1558.

AN. REG.5, number of horse, arms, and weapons every man should be charged withal in his several station, cap. 2; an Act for the due taking and observing of musters, cap. 3; that accessaries in murder, and such as were found guilty of divers felonies, should not have their Clergy, cap. 4; for the quiet behaviour of such Frenchmen as had purchased the privilege of being denizens, cap. 6; and finally, for granting a subsidy and fifteen1 by the temporality towards the defence of the realm, and carrying on the war against those of France. Nothing else memorable in this session, but that Fecknam, the new Abbot of Westminster, and Tresham, the new Prior of St John's of Jerusalem, took place amongst the lords in the House of Peers2.

Proceedings in Convoca

tion.

7. At the Convocation then holden for the province of
Canterbury, Harpsfield, Archdeacon of London, is chosen and
admitted Prolocutor for the House of the Clergy. Which
done, the Cardinal Archbishop offers it to the consideration of
the Bishops and Clergy, that some course might be thought
upon for the recovery of Calais, then lately taken by the French.
Which whether it were done to spur on the Parliament, or to
shew their good affections to the public service, is not much
material, considering that I find nothing acted in pursuance of it.
As little was there done in order to another of his propositions,
touching the reviewing and accommodating of the Statutes
of the new foundations, though a reference thereof was made to 78
the Bishops of Lincoln, Chester, and Peterborough, together 248
with the Deans of Canterbury, Worcester, and Winchester.
Some desires also were agreed on to be presented to the Pre-
late Cardinal in the name of the Clergy, as namely, "1. That
request may be made to the Queen's Majesty, that no Parson,
Vicar or Curate, be pressed by any captain to go to the wars.
2. That where two benefices, being contiguous, are so small
that they are not able to find a Priest, the Bishop of the
Diocese may give them in commendam to some one man, to
serve them alternis vicibus. 3. That the parishioners which
have chapels of ease, and yet want priests to serve the cure,
may be compelled to come to the parish Churches, until some
curate may be gotten to serve the same.
And 4. That every

Bishop may be authorized by the Pope to give orders extra
tempora prascripta, that is to say, as well at any other times as

1558.

on the Sundays after the four Ember weeks1." And finally, AN. Reg. 5, taking into consideration the great necessities of the State, and preparation of the enemies, they granted first unto the Queen a subsidy of eight shillings in the pound, to be paid in four years, beginning after the last payment of the former grant; and because the laity at that time had charged themselves with horse and armour for defence of the realm, the clergy also did the like, according to their several orders and abilities. For the imposing whereof upon the rest of the clergy they had no recourse at all unto the midwifery of an Act of Parliament, but acted the whole business in their own synodical way2, without contradiction.

transfers the

power from

Pole.

8. But the main business of this year in reference to the The Pope concernments of holy Church related to the Cardinal Legate; against whom the Pope had borne an inveterate grudge, sharpened by the suggestions of Bishop Gardiner, as before was signified3. Being of himself a rigorous man, and one that was extremely wedded to his own opinion, he had so passionately espoused the quarrel of the French against the Spaniards, that he intended to divest Philip of the realm of Naples, and to confer it on the French1. For this cause Francis Duke of Guise with a puissant army is drawn into Italy for the subduing of that kingdom, but suddenly recalled again, upon the routing of the French before St Quintin, wherein the English forces had appeared so serviceable. Which gave the Pope so much displeasure, that he resolved to let his greatest enemies feel the dint of his spirit. But not daring, upon second thoughts, to fall foul with the Queen, he turned his fury against Pole, by whose persuasion it was thought that the Queen had broke her league with France, to take part with her husband. In which humour he deprives him of the legantine power, confers the same on Friar Peitow5, an Englishman by birth, but of good descent, whom he designs also to the See of Salisbury, then

1 Wilkins, iv. 156.

3 Sup. p. 172.

2

Comp. i. CXVII.

4 Godw. Ann. 193. Sarpi, 403-6.

5 Peto was at this time eighty years of age (Lingard, vii. 134). He had made himself conspicuous by his violence in that opposition to Henry VIII.'s divorce which provoked the dissolution of the order of Observants, to which he belonged (sup. p. 190), going so far as to tell the king, in a sermon preached before him, that dogs should lick his blood like that of Ahab (Collier, iv. 243). The Pope created him a cardinal June 13, 1557. Godw. de Præsul. 797.

1558.

AN. REG. 5, vacant by the death of Capon. Karn, the Queen's agent with the Pope, advertiseth her Majesty of these secret practices, which the Queen concealing from the Cardinal endeavoureth by all fair and gentle means to mitigate the Pope's displeasure, and confirm the Cardinal in the place and power which he then enjoyed. But the Pope not a man to be easily altered. Pole in the mean time, understanding how things went at Rome, laid by the cross of his legation1, and prudently abstaineth from the exercise of his Bulls and Faculties. Peitow, the new Cardinal Legate, puts himself on the way to England; when the Queen, taking to herself some part of her father's spirit, commands him at his utmost peril not to adventure to set foot upon English ground'; to which he readily inclined, as being more affected unto Cardinal Pole3 than desirous to show himself the servant of another man's passion. In the end, partly by the Queen's mediation, the intercession of Ormanete, the good successes of the French in the taking of Calais, but principally by the death of Peitow, in the April following, the Pole reinsta- rupture was made up again, and Pole confirmed in the possession of his former powers1.

ted.

Orders and proceedings against the Reformed.

9. The fear of running the like hazard for the time to come made him appear more willing to connive at his under

1

Sarpi, 405. Soon afterwards, though he no longer styled himself Legatus à latere, Pole assumed the title of legatus natus, and kept it till his death." Lingard, vii. 234. Strype and Burnet wrongly complain that he was stripped of the latter title, which for centuries had been annexed to the see of Canterbury. Ibid.

2 Strype shews (in Burnet, m. ii. 537) that Peto was in England at the time; but "orders were issued, that every messenger from foreign parts should be arrested and searched. The bearer of the papal letters was arrested at Calais; his despatches were clandestinely forwarded to the Queen; and the letters of revocation were either secreted or destroyed. Thus it happened that Peto never received any official notice of his preferment, nor Pole of his recall." Lingard, vii. 234

3 He had formerly lived in his family. Lingard, ibid.

4

Sarpi, 405; Godwin, Annals, 193-4; De Præsul. 150, 354. The account of Peto's appointment given by Philips is, that the Pope declared an intention of recalling his legates from all the dominions of Philip,from England among the rest; that the Queen represented the alarm which would thus be caused among her people, and the danger of injury to the Church; and thereupon the Pope declared that he would continue the legatine power in England, but, for the sake of his own dignity, would nominate a new person to hold it. Life of Pole, ii. 244.

79

249

1558.

officers, in shedding the blood of many godly and religious AN. Reg. 5, persons, than otherwise he would have been. Whereupon followed the burning of ten men in the Diocese of Canterbury, on the 15th of January, whereof two suffered at Ashford, two at Rie, and the other six in his own metropolitan city1; and possibly the better to prepare the Pope towards the atonement, the Queen was moved to issue her commission of the month of February, directed to the Bishop of Ely, the Lords Windsor, North, and seventeen others, by which the said commissioners, or any three or more of them, were empowered "to inquire of all and singular heretical opinions, lollardies, heretical and seditious books, concealments, contempts, conspiracies, and all false tales, rumours, seditious or slanderous? words, &c.: as also seize into their hands all manner of heretical and seditious books, letters, and writings, wheresoever they or any of them should be found, as well in printers' houses and shops as elsewhere; willing them and every of them to search for the same in all places according to their discretion: and finally, to inquire after all such persons as obstinately do refuse to receive the blessed sacrament of the altar, to hear mass, or come to their parish-churches, and all such as refuse to go on procession, to take holy bread or holy water, or otherwise misuse themselves in any Church or hallowed place, &c." The party so offending to be proceeded against according to the ecclesiastical laws, or otherwise by fine or imprisonment, as to them seemed best 3.

10. But the commissioners being many in number, persons of honour and employment for the most part of them, there was little or nothing done in pursuance of it, especially as to the searching after prohibited books; the number whereof increasing every day more and more, a proclamation was set forth on the 6th of June, to hinder the continual spreading of so great a mischief. Which proclamation was as followeth, viz. "Whereas divers books filled with heresy, sedition, and treason, have of late been daily brought into this realm out of foreign countries and places beyond the seas, and some covertly printed within this realm, and cast abroad in sundry

1 Fox, viii. 300.

So in Fox. "Seditious and clamorous words." Burnet. 3 Fox, viii. 301.

1558.

AN. REG. 5, parts thereof; whereby not only God is dishonoured, but also encouragement given to disobey lawful princes and governors: the King and Queen's Majesties, for redress hereof, do by their present proclamation declare and publish to all their subjects, that whosoever shall after the proclamation hereof be found to have any of the said wicked and seditious books, or finding them do not forthwith burn the same, without shewing or reading the same to any other persons, shall in that case be reputed and taken for a rebel, and shall without further delay be executed for that offence, according to the order of martial law1." Which proclamation though it were very smart and quick, yet there was somewhat of more mercy in it than in another which came out in the very same month, at the burning of seven persons in Smithfield,-published both at Newgate, where they were imprisoned, and at the stake where they were to suffer; whereby it was straitly charged and commanded, "That no man should either pray for or speak to them, or once say, God help them." A cruelty more odious than that of Domitian or any of the greatest tyrants of the elder time, in hindering all intercourse of speech upon some jealousy and distrusts of State between man and man.

11. Which proclamation notwithstanding, Bentham, the Minister of one of the London congregations, seeing the fire set to them, turning his eyes unto the people, cried and said, "We know they are the people of God, and therefore we cannot choose but wish well to them, and say, God strengthen them;" and so boldly he said, "Almighty God, for Christ's sake strengthen them." With that all the people with one consent cried "Amen, Amen;" the noise whereof was so great, and the criers so many, that the officers knew not whom to seize on, or with whom they were to begin their accusation3. And though peradventure it may seem to have somewhat of a miracle 80 A Protestant in it, that the Protestants should have a congregation under Bonner's nose; yet so it was, that the godly people of that time were so little terrified with the continual thoughts of that bloody butcher, that they maintained their constant meetings for religious offices, even in London itself; in one of which

Congregation kept up in

London.

1 Strype, Eccl. Mem. iii. 459 (with very slight differences).
2 Fox, viii. 479-559.
Fox, viii. 559.

See Strype, Eccl. Mem. iii 471; Haweis, Sketches of the Reforma

tion, 187.

250