ecclesiasticum, sicut in causis spiritualibus et spiritualitate annexis. Est etiam alia jurisdictio ordinaria vel delegata quæ pertinet ad Coronam, et dignitatem Regis, et ad Regnum in causis et placitis rerum temporalium in foro seculari.

“Cum diversæ sint hinc inde jurisdictiones, et diversi judices, et diversæ causæ, debet quilibet ipsorum imprimis æstimare, an sua sit jurisdictio, ne falcem ridenter ponere in messam alienam.

“Non pertinet ad regem injungere pœnitentias, nec ad judicem secularem; nec etiam ad eos pertinet cognoscere de iis, quæ sunt spiritualibus annexa, sicut de decimis et aliis Ecclesiæ proventionibus.

“Non est laicus conveniendus coram judici ecclesiastico de aliquo, quod in foro seculari terminari posset et debeat.”—Tegg's Edit., 447.

To these add the testimony of Coke, which shows that this principle obtained during the mediæval period, and was also fully recognised in the reign of Elizabeth :—

“The ecclesiastical law and the temporal law have several proceedings, and to several ends; the one being temporal to inflict punishment upon the body, lands, or goods; the other being spiritual, pro salute anima: the one to punish the outward man, the other to reform the inward: and this appeareth in 12 Hen. VII., 22, and 10 Ed. IV., 10, &c. Then both these distinct and several jurisdictions consist and stand well together, and do join in this, to have the old man inwardly and outwardly reformed".

But, Sir R. Bethell in his explanation of our oath limited its scope and intent to the mere denial of the power of the spiritual courts: his words were :— "The word 'spiritual' referred entirely to jurisdiction—to the authority exercised in courts of justice" "the word 'spiritual'

The

Spiritual

Courts were not
Courts of the
King.

cr

.

was not to be construed with reference to any power over men's consciences, but merely with reference to the jurisdiction of courts ecclesiastical and spiritual ".

Now, were not these Courts the "King's ecclesiastical jurisdiction"; so that the power of the Crown thus became an element of their spiritual power ? Sir R. Bethell decidedly affirms that they were not: we quote from his speech reported in The Times, July 31, 1857 :

"The whole subject of marriage and divorce was delegated to spiritual tribunals. Those tribunals proceeded upon their own principles; they were not subject to the law of the state, and undoubtedly the doctrines of the Roman Catholic Church prevailed in them." "Those tribunals, instead of being subjected to ordinary rules of law, and regarded as Royal Courts, receiving their authority from the Crown, and administering the common law of the land, were permitted to retain their ecclesiastical character, to exercise their own peculiar functions, and to administer their own peculiar principles ". Thus it is evident, that, whether we regard the view of Mr. Napier or that of Sir R. Bethell, neither in the spiritual consistorial courts, nor through the antagonism of Westminster Hall, did the power of the Crown enter into medieval ecclesiastical and spiritual jurisdiction.

But yet another point must be canvassed, in order to sift this part of our subject. Some are so ingenious as to extract an ideal supre

The subjection of

the Crown to the

Pope in spirituals.

macy, where less acute minds are apt to imagine subserviency. "The Bequests' Act is, in the opinion of some, evidence of the supremacy of the Crown, rather than in any degree in contravention of it, because whatever protection and favour is therein shown to the Church of Rome is by the act of the Queen, by and with the consent of her Parliament ". The medieval municipal lawyer probably put a like interpretation upon the Charter granted to the same Church by William the 1st. The advocate in the King's Courts might say, Clearly the spiritual jurisdiction is subject to the King, because it is exercised under Royal Charter: the Church would reply, Clearly it is not, because that deed was an act of submission to our spiritual Father: how shall we decide the dilemma ?

The exact relation of the two estates-the Crown and the Church-cannot be illustrated with more truth, or better effect, than by their co-operation in the punishment of the heretic: in this co-operation, they were agreed on the question of limits; and with their respective spheres thus unanimously defined, the temporal estate-the Crown and the Common Law Courts, with their subordinates-appeared as the obedient servant.

It is an inherent principle of the Christian religion, that the Church's jurisdiction shall terminate with the sentence of excommunication. The apostate Church of Rome dared not trample this Divine principle under foot; but she effectually evaded it by device: Fulke, "Answer", page 270, thus exposes her wile :—

"But Master Sander, returning to his last and least difference, affirmeth that the Bishop of Rome never condemneth any man for heresy or schism to corporal death in his own person, nor teacheth that they may be condemned of other ecclesiastical persons. But who understandeth not this mockery? For as well it may be said, The King never hangeth any man in his own person; therefore none are executed by his authority; as, the Pope never condemneth any to death in his own person; therefore he persuadeth not his religion with fire and sword. But will the Pope and the Bishop, that are so mild and gentle, suffer them whom they condemn for heresy to escape their hands before they have delivered them to death?"

Rome accepted the temporal lawyer on his own terms: he claimed sole power over “bodies, lands, and goods": she "shifted to the secular arm the odium and drudgery of executions".

Our modern law regards the common-law enforcement of the temporal pains of excommunication as parental assistance, compassionately rendered to a "tottering authority" but the medieval temporal power inflicted death on the heretic, as an act of bounden obedience to the Church. The punctilious precision of the temporal courts, as to the temporal rights of the victim, must not be distorted into legal permission; nor the writ de hæretico comburendo be esteemed royal spiritual authorization. The

temporal power acted under spiritual compulsion; as a slave it obeyed the liege lord of the conscience and obeyed, too, under dread of eternal damnation. Tyndale, than whom none had a better acquaintance with the mediaval ecclesiastical constitution, again and again deplores the subjection of the Crown :—

"The emperors and kings are nothing now-a-days, but even hangmen unto the Pope and bishops, to kill whomsoever they condemn without any more ado ".

This was not figure, but fact. It was in the shedding of blood that the mediæval temporal power appeared in the truth and reality of her relation to the Church-in the most abject subjection. This is fully exemplified in the subjoined authentic illustration :

:

"HENRY IV.'s DECREE FOR BURNING WM. SAUTRE. A.D. 1400.

"The decree of our sovereign lord the King and his council in parliament, against a certain newly sprung up heretic, to the Mayor and Sheriffs of London, &c. Whereas the reverend father, Thomas, Archbishop of Canterbury, Primate of all England, and Legate of the Apostolic See, by the assent, consent, and council of other bishops, and his brethren suffragans, and also of all the whole clergy within his province or diocese, gathered together in his provincial council, the due order of the law being observed in all points in this behalf, hath pronounced and declared, by his definitive sentence, William Sautre, sometime chaplain, fallen again into his most damnable heresy, the which before time the said William had abjured, thereupon to be a most manifest heretic, and therefore hath decreed that he should be degraded, and hath for the same cause really degraded him from all prerogative and privilege of the clergy, decreeing to leave him unto the secular power; and hath really so left him, according to the laws and canonical sanctions set forth in this behalf, and also that our holy mother the Church hath no further to do in the premises; we, therefore, being zealous in religion, and reverent lovers of the Catholic faith, willing and minding to maintain and defend the holy Church, and the laws and liberties of the same, to root all such errors and heresies out of our kingdom of England, and with condign punishment to correct and punish all heretics or such as be convict; provided always that both according to the law of God and man, and the canonical institutions in this behalf accustomed, such heretics convict and condemned in form aforesaid, ought to be burned with fire: we command you, as straitly as we may, or can, firmly enjoining you that you do cause the said William, being in your custody, in some public or open place within the liberties of your city aforesaid, the cause aforesaid being published unto the people, to be put into the fire, and there in the same fire really to be burned, to the great horror of his offence, and the manifest example of other Christians. Fail not in the execution hereof, upon the peril that will fall thereupon". Fox, Eng. Eccl. Hist., vol. i. p. 713.

We have now dispelled the mists which clouded this part of our subject. We think that we have clearly established, by authentic legal and historical proofs, that in no form-neither through the Courts of the King, nor by the action of episcopal consistorial Courts, nor by the authority of the Charter of William I.did the power of the Crown form an element in mediæval ecclesiastical and spiritual jurisdiction. That jurisdiction

The power of the Crown no element of mediaval ecclesiastical and spiritual jurisdiction.

was derived from and wielded solely in the name of the Pope. For five ages he was obeyed by the whole realm, as supreme lord of the conscience: thus long he held England "fast bound in misery and in iron"; and the multiplied statutes of præmunire were the most cogent proofs of his potent supremacy.

THE POPE'S KINGDOM IN ENGLAND FROM 1509 TO 1533.

Escaping from "the obscuring power of the law", we begin to see clearly. Ecclesiastical and spiritual jurisdiction, from the very nature of the case, is exercised chiefly over subjects who gladly render voluntary submission; and in the middle ages, where one disputed ten thousand implicitly submitted. A very competent writer has defined the Pope's ecclesiastical jurisdiction to be "his power of governing his clergy": his spiritual as "his power of governing the opinions of the members of his Church": with these terms we are perfectly content, and we hope to show that from 1509-33 this his dominion had attained in England its very summit.

The puissance of the depositaries and executive of his Anglican power scarcely admits of adequate description. Two archbishops

The spiritual

estate.

and their nineteen suffragans filled one-and-twenty sees, over whom as chief was Wolsey - legate a latere: the Universities were held by armies of heads, doctors, bachelors, and masters, whose only studies were the laws and dogmas of the Pope: near seven hundred conventual establishments were each a fortress in the service of Antichrist to these add ninety colleges, two thousand three hundred and seventy-four chantries and chapels: next come nine thousand parochial churches lastly, swarms of mendicant friars. The entire corporation was a vast assemblage of thousands.

Canon law their only standard of rule.

The only standard of their rule, whether for themselves or the laity, was the canon law of Rome: they were exempt from temporal jurisdiction. Convocation, or, to quote the language of Hooker, "the ecclesiastical senate, the chiefest prelate at his discretion did use to assemble": this body enacted canons without asking the consent of the Crown; these, as well as the dicta of the Pope, they vigorously enforced. It was Tyndale's complaint:-

"When we look on your deeds we see that ye are all sworn together, and have separated yourselves from the lay people, and have a several kingdom among yourselves, and several laws of your own making, wherewith ye violently bind the lay people that never consented unto the making of them ".

And in matters of heresy they exercised a larger jurisdiction than (Blackstone iii., 67) was afterwards used by the High Court of Commission.

Of this estate every prelate and every priest was sworn to render a sole

The Pope their
God.

allegiance to the Pope; and every member of the religious houses was even more devoted to the Papal supremacy. They held daily communication with the Vatican for judicial interposition; and appeals, Blackstone being authority, were "an inveterate custom". Lastly, the entire estate held and taught as the cardinal dogma of their faith-nor were they shaken in their profession of this belief until after four years' dispute-the intense blasphemy of Boniface VIII. :

"We say, define, and pronounce, that it is absolutely necessary to salvation for every human creature to be subject to the Bishop of Rome".

It is a notorious historical fact that they termed this bishop-"Our Lord GOD THE POPE".

The King the pattern of sub

jection.

Among their spiritual subjects the king shone, as the exemplar of devotion and obedience. Henry was a model of the Popish sovereign: in the case of Hunne he showed the greatest jealousy for the temporal honour of his crown; but he trembled to oppose the spiritual jurisdiction. France had resisted the temporal power of the Vatican: Henry sent commissioners to support the Pope's side in the quarrel at a Council of Lateran. He was flattered when Leo blasphemously wrote to him that he had been Divinely inspired to write against Luther: and esteemed the addition of "Fidei Defensor" to his titles as his greatest honour. He poured out the blood of his subjects in obedience to the Church. "He cherished Churchmen ", says Burnet, 66 more than any king in England had ever done; he also courted the Pope with a constant submission, and upon all occasions made the Pope's interests his own". His last letter to Antichrist began with, "Most humble commendations, and most devout kissing of your blessed feet”.

Laws of Præmunire neglected.

Henry, when he sent the Commissioners to Rome to support the Pope against France, invaded his own laws of præmunire. Wolsey overruled Warham, as being legate a latere. For many years, with the approval of the King and the acquiescence of the other Estates of the realm, he openly exercised his legatine power. In virtue of his legatine authority, he issued a commission to all the Bishops of the realm for the extirpation of Luther's works. He published bulls without consulting the Crown. He instituted to livings by virtue of Papal provisions. In virtue of a provision he accepted the see of Lincoln without the King's nomination, after a Papal reservation, and Henry was content to submit, all laws notwithstanding. All these things were done openly. After his fall he pleaded ignorance of the Statute of Provisors, as it had fallen into disuse; and he would have done all with impunity had not God broken the spell by which, from his earliest hour, Henry had been bound. There was little heed of pramunire.