framed some articles, which they carried to the king against him he had condemned in his sermon all masses for the dead; and said, "if they were profitable to the dead, the king and parliament had done wrong in destroying the monasteries endowed for that end: he also said, that to pray to the saints, only to pray for us, was a practice neither necessary nor useful: he added, You call us the seditious preachers of a new doctrine, but it is you are the seditious persons, who maintain the superstitious traditions of men, and will not hear the word of God himself. The church of Christ will ever suffer persecution, as it has done of late among These and some other complaints being carried to the king, Crome was commanded to answer them: he in his answer explained and justified all he had said. The king had no mind to carry matters further against so eminent a man; so he passed a sentence, in which he set forth, that Crome had confessed the articles objected to him: but the king, out of his clemency, intending to quiet his people, appointed Crome to preach at St. Paul's, and there to repeat all the articles objected to him, and then to read the judg ment that the king gave in the matter: and it concluded, that if ever he fell into the like offence again, he was to suffer according to law: the king's judgment was, "that private masses were sacrifices, profitable both to the living and to the dead, but yet that the king's majesty, with his parliament, had justly abolished monasteries.' Upon this Crome preached, and, at the end of his sermon, he told the people, he had received an order from the king to be read to them; which he read, but said not one word upon it; and with a short prayer dismissed the congregation: whereas the king expected that he should have applauded his judgment, and extolled his favour to himself, as Dr. Barnes and his two companions were unhappily prevailed on to do, and yet were burned afterwards. Hill was therefore afraid that Crome might be brought into further trouble. There was an order sent to him from the king to preach no more, as he had before forbidden both Latimer and Shaxton to preach any more. They were not excluded from the general pardon; but were still prohibited to preach: and when they were set at liberty, they were required not to come within ten miles of either of the universities, or the city of London, or the dioceses in which they had been bishops. Thus, says he, faithful shepherds were driven from their flocks, and ravenous wolves were sent in their stead. He concludes, hoping that God would not suffer them to be long oppressed by such tyranny. Thus I have given a very parVOL. III, PART I. R ticular account of that long letter, writ with much good sense and piety, but in very bad Latin; therefore I do not put it into the Collection. : Sampson, though he fell into this disgrace for an act of Christian pity, yet hitherto had showed a very entire compliance with all that had been done: he had published an explanation on the first fifty Psalms, which he dedicated to the king in which, as he extolled his proceedings, so he run out into a severe invective against the bishop of Rome, and the usurpations and corruptions favoured by that see; and he reflected severely on Pole. Pole's old friend Tonstall did also, in a sermon at St. Paul's, on Palm Sunday, in his grave way, set forth his unnatural ingratitude. But now the popish party, upon Cromwell's fall, and the exaltation. of the duke of Norfolk by the king's marrying his niece, broke out into their usual violence; and they were, as we may reasonably believe, set on to it by Bonner, who, upon Stokesly's death a year before, had been brought to London, and immediately upon Cromwell's disgrace changed sides; and from having acted a forced part with heat enough, now came to act that which was natural to him. There were so many informations brought in the city of London, that a jury, sitting in Mercer's Chapel, presented five hundred persons to be tried upon the statute of the Six Articles; which, as may be easily imagined, put the city under great apprehensions: but Audley, the lord chancellor, represented to the king, that this was done out of malice: so they were all dismissed, some say pardoned. Informations came against papists on the other side: a letter was sent from the council to Cranmer, to send Dr. Benger to the Tower. Two of Bonner's chaplains were, by order of council, sent to the archbishop, to be examined by him. A vicar was brought out of Wiltshire, out of whose offices Thomas Becket's name was not yet rased: but he was dismissed; for it was believed to be the effect only of negli gence, and not of any ill principles. There was a letter of Melancthon's, against the king's proceedings, printed in English (perhaps it was that which I published in the Addenda to my first volume). Goodrick bishop of Ely's chaplain and servant were examined, and his house was searched for it. Many were brought into trouble for words concerning the king and his proceedings. Poor Marbeck, of Windsor, was imprisoned in the Marshalsea. Many printers were prosecuted, for bringing English books into the kingdom, against the king's proceedings. In one council-day (for all these particulars are taken out of the council-books), five-and-twenty booksellers were examined, as to all books, more particularly English books, that they had sold these last three years. Hains, the dean of Exeter, was oft before the council; but particulars are not mentioned. Articles were brought against him, and they were referred to the king's learned council. The bishops of Ely, Sarum, Rochester, and Westminster, were appointed to examine him, and to proceed with all diligence. He was also sent to the Fleet, for lewd and seditious preaching" (the words in the council-book), and sowing many erroneous opinions; but, after a good lesson and exhortation, with a declaration of the king's mercy and goodness towards him, he was dismissed, under a recognizance of 500 marks, to appear (if called for) any time within five months, to answer to such things as should be laid against him. On the 4th of May, 1542, an entry is made, Cranmer being present, that it was thought good, if the king's highness shall be so content, that a general commission shall be sent to Kent, with certain special articles; and generally that all abuses and enormities of religion were to be examined. This was laid on design to ruin Cranmer; but there is no other entry made in the council-book, relating to this matter; unless this was a consequence of it, that, on the 27th of June, Hards, of Canterbury, a prisoner for a seditious libel, was, after a good exhortation, dismissed. And this is all the light that the only council-book of that reign, for two years, affords as to those matters. Mr. Strype has helped us to more light. While Cranmer was visiting his diocess, there were many presentments made of a very different nature. Some were presented for adhering still to the old superstitions condemned by the king, and for insinuations in favour of the pope's authority. Others, again, were, on the other hand, presented for doctrines, either contrary to the Six Articles, or to the rites still practised. This created a great confusion through that whole country; and the blame of all was cast on Cranmer, by his enemies; as if he favoured and encouraged that, which was called the new learning, too much. A plot was contrived, chiefly by Gardiner's means, with the assistance of Dr. London, and of Thornden (suffragan of Dover, and prebendary of Canterbury), who had lived in Cranmer's house, and had all his preferment by his favour. Several others engaged in it, who had all been raised by him, and had pretended zeal for the Gospel; but upon Cromwell's fall they reckoned, that if they could send Cranmer after him, they would effectually crush all designs of a further reformation. They resolved to begin with some of the prebendaries and preachers. Many articles were gathered out of their sermons and private discourses, all terminating in the archbishop; who, as was said, showed so partial a favour to the men of the new learning, and dealt so harshly and severely with the others, that he was represented to be the principal cause of all the heat and divisions that were in Canterbury, and in the other parts of Kent. These articles went through many hands; but it was not easy to prevail with a proper person to present them. The steps made in the matter are copiously set forth by Mr. Strype. At last they came into the king's hands; and he, upon that, passing by Lambeth, where the archbishop stood, in respect to him as he passed by, called him into his barge; and told him he had now discovered who was the greatest heretic in Kent. With that he showed him the articles against himself and his chaplains. The archbishop knew the falsehood of many particulars: so he prayed the king to send a commission to examine the matter. The king said, he would give him a commission, but to none else. He answered, it would not seem decent to appoint him to examine articles exhibited against himself. The king said, he knew his integrity, and would trust it to no other person; nor would he name above one (though pressed to it) that should be joined in commission with him; and he even then seemed persuaded it was a contrivance of Gardiner's to ruin him. The archbishop went down himself into Kent; and then the conspirators, seeing the king's favour to him, were struck with fear: some of them wept and begged pardon, and were put in prison but the rest of the commission, in whose hands the archbishop left the matter, being secretly favourers of that party, proceeded faintly; so it was writ to court, that unless Dr. Leigh were sent down, who was well practised in examinations, the conspiracy would never be found out. He was upon that sent down; and he ordered a search to be made at one and the same time of all suspected places; and so he discovered the whole train. Some of the archbishop's domestics, Thornden in particular, were among the chief of the informers. He charged them with it. They, on their knees, confessed their faults, with many tears. He, who was gentle even to excess, said he did forgive them, and prayed God to forgive them, and to make them better men. After that he was never observed to change his countenance, or alter his behaviour towards them. He expressed the like readiness to pardon all the rest: many were imprisoned upon these examinations; but the parliament granting a subsidy, a general pardon set them all at liberty; which otherwise the archbishop was resolved to have procured to them. This relation differs in several particulars from the account that I gave of it in my History; but this seems to be the exacter and the better vouched, and therefore I acquiesce in it. Another instance is given by the same writer of the king's zeal for Cranmer. Sir John Gostwick, knight for Bedfordshire, did, in the house of commons, charge him for preaching heresy against the sacrament of the altar, both at Feversham and Canterbury: the king hearing of this, did, in his rough way, threaten Gostwi ck calling him varlet, and charged him to go and ask Cranmer pardon, otherwise he should feel the effects of his displeasure. The king said, if he had been a Kentish man, he might have had some more shadow for accusing him; but being of Bedfordshire, he could have none. Gostwick, terrified with this message, made his submission to Cranmer, who mildly forgave him, and went to the king and moved him for his favour, which he did not obtain without some difficulty. It appears plainly that the king acted as if he had a mind to be thought infallible*; and that his subjects were bound to believe as much as he thought fit to open to them, and neither more nor less. He went on this year, before he took his progress, in finishing "The necessary Doctrine and Erudition of any Christian Man." A great part of it was corrected by his own hand, particularly in that article of the Creed, the catholic church, where there are severe reflections added on the bishops of Romet. Here I found likewise some more of the answers made to the seventeen queries upon the matter of the sacraments that I published in my first volume. I set them out again in my Collection (No. lxviii); that by these the reader may better understand the two following papers that I print separately; and not intermixed with one another, as I did before, which I thought to be an ease to the reader; but since that was made a great offence, I will do it no more. One of these is only an answer to the queries: the writer of the first is not named, it is probably Tonstall's; he is plainly of the same side with the archbishop of York. It will be found in the Collection (No. Ixix), as also another paper (No. lxx), with several marginal notes in the king's hand, by which it appears that the king was much shaken from his former notions he asked for Scripture in several particulars, that could not easily be brought. On the margin, Cranmer and Barlow are often named; but I do not understand with * Cott. Libr. Cleop. E. 5. + Collect. No. xxxii, vol. i, Refor |