought his presence, and all expected a terrible scene, he was as gentle as a lamb. Not that he was afraid of Alva.*

Pole exhorted Philip to revere this Pope. When the clouds began to thicken he wrote to the King a long letter, imploring him to attempt nothing by force of arms that would not be in accordance with obedience to the Church, lest there should ensue a greater rupture than ever yet had been witnessed in that age. To Morone he wrote lamenting the trouble and confusion in which he found himself placed between the contending parties, although convinced of the good and holy disposition of the one and of the other. When the war

*The Venetian Calendar is the storehouse of these anecdotes: see pp. 449, 467, 489, 503, 514, 527, 528, 542, 546, 551, 556, 560, 566, 573, 585, 590, 592, 608, 627, 630, 631, 638, 645, 653, 654, 659, 677, 702.

+ Venetian Cal. p. 497.

Ib. p. 618.)

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