CHAP. II. Thimblethorp. The Bishop an enemy to Papists. This was the letter of some well-affected to religion belonging to this prison, that, as secret soever as the Papists here were, had observed these their practices. Whence we may see what reason the Bishop and the rest of the ecclesiastical Commissioners had to look about them for the preventing the mischief of these creatures of the Pope; who even in the prison made it their business to propagate the treason for which they were committed. And the work was not very hard to do towards discontented persons laid up for debt and misdemeanours, as the Thymblethorps were; who were committed to the Fleet for endeavouring to cheat the Queen of the tenths of the Clergy of Norfolk, which they were appointed by the Bishop of the diocese receivers of, and to leave the debt upon the Bishop. The Bishop of London was a real enemy to Popish error and superstition, and thought it greatly conducible to keep it out, now it was out. But he with many other good men were in continual fears of the re-entry of it, partly by the means of the neighbourhood of Scotland, where was a great faction of Papists; and partly by the Scotch Queen, prisoner in England, a pretender to the crown imperial of this realm, and a busy and zealous woman of the Guisian faction, bigoted Papists, and mortal haters of Queen Elizabeth. But it chanced about this time, that is, anno 1578, or thereabouts, the young King James of Scotland received the Protestant religion, and rejected the mass; forbidding upon certain penalties to be present at it. And together with this, news came that the said Queen of Scots was fallen very of a palsy; whose death alone in all human appearance could put an end to England's fears. And it was wished to be rather natural than violent. But still the Bishop knew that nothing could have a good issue without God; and therefore that he was at this juncto to be earnestly invoked. These things the Bishop communicated to his old fellow-exile John Fox: and especially that he might excite the devotion of that pious reverend man, who was esteemed in his time a man powerful in prayer with God; and sent for this purpose a letter to him to this tenor: ill II. John Fox. Inter Foxii Sal. in Christo. Accepimus Reginam Scotorum paralysi CHAP. graviter laborare, vel ad desperationem, et aliis nonnullis torqueri morbis. Rex ipse optima spei adolescens Parlia- Writes to menti authoritate decrevit de una religione confirmanda, et Papisticà è finibus suis exterminanda. Ita ut quisque mis- Epist. MSS. sam auditurus, primò moneatur, secundò bona ipsius fisco adjudicentur : si tertiò peccaverit, solum vertere cogatur. Hæc ad te scripsi, tum ut hujus boni participem faciam; tum ut à te preces cum lacrymis Christo nostro fundantur, et nos beare, et suum Evangelium propagure pergat. Quæ concedat optimus Jesus noster, quem non minus tibi familiarem existimo, quam est amicus quisque amico. Ora, ora, mi frater; nam plurimum apud Christum tuas valere preces non dubito. Tui amantissimus JOHANNES LOND. about the In this year 1578, the infection of the plague spreading His care in London, our thoughtful Bishop took care of two things, plague in viz. to preserve the lives of his Clergy, and yet to make London. provision that the infected might be visited, and have spirituals administered to them. Therefore he summoned the city Clergy before him, (where also were present, as assistants, Nowell, Dean of Paul's; Mullins and Walker, Archdeacons; and Stanhop, Chancellor,) to elect and appoint out of them visitors of the sick folk; and all the rest to be spared by reason of the danger of the infection. The forwardness of many Ministers to undertake this office was noted; some for covetousness, and others for vain-glory, and others to supply their wants, namely, such as were in great debt, and others without service and employment. But the Ministers generally disliked this motion; thinking it a part of their duties to suffer with their flock, and to submit to God's will in the discharge of their functions. The Bishop shewed by this, his fatherly care of the city; and also his policy for ceasing of the plague, by dispersing directions in books printed for that purpose. Several occasions fell out for Bishop Aylmer to exert his II. Popish printer. CHAP. care for religion against the dangerous Romanists and their emissaries, who were very active in these days by all ways Discovers and means to reestablish themselves, and to overthrow the Carter, a present constitution, and the Queen, who had taken upon her to be the supreme guardian of it. One Carter a printer had divers times been put in prison for printing of lewd pamphlets, Popish and others, against the government. The Bishop by his diligence had found his press in the year 1579; and some appointed by him to search his house, among other Papistical books, found one written in French, entitled, The Innocency of the Scotch Queen; who then was a prisoner for laying claim to the crown of England, and endeavouring to raise a rebellion. A very dangerous book this was: the author called her the heir apparent of this crown: inveighed against the late execution of the Duke of Norfolk, though he were executed for high treason: defended the rebellion in the north anno 1569: and made very base and false reflections upon two of the Queen's chiefest ministers of state, viz. the Lord Treasurer, and the late Lord Keeper, Bacon. The Bishop had committed this fellow to the Gate-house; but he desired the Lord Treasure at his leisure to call him before him, and examine him, having denied to answer upon oath to the Bishop: and promised that he would also send to him the Warden of the Company of Stationers, who would inform him of another book which was abroad, wherein her Majesty was touched; and of certain other new forms of letters which Carter had made, but would not confess them. Removes Another Popish gentleman there was about these times, Pond to his named Thomas Pond, sometime a courtier, that had lain in prison at Stortford. prison (that of the Marshalsea I suppose) for some years: him the Bishop thought convenient now to remove from London unto another prison more remote, namely, his castle at Bishop's Stortford, to prevent his infecting others by his talk; for some such information, and what a dangerous person he was, was brought to the Bishop by Trip and Crowley, two Ministers who went to confer with him. He talked notably with them; and observing them to insist much upon Scripture, he warily required them to lay down CHAP. some sure principle for both parties to proceed upon; and that was this, Whether the private spirit of particular men, or the public spirit of the universal Church, ought to judge of the sense of the Scriptures? For he, when he heard them frequently quoting places of Scripture, affirmed, that we must not run in these controversies to the only letter of Scripture, understood according to every private man's pleasure, but to the most certain judgment of the universal, at the least the most ancient, Church, which being governed by the Spirit of God, propounded the truth and genuine sense of Scripture. He also then proposed to them (though he were a layman, and not deeply versed in divinity) six firm reasons, as he thought, of his opinion, and required those Ministers to answer them; and that afterwards he might have liberty to confute their answers either by speech or writing. Upon this relation given of Pond by the Ministers, the Bishop thought fit to remove him to the aforesaid castle, being, as the Popish writers say, much provoked and angry. And they describe it to be an obscure and melancholy place, void of both light and converse. CHAP. III. His farther dealings with Papists. Campion's book. NOR was the Bishop's endeavour only to discover and at- Campion's tack books of this poisonous nature, but to arm people book. against the doctrines and principles contained in them, by providing substantial answers to them. One Edmund Campion, formerly a scholar of Oxford, now a revolter from religion and his country, had entered himself into the society of the Jesuits. And about the year 1581 he set forth a book consisting of ten reasons, written in a terse, elegant, Latin style, and dedicated to the Scholars of both Universi III. wished to CHAP. ties, in vindication of what he had done in returning to Rome, and exhortatory to them to follow him, slandering the Protestant religion with false and unworthy imputations. Care was taken privily to disperse this book in the Universities; which gave disturbance to the government. The Lord Treasurer Burghley thought it needful to have a good answer timely set forth, to prevent the mischief it The Bishop might do; and reckoned Bishop Aylmer very fit for such answer it. an undertaking; in one particular respect especially, namely, for certain blots and disparagements cast upon the first reformers of religion, and restorers of it from Popery; in whose times the Bishop lived, and with some of them, and their doings, was well acquainted. The Bishop had heard of the book, and had sent to Oxford, and searched other places for it, but could not meet with it, so secret it was kept; which was partly his excuse for not answering it. He had also at this time an ague, which was fallen down so sore in his leg that he was not able to study without great danger: but notwithstanding he let the Treasurer know, if he could get the book, he would do what his health would permit ; adding, that as to what he wrote touching those first worthy and learned men, he guessed that the things wherewith he reproached them, were nothing else but such railing collections as were gathered against them by the apostate Staphilus, which for the most part were not to be found in their His judg works. And moreover, as to the reproaches the Jesuits Protestant cast upon these reverend fathers of the Reformation, he knew there were divers nævi in them, as lightly be in all men's writings as some things were spoken by Luther hyperbolically, and some by Calvin; as in the doctrine of the Sacrament, which he afterwards corrected, and in predestination. This Jesuit, the Bishop subjoined, and Staphilus, might herein soon be answered, if they would but look in the end of the Master of the Sentences, where they should find under the title of Errorum Parisiis Condemnatorum, that their own Peter Lumbard, Thomas Aquinas, Gratian among the Schoolmen, and Tertullian, Cyprian, Augustine, Hierome, and others among the Fathers, to be condemned, ment of writers. |