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ceeded and certainly those who write concerning matters of religion ought to open all that comes in their way, of the grounds on which any changes were made.

He thinks all the King's reasonings for the divorce were fully answered by Queen Katherine's reasons against it. But he does not consider that he is in a communion, in which tradition is set up, as that which must decide all controversies. King Henry's arguments run all upon tradition, whereas the Queen pretended to no tradition, but only brought arguments of another sort, which was the way of those called heretics: but in that matter the King insisted upon tradition, the great topic of papists. He censures me for bringing a Jew on the stage, after I had set out the opinions of the universities: but it seemed very reasonable to show the notions that the Jews had of their own laws.

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He returns again to reflections on the divorce of Anne of Cleve. It seems he had few things to reflect on, when in so short a paper he returns twice to the same matter. From her he passes to Anne Bullen; he fancies my whole design in writing was to establish her descent: but that I do not acquit her mother of the imputations Sanders had laid on her; nor herself of the amours in the court of France, and King Henry's ill commerce with her. If the crown of England had remained in a line derived from that Queen, it might be supposed that some would have wrote on such a design but that not being the case, there is little reason to think that any man would have given himself the trouble, only on design to justify her title to the crown. I have made it fully out that a great part of Sanders's charge on her was an ill-invented calumny, to bring her right to the crown in question and by proving some part of his relation to be false, I have destroyed the credit of the whole. I cannot be obliged to prove the negative in every particular, the proof lies upon the affirmative, and the author of a train of defamation is sufficiently disproved, when it is apparent that some parts of his relation must certainly be false. If any of these slanders had been in any sort believed in that time, there is no reason to think that the Pope or the Emperor would have published them: for the court of Rome kept none of the measures of common decency with the King. Nor were these things objected to Anne Boleyn till after that her unhappy fate gave some colour to believe every thing to her prejudice. Her brother and she did both at their death deny all criminal commerce together: nor was any thing proved against them, only the testimony of a dead woman was alleged to destroy them.

His last charge relates to More and Fisher; but how this comes to support his censure of my manner of writing is not so clear. I seem in these matters to write like one that intended to raise their character, rather than to depress it : nor do I justify King Henry's violences, but set them out as there is occasion for it. More knew a law was made, requiring the subjects to swear to the King as Supreme Head, under the pain of perpetual imprisonment; upon which he ought to have gone out of England, since he resolved not to take the oath. Fisher knew that the Nun of Canterbury had in very indecent words foretold the King's death, and had not revealed it as he ought to have done.

He says my History reflects much on the memory of King Henry. I did not undertake to write a panegyric on him, but only to write the history of that time: in doing this, as I have discovered the injustice of many scandals that have been cast on him, so I have not spared to lay open many ill practices, when I was obliged to do it, by that impartial sincerity to which I obliged myself when I undertook that work: though he charges me as biassed by partiality, a censure I deserved not. But I do more easily submit to his charging me with my ignorance of law, and of ecclesiastical antiquity. Such general censures are little to be regarded when he is at leisure to reckon up the particulars in which I have erred, I shall be very glad to be instructed by him. For though I have looked a little into law and ecclesiastical history, yet I value myself upon nothing but my sincerity. It is very easy to lay a detracting character in some general words upon any person. The artifice is so commonly practised, that it will not pass upon any but those who by some prejudices are prepared to take down every thing that is boldly asserted. It seems, that how great a mind soever he had to find fault, he could not find much matter for his spleen to work on, when in so short a paper he is forced to return in three several places to the article of the divorce of Anne of Cleve: and he shows such an inclination to censure, that I have no reason to think he would have spared me, if he had found greater matters to have objected to me. So all he says that seems to intimate that, must pass for words of course, which ought to make no impression.

No. III.

Some Remarks sent me by an unknown Person.

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KEILWAY'S Reports were published 1602, by Jo. Crook, who was afterwards a judge. He gives a character of Keilway, as a lawyer of good reputation; and that he was surveyor of the courts of wards in Queen Elizabeth's reign. It appears that the king's ordering the Attorney General to confess Dr. Horsey's plea, without bringing the matter to a trial, was plainly a contrivance to please the clergy, and to stifle that matter without bringing it to a trial, and so must hsve satisfied them better than if he had pardoned him. Little regard is to be given to Rastall, who showed his partiality in matters in which the Pope's authority was concerned for, in his edition of the Statutes at Large, he omitted one act of parliament made in the second year of Richard the Second, cap. 6, which is thus abridged by Poulton. Urban was duly chosen Pope, and so ought to be accepted and obeyed upon which the Lord Coke in his Institutes, p. 274, infers, that antiently acts of parliament were made concerning the highest spiritual matters; but it seems Rastall had no mind to let that be known. He was a judge in Queen Mary's time, but went beyond sea, and lived in Flanders in Queen Elizabeth's reign, and there he wrote and printed his Book of Entries.

There is a very singular instance in the Year Book, 43 Edward III, 33, 6; by which it appears, that the Bishop of Litchfield was sometimes called the Bishop of Chester; for a quare impedit was brought by the King against him, called Bishop of Chester: the judgment given at the end of it is, that he should go to the great devil. This is a singular instance of an extraordinary judgment; there being no precedent like it in all our records.

In Brook's Abridgment, Tit. Præmunire, sect. 21, it is said, That Barlow had, in the reign of Edward the Sixth, deprived the Dean of Wells (which was a donative), and had thereby incurred a pramunire; and that he was forced to use means to obtain his pardon: so if he had not his bishopric confirmed, by a new grant of it, he must have lost it, in a judgment against him in a pramunire. And if he wrote any such book, it was in order to the obtaining his pardon. Brook was chief justice of the Common-Pleas, in the first of Queen Mary: but yet it is no ways probable that Barlow wrote any such book as is mentioned p. 353 of the second volume of the History of the Reformation: for he VOL. III, PART II.

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went out of England, and came back in the first of Queen Elizabeth. He assisted in the consecration of Archbishop Parker, and was made bishop of Chichester; which probably would not have been done, if he had written any such book, unless he had made a public recantation of it; which I do not find that he did. So there is reason to believe, that was a book put out in his name by some papist, on design to cast a reproach on the Reformation. This is further con firmed by what I have put in the History: for by a letter of Sampson's it appears, that Barlow did feebly promise to be reconciled to the Church of Rome: but it seems, that was only an effect of weakness, since he quickly got beyond sea; into which the Privy-Council made an inquiry: that shows, that he repented of that which was extorted from him.

There are in this paper some quotations out of Harmer's Specimen, on which general remarks are made, but particulars are not added. The writer of this has not thought fit to name himself to me; so I can give no other description of him, but that he seems to be a person who has studied the law, and perused our historians carefully.

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