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sides. As for Erasmus's Paraphrase, Gardiner excepted to it as being in many things contrary to the Homilies: so he thought, since they agreed so little together, they ought not to be joined and recommended by the same injunctions: to this it was said, that the Paraphrase was a good and useful book, though in some particulars the Homilies differed from it.

But as they had the perverseness of the popish party to deal with, so it was not easy to restrain their own side. Those whose heat could not be well managed, were apt to break out into great disorders; some insulting the priests as they were officiating, others talking irreverently of the sacrament; some defining the manner of the presence, and others asserting the impossibility of it, as it was explained. These disorders gave occasion to two proclamations this year; the first was on the 12th of November, against insolence towards priests, such as the reviling them, tossing them, and taking their caps and tippets violently from them: the other was on the 27th of December, against irreverent talkers of the sacrament, and against those who in their sermons went to define the manner, the nature and fashion, and the possibility or impossibility, of the presence. The visitors went about with their injunctions. They are registered in the books of the dean and chapter of York; where the visitation was held in September. It came not to Winchester till October, for the monition concerning it was made on the 7th of October. Whether the slowness of the visitors coming thither was occasioned by any secret practice with Gardiner, and upon the hopes of gaining him or not, I cannot tell. He, it seems, had before that refused to receive or obey the injunctions; for which he was put in the Fleet: and when he wrote his letter to the protector, complaining of the proceedings against him, he had been then seven weeks there.

I can say nothing new of the parliament that sat this year. When the convocation was opened on the 5th of November, the archbishop told them, that it was with the king and the lords' consent, that the prelates and clergy should consult together about settling the Christian religion right, and delivering it to the people. He sent them to choose their prolocutor, and to present him the Friday following. It is set down in the minutes, that the lower house consulted how they might be joined to the lower house of parliament; and about the reformation of the ecclesiastical laws. On the 9th of December some were appointed to know if the archbishop had obtained licence (in the minutes called indemnity or immunity) for them to treat of matters of religion. In the

fifth session, on the last of November, the prolocutor exhibited an order given him by the archbishop for receiving the communion in both kinds, to which, in the next session, they agreed, no man speaking against it. Sixty-four agreed to this; Polydore Virgil and Weston being two of them. And in the eighth session, on the 17th of December, a proposition was offered to them, in these words: "That all such canons, laws, statutes, decrees, usages, and customs, heretofore made or used, that forbid any person to contract matrimony, or condemn matrimony already contracted, by any person, for any vow or promise of priesthood, chastity, or widowhood, shall from henceforth cease, be utterly void, and of none effect." Here it was that Redman's opinion was read, which I had in my History put as read the following year. This proposition went to all monastic vows, as well as to the marriage of priests. The proposition was subscribed by fifty-three, who were for the affirmative; only twenty-two were for the negative: after which a committee was named to draw the form of an act for the marriage of priests. But all that is in the often-cited minutes as to this matter, is," Item, propounded for the marriage of priests;" and to it is added," and that the ecclesiastical laws should be promulgated:" there is no more in the minutes of the convocations during this reign.

Strype adds to this a particular remark out of the Defence of the Priests' Marriage, that divers of those who were for the affirmative did never marry; and that some of those who were for the negative yet did afterwards marry. Cranmer went on gathering authorities out of Scripture and the fathers against unwritten traditions: he wrote a book on this subject in Latin; but in Queen Mary's time it was translated into English, and published by an English exile beyond sea. He took a special care to furnish Canterbury with good preachers but though their labours were not quite without success, yet superstition had too deep a root there to he easily subdued and in the universities, the old doctrines were so obstinately persisted in, that when some in Cambridge offered to examine the mass by the Scriptures and the fathers, and to have a disputation upon it, the vice-chancellor did forbid it. The archbishop had procured a confirmation of their privileges, of Cambridge at least; for Strype only mentions that: the mildness he expressed towards all who opposed him, even with insolence, was remarkable when one who thought he carried this too far, told him, that if ever it came to the turn of his enemies, they would show him no such favour, he answered, Well, if God so provide, we must abide it.

I did, in the account of the arguments against transubstantiation, mention a letter of St. Chrysostom's to Cesarius, of which Peter Martyr brought over a copy in Latin to England. Since that time the popish clergy were sensible, that by that letter it appeared plainly, that St. Chrysostom did believe that the substance of bread and wine remained still in the sacrament; as the human nature remained in the person of Christ so that by this, all the other high figures used by that father must be understood so as to reconcile them to this letter: therefore they have used all possible endeavours to suppress it. When the learned bigot had brought a copy of it from Florence to France, and printed it with other things relating to that father, they ordered it to be cut out in such a manner, that in the printed book it appeared that some leaves were cut out; yet one copy of it was brought to the present learned and pious bishop of Lincoln, then chaplain to our ambassador at Paris, who first printed it here in England; as the learned Le Moyne, having another copy sent to him, printed it about the same time in Holland.

I have nothing to add concerning the tumults of the year 1549, but that the popish clergy were generally at the head of the rebels. Many of these were priests that had complied and subscribed the new book; some of them were killed in every skirmish, and very few of the clergy showed much zeal against them: so that the earl of Bedford could have none but Miles Coverdale to go along with the force that he carried into Devonshire to subdue them.`

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Upon some information, that the Lady Mary's servants were active in assisting those commotions, the protector and council wrote to her on the 17th that letter being delivered to her on the 20th of July, she presently wrote an answer, which I had from Sir William Cook, and it will be found in the Collection (No. ii). In it," she expresses her dislike of those revolts. A chaplain of her's in Devonshire had been named, but she writes she had not one chaplain in those parts. Another that was named lived constantly in her house she justifies all her servants that had been named; and assured them, that all of her household were true subjects to the king. The council had likewise charged her, that her proceedings in matters of religion had given the rebels great courage: which, she wrote, appeared to be untrue; since the rebels in her neighbourhood touched upon no point of religion. She prayed God, that their new alterations, and unlawful liberties, might not rather be the occasion of such assemblies. As for Devonshire, she had neither lands nor acquaintance in those parts."

In the suppressing these tumults, the protector did visibly espouse the people's interest, and blamed the lords for their inclosures, and the other oppressions that had, as he said, occasioned all those disorders. By this he came to be universally beloved by the people; but trusting to that, he began to take too much upon him: and was so wedded to his own thoughts, that he often opposed the whole council. Upon which Paget wrote him a long letter, in which, as a faithful friend, he set before him his errors; chiefly his wilfulness, and his affecting popularity too much. He desired to be dismissed the council; for while he was there, he was resolved to deliver his opinion according to his reason, and not seek to please another: he had offered him faithful advices, and warned him of the cloud that he saw gathering against him. This he wrote on the 6th of July, some months before it broke out*: it seems the protector took this freedom well from him, for he continued firm to him to the last. His brother the Lord Seymour's fall lay heavy on him: though that lord had almost compassed another design, of marrying the Lady Elizabeth; so I find it in the council's letter to Hobbey of the 18th of January, 1548-9.

As for the other matter with which he was loaded, the entertaining some German troops, I find among Sir Philip Hobbey's letters a great many orders and letters, signed by the whole council, as well as by the protector, which show that they all concurred in that matter. The true secret of it on both sides was this: the bulk of the people of England was still possessed with the old superstition to such a degree, that it was visible they could not be depended on, in any matter that related to the alterations that were made, or were designed to be made: whereas the Germans were full of zeal on the other side; so that they might well be trusted to and the princes of Germany, who were then kept under by the emperor, so that they neither durst nor could keep their troops at home, but hoped they might at some better time have an occasion to use them, were willing to put them in the hands of the present government of England. Howsoever, this had an odious name put on it, and was called a ruling by strangers: so that it very much shook the duke of Somerset's popularity; for though it could not be denied, that all the council had concurred with him in it, yet the load and blame of all were laid on him.

The popish party was very active in procuring the change of measures that followed. The council wrote over to the emperor, to let him know that the necessity of their affairs * Cott. Libr. Titus, D. 3.

VOL. III, PART I.

X

was like to force them to treat for the delivering up of Bulloigne to the French; though this was a secret not yet communicated to the whole privy council.

Bonner's being removed was not much resented, neither at home nor abroad. He was a brutal man, few either loved or esteemed him: and Ridley, who came to succeed him, was the most generally esteemed man of all the Reformers. One thing that made it more acceptable to those who favoured the Reformation, was the suppressing the bishopric of Westminster, and the removing Thirlby to Norwich, where it was thought he could do less mischief than where he was for though he complied as soon as any change was made, yet he secretly opposed every thing while it was safe to do it. He had a soft and an insinuating way with him; which, as was thought, prevailed too much even on Cranmer himself. But Gardiner was a dexterous man, and much more esteemed, though as little beloved as Bonner was so the falling on him gave a greater alarm to the whole party. He, who was so well known both in the emperor's court and in the French court, sent over tragical accounts of the usage he met with. This was writ over hither by our ambassador at the court of France: upon which a very severe character of him is given in a letter signed E. Somerset, T. Cant., R. Rich, C. W. Wiltshire, J. Warwick, J. Bedford, W. Northampton, G. Clinton, W. Petre, W. Cecyl. In it they gave an account of the proceedings against him; and add, "He had showed not only a wilful pride, but a cankered heart, guilty of open and shameful lies; by which impudent falsehood he showed himself most unworthy to be a bishop, whatsoever strangers may think of him. For religion, he is as far from any piety or fashion of a good bishop, as a player of a bishop in a comedy is from a good bishop indeed."

Whether the protector designed any thing against the constitution of the church, or at least to swallow up the great endowments that were not yet devoured, I cannot tell. But there is an advice in one of Hobbey's letters, dexterously enough proposed, that gives reason to suspect, this might be on design to broach a business that was to be so cunningly proposed and Hobbey being a confident of the protector's, he may be supposed to have written as he was directed by him. He wrote it in September 1548. He tells the council, "that the protestants of Germany hoped that the king, seeing that the late wars in Germany happened chiefly by the bishops continuing in their princely and lordly estate, would, for preventing the like, appoint the godly bishops an honest and competent living, sufficient for their mainte

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