1560.

AN. REG. 2, abbey1. But the abbey being dissolved in the foregoing Parliament, an offer was made to Fecknam and the rest of the convent (if Sanders2 be to be believed in this particular) for continuing in their places and possessions as before they did, clogged with no other conditions than the taking of the oath of Supremacy, and officiating all divine offices by the English Liturgy. But this offer being by them rejected, the Act of dissolution passed in both houses of Parliament; concerning which there goes a story, that the Lord Abbot being then busied in planting some young elms in the Dean's yard there, one that came by advised him to desist from his purpose, telling him, that the bill was just then passed for dissolving his monastery. To which the good old man replied, that he resolved howsoever to go on with his work, being well assured that that Church would be always kept for an encouragement and seat of learning. And so it proved in the event; for the Queen, having pleased herself in the choice of some of the best lands which remained unto it, confirmed the rest upon that Church, which she caused to be called the Collegiate Church of St Peter in Westminster, as appears by her Letters Patents bearing date in the second year of her most gracious and most prosperous reign. A foundation of a large capacity, and as amply privileged, consisting of a Dean and twelve secular Canons, two schoolmasters and forty scholars, petit Canons and others of the quire to the number of thirty, ten officers belonging to the Church, and as many servants appertaining to the College diet, and twelve alms-men, besides many officers, stewards, receivers, and collectors, for keeping courts, and bringing in of their revenue: the principal of which, called the High Steward of Westminster, hath ever since been one of the prime nobility, and in great favour at the Court. The Dean entrusted with keeping the Regalia, honoured with a place of necessary service at all coronations, and a commissioner for the peace within the City of Westminster and the liberties of it by Act of Parliament. The Dean and Chapter vested with all manner of jurisdiction both ecclesiastical and

1 Fuller, iv. 312. Camd. 61. Lat.

2 Rishton, in Sanders, 295.

3 See Fuller, v. 96; Heyl. Exam. Hist. Pt. i. 167.

Stow, Survey, 500.

1560.

civil, not only within the city and liberties of Westminster, but AN. REG. 2, within the precinct of St Martins le Grand' and some towns of Essex,-exempted in the one from the Bishop of London, and in the other from the power of the Archbishop of Canterbury. The scholars annually preferred by election, either to Christ Church in Oxon, or Trinity College in Cambridge, each College being bound by an indenture made with Queen Elizabeth to take off yearly two or three at the least (though since that number is extended to four or five), to be preferred to scholarship and fellowships in their several houses. A College founded, as it proved, in such a happy conjuncture, that since this new foundation of it, it hath given breeding and preferment to four Archbishops, two Lord Chancellors or Lord Keepers of the Great Seal of England, twenty-two Bishops, and thirteen Deans of Cathedral Churches, besides Archdeacons and Prebendaries, and other dignitaries in the Church to a proportionable number; which is more than can be said of either of the two famous Colleges of Eaton and Winchester, or of both together, though the one was founded 168, and the other 114 years before it.

1 Stow, Survey, 330, 917. Sup. i. 124.

AN. REG.3, 1560.

ANNO REG NI ELIZ. 3,

ANNO DOM. 1560, 1561.

Death of Francis II. of France.

1.

W

WE shall begin this third year of the Queen with the death of Francis the Second, King of the French, who deceased on the fifth day of December, when he had scarce lived to the end of his seventeenth year, and had reigned but one year and five months, or thereabouts1. His death much altered both the counsels and affairs of Christendom, distracting the French nation into schisms and factions, encouraging the Scots to proceed with confidence in their reformation, and promising no small security to Queen Elizabeth, in regard of the pretensions of the Queen of Scots. But so little was her condition bettered by it, that she seemed to be in more danger by the acts of her enemies after his decease than formerly in the time of his life and government. Francis of Guise, a man of great abilities for camp and council, had made himself a very strong party in the Court of France, which he intended to make use of for the Queen of Scots, whose mother, the late Queen Regent of Scotland, was his only sister. And this he might the better do by reason of a division in the Court of France about the government of the kingdom during the minority of Charles the Ninth, the second brother and next heir to the King deceased. Katherine de Medices, the relict of Henry the Second, and the mother of Charles, lays claim to the Regency; for who could have a greater care, either of the young King's person or estate, than his natural mother? But against her, as being a mere stranger to the nation and affairs of France, Anthony of Burbon, Duke of Vendosme by descent, and King of Navarr, at the least in title, in the right of Joan d'Albret his wife, the sole heir of that Crown, lays his claim unto it, as being the first Prince of the blood, and therefore fitter to be trusted with the Regency by the rules of that Government. The Guisian faction join themselves to that of the Queen, of whom they better knew

1

Speed, 861. On the religious wars of France, comp. Aër. Rediv. b. ii.

13

30

how to make advantage than they could of the other, and to AN. REG. 3, that end endeavour by all subtle artifices to invest her in it1.

1560.

the Guise

party.

2. To this end they insinuate themselves into the Duke, Intrigues of
persuade him either to relinquish his demands of the Regency,
or to associate himself with the Queen-mother in the public
government; and to join counsels with the Catholic party for
suppressing the Hugonots. Which that they might allure
him to, or at least take him off from his first pursuit, they
offered to procure a divorce from his present wife, and that,
instead of holding the kingdom of Navarr in right of his
wife, he should hold it in his own personal capacity by a grant
from the Pope, his wife being first deprived of it by his Holi-
ness, as suspected of Lutheranism; that being divorced from
his wife, he should marry Mary Queen of the Scots, with
whom he should not only have the kingdom of Scotland, but
of England also, of which Elizabeth was to be deprived on the
same account; that for the recovery of that kingdom he
should not only have the Pope's authority and the power of
France, but also the forces of the King of Spain; and finally,
that the Catholic King did so much study his contentment,
that, if he would relinquish his pretensions to the Crown of
Navarr, he should be gratified by him with the sovereignty
and actual possession of the Isle of Sardinia, of which he
should receive the Crown with all due solemnities2. By which
temptations when they had rendered him suspected to the
Protestant party, and thereby settled the Queen-mother in that
place and power which so industriously she aspired to, they
laid him by as to the title, permitting him to live by the air
of hope for the short time of his life, which ended on the 17th
of November, anno 1562. And so much of the game was
played in earnest, that the Duke of Guise did mainly labour
with the Pope to fulminate his excommunications against Eli-
zabeth, as one that had renounced his authority, apostated
from the Catholic religion, and utterly exterminated the pro-
fession of it out of her dominions 3.

138
3. But the Duke sped no better in this negotiation than
310 the Count of Feria did before. The Pope had still retained
some hope of regaining England, and meant to leave no way

1560.

AN.REG. 3, unpractised by which he might obtain the point he aimed at. When first the See was vacant by the death of Pope Paul the Fourth, the Cardinals assembled in the Conclave bound themselves by oath, that, for the better settling of the broken and distracted estate of Christendom, the Council formerly held at Trent should be resumed with all convenient speed that might be1. Which being too fresh in memory to be forgotten, and of too great importance to be laid aside, the new Pope had no sooner settled his affairs in Rome, which had been much disordered by the harshness and temerity of his predecessor, but he resolved to put the same in execution. For this cause he consults with some of the more moderate and judicious Cardinals, and by his resolution and dexterity surmounts all difficulties which shewed themselves in the design; and he resolved not only to call the Council, but that it should be held in Trent2, to which it had been formerly called by Pope Paul the Third, 1545,-that it should rather be a continuance of the former Council, which had been interrupted by the prosecution of the wars in Germany, than the beginning of a new; and that he would invite unto it all Christian Princes, his dear daughter Queen Elizabeth of England amongst the rest3. And on these terms he stood, when he was importuned by the ministers of the Duke of Guise to proceed against her to a sentence of excommunication, and thereby to expose her kingdoms to the next invader. But the Pope was constantly resolved on his first intention, of treating with her after a fair and amicable manner,-professing a readiness to comply with her in all reciprocal offices of respect and friendship, and consequently inviting her amongst other princes to the following Council; to which if she should please to send her Bishops, or be present in the same by her Embassadors, he doubted not of giving them such satisfaction as might set him in a fair way to obtain his ends.

New Bishops.

4. Leaving the Pope in this good humour, we shall go for England, where we shall find the Prelates at the same employment in which we left them the last year, that is to say, with setting forth the consecrations of such new Bishops as served to fill up all the rest of the vacant Sees. The first of 1 Sarpi, 416. 2 Ibid. 425-7.

3 Ibid. 436. Camd, 68. ed. 1615.