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and after he had been for seven years kept within that confinement, he was carried to Rome, and kept ten years a prisoner in the castle of St. Angelo: and was at last condemned as one suspected of heresy. That great man had been sent by Charles as one of his divines to the council of Trent, where he preached, and wrote a treatise of the Personal Residence of Bishops. These things put together make it highly probable, that Charles himself was possessed with that doctrine, that was so much spread among those who were then most about him. Mezeray tells us, "that at Philip's arrival in Spain, he caused a great many to be burned for heretics in his own presence, both at Seville and at Valladolid, both seculars and ecclesiastics, men and women, and in particular the effigies of his father's confessor: and if reports may be believed, he intended to have made his father's process, and to have had his bones burnt for heresy; being only hindered from doing it by this consideration, that if his father was a heretic, he had forfeited all his dominions, and by consequence he had no right to resign them to his son." This digression will be forgiven me, I hope, both because it belongs to the main design upon which I write, and since our queen was queen of Spain, when this persecution was first begun.

There are in my hands two papers concerning the method in which the queen ordered her council to proceed there is no date put to them; but they were written, either soon after the king went beyond sea, or perhaps about this time; for now King Philip having the Spanish monarchy put in his hands, and being engaged in a war with France, the queen had reason to expect that her dominions might feel the war very sensibly, as afterward they did and so it might seem necessary to put the administration of her affairs into a good method. One of these papers is writ in Cardinal Pole's own hand, and is a memorial prepared for the queen, of the things that she was to recommend to her council, for she had ordered them to attend on her. It is in the Collection (No. xl). "First, she was to put them in mind of the charge that the king gave them at his departure, which was to be rehearsed to them; and that is, perhaps, the following paper: they were still to attend at court, the matters they were to treat about being of great weight; and they were to lay such matters as were proposed in council before the king, that they might have his pleasure, before they were to be executed. They were in particular to know the resolution of the council, touching those things that were to be proposed in this parliament, and these were to be sent to the king that very day and since the king delayed his coming over,.

they were to consider whether it were not better to delay the parliament till Candlemas, if there should be no prejudice to her affairs, that money was so long wanted; for there was great need of it at present, for the setting out of ships, both for the emperor's passage to Spain, and for the king's return, for the payments due at Calais, for the debt owing to the merchants, the day of payment approaching, and for the debt of Ireland and she was to ask of her council an account concerning all these things: she was likewise to charge them to call in her own debts, as the best way to clear what she owed to others and she was to offer them all authority for doing it effectually; and to require them, that at the end of every week she might know what came in that week, and what order was taken for the rest. And that all those who have any commission to execute any matter, shall at the end of every week inform the council what progress they had made that week: and that the council should never begin to treat of any matter in the second week, until they were informed of what was done in the former. week." Thus she was to be taught what she was to say to them; upon which they, who did not know how weak a woman she was, might imagine that she understood her own affairs well, and thought much of them: whereas the poor bigotted woman was only as a machine, made to speak and to act as she was prompted, by those who had the management of her for, of herself, she seemed capable to think of nothing, but how to destroy the heretics, and to extirpate heresy.

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The other paper is in Latin, and seems to be that which the king had left behind him. It is also in the Collection (No. xli). "He named in it a select committee, to whom the special care of matters of state, of the revenue, and the weighty affairs of the kingdom, were to be referred. These (in a modern term) were the cabinet-council; and the persons were, the cardinal (in all great matters, when he could conveniently come), then the lord chancellor, the lord treasurer, the earl of Arundel, the earl of Pembroke, the bishop of Ely, the lord Paget, Rochester the comptroller, and Petre the secretary. Every one of these was constantly to attend, to determine in all matters of state and revenue, and to make honourable payment of all debts, and to do every thing in which the honour and dignity of the crown was concerned. They were also earnestly prayed to lay all differences, or quarrels among themselves, aside: that so they might amicably, and in the fear of God, deliver such things in council, as might tend to the glory of God, and the honour and good of the crown and kingdom. And when there is occasion for it, they were either to come to the queen, or to send some of

their body, to inform her of every thing that came before them: and at least thrice a week they were to give her an account of all their consultations and actings. In particular, they were to consider when the parliament was to meet, and what things were to be proposed and done in it, and to digest all that in writing. On Sundays they were to communicate such things to the whole council, as should be thought convenient to be laid before them. They were to take special care for the payment of debts, for the retrenching of expense, and for the good management of the queen's estate, revenues, and customs, and for the administration of justice." Such were the orders laid down: how they were executed does not appear.

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The queen herself never came to council, and the cardinal very seldom. Sometimes they were very few that attended at that board often not above three or four. And now I return to give an account of what I find in the council-book. On the 19th of January, a letter of thanks was ordered to the Lord Willoughby and others in Lincolnshire. At first, upon the condemnation of heretics, notice was given to the council, before the execution, to see if a pardon should be offered them but they found so few, if any, inclined to accept of it, that they did not think fit to expose the queen's pardon to any further contempt: so those persons are required to proceed thereafter, against all such as should be condemned before them, according to the laws, and not to stay for any order. On the 20th of January, letters were written to the sheriffs of Warwickshire, Bedfordshire, and Cambridgeshire, ordering them, that though the prisoners should be acquitted by order of law, yet to detain them in safe custody, till they should hear from the earl of Sussex. On the 14th of February, the council was alarmed with this, that a stage-play was to be acted in Shrovetide, and that many were to run to it so the Lord Rich was ordered to hinder the acting of it, and to examine and report what he could learn concerning it. On the 16th of February, there was an order sent to Sir Henry Bedingfield, lieutenant of the Tower, to put two to the torture, and to pain them at his discretion. On the 19th of February, a letter of thanks was ordered to the Lord Rich for stopping the stage-play. He had put the actors in prison, but he gave a good character of them: so he was ordered to set them at liberty; but to have an eye on all such meetings. Several inquiries were made at this time after seditious books: many examinations and commitments were made on that account.

On the 20th of April, one Harris, a carpenter and gunner at Deptford, was brought before the council, for having said

on Maundy-Thursday, "the queen hath this day given a great alms; and has given that away, that should have paid us our wages. She hath undone the realm too; for she loveth another realm better than this." He confessed the words, but asked pardon, and was dismissed. It seems, about that time, they expected the king's coming over: for, on the 1st of June, the lord admiral was ordered to attend on him. On the 21st of June, an order was sent to the lieutenant of the Tower, and to a master of requests, to put one to the torture, if he thought it convenient. Information was given to the queen, by Wotton, her ambassador in France, that several heretics had fled over to France, and were well received there in particular, that Henry Dudley (perhaps a son of the duke of Northumberland's) and Christopher Ashton were plotting there against the queen*. Upon that, a letter was written to Wotton, to demand that they might be seized on, and sent at her charge to the frontier, to be delivered to her officers. When the draught of this was brought to her to be signed by her, she, with her own hand, interlined these words: "considering that when the king my husband and he were enemies, I neither did nor would have done the like."

Wotton wrote over, that the heretics took great advantage from the new war, that the pope engaged the French king to make on the king, after a truce for five years had been agreed to, and sworn by both kings. But the pope sent a legate to France, to persuade that king to begin the war. And though the consciences of princes are not apt to be very scrupulous in the observing or breaking their treaties; yet a treaty, made and confirmed by an oath so very lately, it seems, made such an impression on that king, that so great an authority was to be interposed to give a colour for the breaking it. Those called heretics took great advantages from this to infuse a horror in people at the papacy, since one, who pretended to be the vicar of the prince of peace, became thus an open and a perfidious incendiary.

This, of the pope's dispensing with a prince's oath, gave so great a distaste everywhere, that I do not remember an instance in which it was openly put in practice since that time. But the protestant princes of Germany do believe, as one of the greatest of them told me, that the confessors of the princes of that communion have secret faculties to dispense with their breach of faith which is so much the more dangerous, the more secretly it may be managed. On that ground it was, that the prince, who told me this, said, that,

* Paper-office.

in all their dealings with princes of that communion, they took their word, but would never put any thing to their oaths for they knew that the popish princes reckoned they were bound by their word, as they were men, and members of human society; but for their oaths, they reckoned, these being acts of religion, their confessors had it in their breast to tell them how far they were bound to keep them; and when they were absolved from any obligation by them. But we have seen in our days, to the no small reproach of the Reformation, that princes professing it have in an avowed manner shaken off their leagues and alliances, with this short declaration, That they reckoned themselves freed from them as if they had been things of so little force, that they might be departed from at pleasure.

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Pole was now in his synod, labouring to bring the clergy to their duty. On the 13th of December, The Institution of a Christian Man was divided in parcels, to be examined by them and some were appointed to prepare a book of Homilies. On the 16th of December, a translation of the New Testament was ordered, and parcelled out: the Seven Sacraments were also treated of. On the 20th of December, the cardinal sent an order to the prolocutor, to intimate to all the clergy, more particularly to all deans, that they should confirm no leases, that had been made of their benefices this seems to be done in obedience to the pope's bull, formerly mentioned, that condemned all leases for a longer term than three years. There was offered to them a schedule of some terms that were to be carefully considered in the translation of the New Testament. On the 8th of January (1557), that was again considered: propositions were also made for having schools in all cathedral churches. Thus Pole found it necessary to give some instruction in the matters of religion to the nation: for an earnest desire of knowledge in these points being once raised and encouraged, it was neither safe nor easy to extinguish that, which is so natural to man: and, therefore, instead of discouraging all knowledge, and bringing men to the state of implicit faith, without any sort of inquiry, he chose to give them such a measure of knowledge as might be governed and kept within its own bounds. There was in this synod a question moved; what should be done with such of the clergy as should refuse to say or come to mass? but I do not see what was determined upon it. Nor do I see what reason was given them for another petition to the queen, lords, and commons, for maintaining their liberties and immunities, nor what effect it had.

Pole prorogued the synod to the 10th of November, and

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