maintain, and defend all the king's majesty's styles, titles, and rights, with the whole effects and contents of the acts provided for the same, and all other acts and statutes made and to be made within the realm, in and for that purpose, and the derogation, extirpation, and extinguishment of the usurped and pretended authority, power, and 132 jurisdiction of the see, and bishop of Rome, and all other foreign potestates as afore; and also as well his statute made in the said 28th year, as his statutek made in the [said session of the] parliament holden in the 35th year of the king's majesty's reign, for establishment and declaration of his highness' succession, and all acts and statutes made and to be made in confirmation and corroboration of the king's majesty's power and supremacy in earth, of his Church of England and of Ireland, and all other his grace's dominions; I shall also defend and maintain with my body and goods, with all my wit and power. And thus I shall do against all manner of persons, of what estate, dignity, degree, or condition soever they bem; and in no wise do nor attempt, nor to my power suffer or know to be done or attempted, directly or indirectly, any thing or things, privily or apertly, to the let, hinderance, damage, or derogation of any of the said statutes, or any part thereof, by any manner of means, or for or by any manner of pretence. And in case any oath hath been made by me to any person or persons in maintenance, defence, or favour of the bishop of Rome, or his authority, jurisdiction, or power, or against any the statutes aforesaid, I repute the same as vain and annihilate. g ["With these effects.” Wilkins.] h ["Or to be made within this realm." Id.] i ["As well the said statute." Id.] k["As the statute." Id.] 1 ["And other his grace's." Id.] m ["Or condition they be." Id.] I shall wholly observe and keep this oath. So help me God, and all saints, and the holy evangeles"." And then, after this oath, followed the prayers before the benediction of the pall, and the ceremonies of delivering it. n["God, all saints, and the holy evangelists." Id.] Ann.1545. upon re canon law. CHAPTER XXX. THE ARCHBISHOP REFORMETH THE CANON LAW. OUR archbishop, seeing the great evil and inconvenience The arch- of canons and papal laws, which were still in force, and bishop sets studied much in the kingdom, had in his mind now a good forming the while to get them suppressed, or to reduce them into a narrower compass, and to cull out of them a set of just and wholesome laws, that should serve for the government of the ecclesiastical state. And indeed there was great need of some reformation of these laws: for most of them extolled the pope unmeasurably, and made his power to be above that of emperors and kings. Some of them were, "That he that acknowledged not himself to be under the bishop of Rome, and that the pope is ordained of God to have the primacy over the world, is an heretic. That princes' laws if they be against the canons and decrees of the bishop of Rome, be of no force. That all the de. crees of the bishop of Rome ought to be kept perpetually, as God's word spoken by the mouth of Peter. That all kings, bishops, and noblemen, that believe or suffer the bishop of Rome's decrees in any thing to be violated, are accursed. That the see of Rome hath neither spot nor Among the wrinkle :" and abundance of the like which the archbishop Collections, himself drew out of the canon laws, and are set down by the bishop of Sarum in his history". Part i. P. 257. 133 Therefore, by the archbishop's motion and advice, the o [Burnet's Hist. of Reformat. vol. i. part ii. b. 3. No. 27. pp. 391398. ed. Oxon. 1829. The archbi shop's collection of tenets from the canon law will be found in the Appendix.] king had an act passed the last year, viz. 1544P, "That his An act concerning it. majesty should have authority, during his life, to name thirty-two persons, that is to say, sixteen spiritual and sixteen temporal, to examine all canons, constitutions, and ordinances, provincial and synodal, and to draw up such laws ecclesiastical as should be thought by the king and them convenient to be used in all spiritual courts." According to this act, though it seems this nomination happened some time before the making of the same, the king nominated several persons to study and prepare a scheme of good laws for the church; who brought their business to a conclusion, and so it rested for a time. The archbishop being now to go down into Kent, to meet some commissioners at Sittingbourn, went to Hampton Court to take his leave of the king: there he put him in mind of these ecclesiastical laws, and urged him to ratify them. So the king bad him dispatch to him the names of the persons, (which had been chiefly left to Cranmer's election), and the book they had made. This care he, going out of town, left with Heath, bishop of Rochester. gress made by the archbishop in this So that these laws, by the great pains of the archbishop The proand some learned men about him, were brought to that good perfection, that they wanted nothing but the confirmation of the king. And there was a letter drawn up work. ready for that purpose for the king to sign. It was directed to all archbishops, bishops, abbots, clerks, dukes, marquises, earls, barons, knights, and gentlemen, and all others, of whatsoever degree, his subjects and liegemen: giving them to understand, "That in the room of the corrupt laws, decrees, and statutes, that proceeded from P [i. e. "A Bill for the examination of Canon Laws by thirtytwo persons to be named by the king's majesty." 35° Hen. VIII. Num. The MSS. of these laws. Inter Foxii MSS. q the bishops of Rome, which were all abolished, he had put forth by his authority another set of ecclesiastical laws, which he required to be observed, under pain of his indignation." The copy of this letter may be read in the Appendix. But whatsoever the matter was, whether it were the king's other business, or the secret oppositions of bishop Gardiner and the papists, this letter was not signed by the king. I have seen the digest of these ecclesiastical laws in a manuscript in folio, fairly written out by the archbishop's secretary, with the title to each chapter prefixed, and the index of the chapters at the beginning, both of the archbishop's own hand. In many places there be his own corrections and additions, and sometimes a cross by him struck through divers lines. And so he proceeded a good way in the book. And where the archbishop left off, Peter Martyr went on, by his order, to revise the rest in the method he had begun. And in the title, "De Præscriptionibus," the greatest part of the seventh chapter is Martyr's own writing', viz. beginning at this word "RumReformatio pitur," which is in page 248, of the printed book, line 23s, Legum Ecclesiast. and so to the end of the chapter. So that this manuLond. 1640. script, I conjecture, was the first draught of these laws, prepared in the reign of king Henry, and revised in the reign of king Edward his successor, when Peter Martyr was appointed by that king's letters to be one of those that were to be employed in this work; who was much at this time with the archbishop. In this draught were several chapters afterwards added, partly by Cran134 mer and partly by Martyr. There was yet a latter and more perfect draught of these laws, as they were com a [Harl. MSS. 426. Plut. lxvi. $ [P. 124. b. lin. 22. ed. Lond. 1571.] |