1382.] AGAINST HERETICS. 153 they held the same religious faith with the Pope, they did not allow his spiritual authority to interfere with their loyalty to the king, or with their love of civil liberty. 11. Statutes against Heretics. The contest between the Pope, and the king and parliament of England, related chiefly to the temporalities of the Church, without reference to its doctrines; nor was the supremacy of the Pope disputed, except so far as he used his power to secure a share of the temporalities, for himself and his nominees. But in the latter part of the fourteenth century, John Wycliffe arose out of the University of Oxford, of which he was a Doctor, as a great religious reformer, foreshadowing the principles of the Reformation. He translated the Bible out of the Vulgate, or Latin, into English; and in his teachings and writings he reflected severely on the corruption of the clergy, condemned the worshiping of saints and images, denied the real presence, and exhorted all people to the study of the Scriptures. The favour of some great men prevented or frustrated attempts to punish Wycliffe, or to suppress his preaching; but after his death, he was condemned of heresy, and his body was exhumed and burned. When considering the rise and growth of a constitution in which civil and religious freedom are considered of at least equal importance, it will be necessary to trace the progress of the laws which were enacted to support the Church of England, and to suppress opposition to it, prior to the Reformation. The first statute is in the reign of Richard II. Its preamble states that, "forasmuch as it is openly known that there be divers evil persons, going from county to county, and from town to town, in certain habits, under dissimulation of great holiness, and without the license of the ordinaries or other sufficient authority, preaching daily, not only in churches and churchyards, but also in markets, fairs, and other open places where a great congregation of people is, divers sermons containing heresies and notorious errors, which preachers, cited or summoned before the ordinaries, will not obey their summons, nor care for their monitions nor censures of the Holy Church, but expressly despise them; and moreover, by their subtile and injurious words, do draw the people to hear their sermons, and do maintain them in their errors, by strong hand and by great routs,—it was ordained that the king's commissions be made to the sheriffs to arrest all such preachers, their fautors (favourers), maintainers, and abettors, and to hold them in arrest and strong prison till they will justify them according to the law and reason of Holy Church."1 The followers of Wycliffe, increasing in numbers, received the name of Lollards, as a term of reproach; a German name, but of disputed origin. The next statute refers to the Lollards as a sect; and from its strong language and severe penalties, it may be inferred that they caused great alarm to the orthodox clergy. The statute is of the second year of Henry IV. Referring to the Catholic faith and the Church of England established in the realm; “yet nevertheless divers false and perverse people,-of a certain new sect, of the faith of the sacraments of the Church and the authority of the same damnably thinking, . . . and usurping the office of preaching,-do preach and teach, openly and privily, divers new doctrines, and wicked, heretical, and erroneous opinions, contrary to the faith and determinations of holy Church. And of such sect and wicked doctrine and opinions, they make unlawful conventicles and confederacies; they hold and exercise schools; they make and write books; they do wilfully instruct and inform people; and, as much as they may, excite and stir them to sedition and insurrection; the diocesans and their jurisdiction spiritual, and the keys of the Church with the censures of the same, they do utterly contemn and despise; and so their wicked proceedings continue from day to day, 15 Richard II., stat. 2, cap. 5. But there is a note in the statute-book, that it is "not a statute, the commons never assenting thereto." (Pickering's Statutes.) 1400.] AGAINST HERETICS. 155 to the hatred of right and reason, and utter destruction of order and good rule. For the conservation of the Catholic faith and sustentation of God's honour, and the safeguard of the estate, rights, and liberties of the Church of England; and that this wicked sect should cease and be utterly destroyed, it was ordained that none should preach without the license of the diocesan; that none should preach, teach, or write any book contrary to the Catholic faith; nor of such sect and wicked doctrines make conventicles, or hold or exercise schools. Persons acting contrary to the statute, were made subject to fine and imprisonment by the diocesan and his commissaries; and if after such conviction they refused to abjure the same wicked sect, preachings, doctrines, and opinions, or should fall into relapse, they should be handed over to the sheriff, or other secular power, who should receive the convicts, " and them before the people, in a high place, do to be burnt, that such punishment may strike in fear to the minds of others." The statute of Richard II. imposed no higher penalty than imprisonment. But Henry IV., although strongly believed to have imbibed the principles of the Lollards, engaged parliament to invest the Church with the power of punishing its opponents by burning; hoping by that step to acquire its support to his precarious occupation of the throne. Before this statute the writ" De Heretico Comburendo" could only be issued by the special direction of the king, who by that means reserved his power of pardoning the heretic. By this statute the diocesan, without the consent of the crown, or the intervention of a synod, could hand over the unhappy victim to the sheriff, who was bound, ex officio, to commit him to the flames. "This weapon," says Hume, "did not long remain unemployed in the hands of the clergy. William Sautré, rector of St. Osithes, in London, had been condemned by the convocation of Canterbury; his sentence was ratified by the house of peers; the king 1 2 Henry IV., cap. 15, A.D. 1401. 2 Blackstone's Commentaries, book iv. ch. 4. issued his writ for his execution; and the unhappy man atoned for his opinions by the penalty of fire." This is the first instance of that kind in England." The next and last statute is directed against the Lollards by name. It states that "great rumours, congregations, and insurrections of people of the sect of heresy commonly called Lollardry, were of late made to subvert the Christian faith, and the law of God, and holy Church, to destroy the king and all the estates of the realm, and also all manner of policy, and finally the laws of the realm;" and it required the chancellor, judges, sheriffs, and all officers having governance of people, to take an oath to use all their power and diligence to destroy the heresies called Lollardries. It directed that persons convicted should forfeit their lands and goods; that the judges and justices of the peace should have power to inquire of heretics, and to order the sheriffs to arrest them; and as the cognizance of heresy belonged to the judges of holy Church and not to the secular judges, to send them in safeguard to the ordinaries, or to their commissaries, to be acquit or convict, after the laws of holy Church.3 82 Henry V., cap. 7. The intent of the heretics called Lollards, etc., A.D. 1415. CHAPTER IX. HENRY VII., FIRST OF THE TUDOR MONARCHS. A.D. 1485-1509. Reigned 24 years. The Sixteenth Century.-Union of York and Lancaster.-Henry, Duke of Richmond, crowned King.-Temporal Peers in a Minority.-First Parliament.-The Crown entailed on his Heirs. His Marriage.Supplies granted for War.-Benevolence.-Morton's Fork.-Statutes. -Allegiance to a King de facto, settled as a Constitutional Principle.-Court of Star-chamber.-Its Constitution and Power.-Prince Arthur.-His Marriage with Katherine of Arragon.-His Death.Prince Henry.-His Contract of Marriage with Katherine.-Marriage of Lady Margaret with the King of Scots.--General Laws. WE now approach the sixteenth century, the commencement of which may be marked as the epoch of modern history. We behold a flood of light shed upon the nation, more remarkable even than that which illuminates the nineteenth century, because more contrasted with antecedent darkness. Printing, the art most productive of knowledge and freedom, had been invented in Germany, and introduced into England by Caxton. It was soon employed to dispel the ignorance that prevailed, and produced what is termed 'the revival of letters;' and in defiance of the opposition of priests and monks, it gave to the people of England a possession next in importance to revelation itself,-the Bible translated by Tyndal into the English tongue. The application of the magnet to the purposes of navigation, in the same century, coincided nearly with the discovery of America, and of the passage to the East Indies by the Cape of Good Hope; and by the certainty which that invention contributed to |