At first this sacrament was also understood to bo a communion of the body and blood of And all priChrist, of which many were to bo partakers: while the fervour of devotion vate Masses lasted, it was thought a scandalous and censurable thing if any had come unto the put down. Christian assemblies, and had not staid to receive these holy mysteries; and the denying to give any one the sacrament was accounted a very great punishment. So sensible were the Christians of their ill condition when they were hindered to participate of it. But afterwards the former devotion slackening, the good bishops in the fourth and fifth centuries complained oft of it, that so few came to receive: yet the custom being to make oblations before the sacrament, out of which the clergy had been maintained during the poverty of the church, the priests had a great mind to keep up the constant use of these oblations; and so persuaded the laity to continue them, and to come to the sacrament, though they did not receive it: and in process of time they were made to believe that the priest received in behalf of the whole people. And whereas this sacrament was the commemoration of Christ's sacrifice on the cross, and so by a phrase of speech was called a sacrifice, they came afterwards to fancy that the priest's consecrating and consuming the sacrament was an action of itself expiatory, and that both for the dead and the living. And there rose an infinite number of several sorts of masses: some were for commemorating the saints, and those were called the masses of such saints; others for a particular blessing, for rain, health, &c., and indeed for all the accidents of human life, where the addition or variation of a collect made the difference: so that all that trade of massing was now removed. An intimation was also made of exhortations to be read in it, which they intended next to set about. These abuses in the mass gave great advantages to those who intended to change it into a communion. But many, instead of managing them prudently, made unseemly jests about them, and were carried by a lightness of temper to make songs and plays of the mass: for now the press went quick and many books were printed this year about matters of religion; the greatest number of them being concerning the mass, which were not written in so decent and grave a style as the matter required. Against this act only five bishops protested. Many of that order were absent from the parliament, so the opposition made to it was not considerable.

The next bill brought into the house of lords, was concerning the admission of bishops An Act about to their sees by the king's letters patent; which being read, was committed to the the Admission archbishop of Canterbury's care on the 5th of November, and was read a second of Bishops. time on the 10th, and committed to some of the judges, and was read the third time on the 28th of November, and sent down to the commons on the 5th of December. Thero was also another bill brought in, concerning the ecclesiastical jurisdiction in the bishops' courts, on the 17th of November, and passed, and sent down on the 13th of December. But both these bills were put in one, and sent up by the commons on the 20th of that month, and assented to by the king. By this act it was set forth, "that the way of choosing bishops by congé d'élire was tedious and expenseful, that there was only a shadow of election in it, and that therefore bishops should thereafter be made by the king's letters patent, upon which they were to be consecrated: and whereas the bishops did exercise their authority, and carry on processes, in their own names, as they were wont to do in the time of popery; and since all jurisdiction, both spiritual and temporal, was derived from the king; that therefore their courts and all processes should be from henceforth carried on in the king's name, and be sealed by the king's seal, as it was in the other courts of common-law, after the 1st of July next; excepting only the archbishop of Canterbury's courts, and all collations, presentations, or letters of orders, which were to pass under the bishops' proper seals as formerly." Upon this act great advantages were taken to disparage the Reformation, as subjecting the bishops wholly to the pleasure of the court. At first, bishops were chosen and ordained by the other bishops in the countries where The ancient they lived. The apostles, by that spirit of discerning, which was one of the ways of elect- extraordinary gifts they were endued with, did ordain the first fruits of their ing Bishops. labours, and never left the clection of pastors to the discretion of the people.

The archbishop might only use his own name and seal for faculties and dispensations, being in all other cases as much restrained as other bishops.-GRANGER'S CORRECT.

Indeed, when they were to ordain deacons, who were to be trusted with the distribution of the public alms, they appointed such as the people made choice of; but when St. Paul gave directions to Timothy and Titus about the choice of pastors, all that depended on the people by them was that they should be blameless and of good report. But afterwards, the poverty of the church being such, that churchmen lived only by the free bounty of the people, it was necessary to consider them much; so that in many places the choice began among the people; and in all places it was done by their approbation and good-liking. But great disorders followed upon this as soon as, by the emperors turning Christians, the wealth of church benefices made the pastoral charge more desirable; and the vast numbers of those who turned Christians with the tide, brought in great multitudes to have their votes in these elections. The inconvenience of this was felt early in Phrygia, where the council of Laodicea made a canon against these popular elections. Yet in other parts of Asia, and at Rome, there were great and often contests about it; in some of these many men were killed. In many places the inferior clergy chose their bishops; but in most places the bishops of the province made the choice, yet so as to obtain the consent of the clergy and people. The emperors by their laws made it necessary that it should be confirmed by the metropolitans; they reserved the elections of the great sees to themselves, or at least the confirmation of them. Thus it continued till Charles the Great's time; but then the nature of church employments came to be much altered; for though the church had predial lands with the other rights that belonged to them by the Roman law, yet he first gave bishops and abbots great territorics, with some branches of royal jurisdiction in them, who held these lands of him, according to the feudal laws. This, as it carried churchmen off from the humility and abstraction from the world which became their function, so it subjected them much to the humours and interests of those princes on whom they had their dependence. The popes, who had made themselves heads of the hierarchy, could not but be glad to see churchmen grow rich and powerful in the world; but they were not so well pleased to see them made so much the more dependent on their princes; and no doubt by some of those princes that were thus become patrons of churches, the bishoprics were either given for money, or charged with reserved pensions. Upon this the popes filled the world with the complaints of simony, and of enslaving churchmen to court interests; and so would not suffer them to accept of investitures from their princes, but set up for free elections, as they called them, which they said were to be confirmed by the see apostolic. So the canons secular or regular in cathedral churches were to choose the bishops, and their election was to be confirmed at Rome; yet princes in most places got some hold of those elections, so that still they went as they had a mind they should; which was oft complained of as a great slavery on the church, and would have been more universally condemned if the world had not been convinced that the matter would not be much the better, if there should have been set up either the popular or synodical elections, in which faction was like to sway all. King Henry had continued the old way of the elections by the clergy, but so as that it seemed to be little more than a mockery; but now it was thought a more ingenuous way of proceeding, to have the thing done directly by the king, rather than under the thin covert of an invo.. luntary election.

For the other branch about ecclesiastical courts, the causes before them concerning wills and marriages being matters of a mixed nature, and which only belong to these by the laws of the land, and being no parts of the sacred functions, it was thought no invasion of tho sacred offices to have these tried in the king's name. But the collation of benefices, and giving of orders, which are the chief parts of the episcopal function, were to be performed still by the bishops in their own names. Only excommunication, by a fatal neglect, continued to be the punishment for contempts of these courts; which belonging only to the spiritual cognisance, ought to have been reserved for the bishop with the assistance of his clergy. But the canonists had so confounded all the ancient rules about the government of the church, that the reformers being called away by considerations that were more obvious and pressing, there was not that care taken in this that the thing required. And these errors or oversights in the first concoction have by a continuance grown since into so formed a strength, that it is easier to see what is amiss, than to know how to rectify it.

VOL. I.

Y

On the 29th of November the bill against vagabonds was brought in. By this it was An Act against enacted, "That all that should anywhere loiter without work, or without Vagabonds. offering themselves to work, three days together-or that should run away from work, and resolve to live idly, should be seized on; and whosoever should present them to a justice of peace, was to have them adjudged to be his slaves for two years; and they were to be marked with the Letter V. imprinted with a hot iron on their breast." A great many provisoes follow concerning clerks so convict, which show that this act was chiefly levelled at the idle monks and friars, who went about the country, and would betake themselves to no employment; but finding the people apt to have compassion on them, they continued in that course of lifo. Which was of very ill consequence to the state. For these vagrants did everywhere alienate the people's minds from the government, and persuaded them that things would never be well settled, till they were again restored to their houses. Some of these came often to London, on pretence of suing for their pensions; but really to practise up and down through the country: to prevent this, there was a proclamation set out on the 18th of September, requiring them to stay in the places where they lived, and to send up a certificate where they were, to the Court of Augmentations; who should thereupon give order for their constant payment. Some thought this law against vagabonds was too severe, and contrary to that common liberty, of which the English nation has been always very sensible, both in their own, and their neighbours' particulars. Yet it could not be denied but extreme diseases required extreme remedies: and perhaps there is no punishment too severe for persons that are in health, and yet prefer a loitering course of life to an honest employment. There followed in the act many excellent rules for providing for the truly poor and indigent in the several places where they were born, and had their abode. Of which this can only be said, that as no nation has laid down moro effectual rules for the supplying the poor than England, so that indeed none can be in absolute want; so the neglect of these laws is a just and great reproach on those who are charged with the execution of them, when such numbers of poor vagabonds swarm everywhere without the due restraints that the laws have appointed.

An Act giving the Chantries to the King.

On the 6th of December, the bill for giving the chantries to the king was brought into the house of lords. It was read the second time on the 12th, the third time on the 13th, and the fourth time on the 14th of that month. It was much opposed, both by Cranmer on the one hand, and the popish bishops on the other. The late king's executors saw they could not pay his debts, nor satisfy themselves in their own pretensions formerly mentioned, out of the king's revenue; and so intended to have these to be divided among them. Cranmer opposed it long. For the clergy boing much impoverished by the sale of the impropriated tithes, that ought in all reason to have returned into the church, but upon the dissolution of the abbeys were all sold among the laity, he saw no probable way remaining for their supply, but to save these endowments till the king were of age; being confident he was so piously disposed, that they should easily persuade him to convert them all to the bettering of the condition of the poor clergy, that were now brought into extreme misery. And therefore he was for reforming and preserving these foundations, till the king's full age. The popish bishops liked these endowments so well, that, upon far different motives, they were for continuing them in the state they were in. But those who were to gain by it were so many, that the act passed; the archbishop of Canterbury, the bishops of London, Durham, Ely, Norwich, Hereford, Worcester, and Chichester, dissenting. So it being sent down to the house of commons, was there much opposed by some burgesses; who represented that the boroughs for which they served could not maintain their churches, and other public works of the guilds and fraternities, if the rents belonging to them were given to the king, for these were likewise in the act. This was chiefly done by the burgesses of Lynn and Coventry; who were so active, that the whole house was much set against that part of the bill for the guild-lands. Therefore those who managed that house for the court, took these off by an assurance that their guild-lands should be restored to them. And so they desisted from their opposition, and the bill passed on the promise given to them, which was afterwards made good by the protector. In the preamble of the act, it set forth, "that the great superstition of Christians, rising out of their ignorance of the true way of salvation by the death of Christ,

instead of which they had set up the vain conceits of purgatory, and masses satisfactory, was much supported by trentals and chantries. And since the converting these to godly uses, such as the endowing of schools, provisions for the poor, and the augmenting of places in the universities, could not be done by parliament, they therefore committed it to the care of the king. And then reciting the act made in the thirty-seventh year of his father's reign, they give the king all such chantries, colleges, and chapels as were not possessed by the late king, and all that had been in being any time these five years last past: as also all revenues belonging to any church, for anniversaries, obits, and lights; together with all guild-lands, which any fraternity of men enjoyed, for obits, or the like: and appoint these to be converted to the maintenance of grammar-schools, or preachers, and for the increase of vicarages." After this followed the act giving the king the customs known by the name of tonnage and poundage; besides some other laws, of matters that are not needful to be remembered in this history. Last of all came the king's general pardon; with the common exceptions, among which, one was of those who were then prisoners in the Tower of London, in which the duke of Norfolk was included. So all business being ended, the parliament was prorogued from the 24th of December to the 20th of April following.

but not carriod.

But having given this account of these bills that were passed, I shall not esteem it an Acts that unfruitful piece of history to show what other bills were designed. There were were proposed put into the house of lords, two bills that were stifled. The one was, for the use of the Scriptures, which came not to a second reading. The other was a bill for creating a now court of chancery for ecclesiastical and civil causos, which was committed to some bishops and temporal lords, but never more mentioned. The commons sent up also some bills, which the lords did not agree to. One was about benefices with cure, and residence. It was committed, but never reported. Another was for the reformation of divers laws, and of the courts of common law; and a third was, that married men might be priests, and have benefices. To this the commons did so readily agree, that it being put in on the 19th of December, and read then for the first time, it was read twice the next day, and sent up to the lords on the 21st. But being read there once, it was like to have raised such debates, that it being resolved to end the session before Christmas, the lords laid it aside.

The Convocation meets. The lower House made Bome Petitions.

But while the parliament was sitting, they were not idle in the convocation, though the popish party was yet so prevalent in both houses, that Cranmer had no hopes of doing anything till they were freed of the trouble which some of the great bishops gave them. The most important thing they did was the carrying up four petitions to the bishops, which will be found in the Collection. The first, that according to the statute made in the reign of the late king, there might be persons empowered for reforming the ecclesiastical laws. The second, that according to Number 16. the ancient custom of the nation, and the tenor of the bishops' writ to the parliament, the inferior clergy might be admitted again to sit in the house of commons, or that no acts concerning matters of religion might pass without the sight and assent of the clergy. The third, that since divers prelates, and other divines, had been in the late king's time appointed to alter the service of the church, and had made some progress in it, that this might be brought to its full perfection. The fourth, that some consideration might be had for the maintenance of the clergy, the first year they came into their livings, in which they were charged with the first-fruits, to which they added a desire to know whether they might safely speak their minds about religion, without the danger of any law. For the first of these four petitions, an account of it shall be given hereafter. As to the second, it was a thing of great consequence, and deserves to be farther considered in this place.

The inferior

Anciently, all the freemen of England, or at least those that held of the crown in chief, came to parliament; and then the inferior clergy had writs as well as the Clergy desire superior, and the first of the three estates of the kingdom were the bishops, the to be admitted other prelates, and the inferior clergy. But when the parliament was divided to have Re into two houses, then the clergy made likewise a body of their own, and sate in in the House convocation, which was the third estate; but the bishops having a double capaof Commons. city, the one of ecclesiastical prelature, the other of being the king's barons, they

presentatives

had a right to sit with the lords as a part of their estate, as well as in the convocation. And though by parity of reason it might seem that the rest of the clergy, being freeholders as well as clerks, had an equal right to choose, or be chosen, into the house of commons; yet whether they were ever in possession of it, or whether, according to the clause premonentes in the bishops' writ, they were ever a part of the house of commons, is a just doubt. For besides this assertion in the petition that was mentioned, and a more large one in the second Number 17. petition, which they presented to the same purpose, which is likewise in the Collection, I have never met with any good reason to satisfy me in it. There was a general tradition in queen Elizabeth's reign, that the inferior clergy departed from their right of being in the house of commons, when they were all brought in the pramunire upon Cardinal Wolsey's legatine power, and made their submission to the king. But that is not credible for as there is no footstep of it, which in a time of so much writing and printing must have remained, if so great a change had been then made; so it cannot be thought, that those who made this address but seventeen years after that submission, (many being alive in this, who wore of that convocation, Polidore Virgil in particular, a curious observer since he was maintained here to write the "History of England,") none of them should have remembered a thing that was so fresh, but have appealed to writs and ancient practices. But though this design of bringing the inferior clergy into the house of commons did not take at this time, yet it was again set on foot, in the end of queen Elizabeth's reign, and reasons were offered to persuade her to set it forward; which not being then successful, the same reasons were again offered to king James, to induce him to endeavour it. The paper that discovers this was communicated to me by Dr. Borlace, the worthy author of the "History of the Irish Rebellion." It is corrected in many places by the hand of bishop Ravis, then bishop of Loudon, a man of great worth. This, for the affinity of the matter, and the curiosity of the Number 18. thing, I have put into the Collection, with a large marginal note, as it was designed to be transcribed for king James. But whether this matter was ever much considered, or lightly laid aside, as a thing unfit and unpracticable, does not appear; certain it is that it came to nothing. Upon the whole matter, it is not certain what was the

power or right of these proctors of the clergy in former times: some are of opinion, Coke, 4, Iust. that they were only assistants to the bishops, but had no voice in either house of 3, 4. parliament. This is much confirmed by an act passed in the parliament of Ireland, in the twenty-eighth year of the former reign, which sets forth in the preamble, "That though the proctors of the clergy were always summoned to parliament, yet they were no part of it; nor had they any right to vote in it, but were only assistants in case matters of controversy or learning came before them, as the convocation was in England, which had boen determined by the judges of England after much inquiry made about it. But the proctors were then pretending to so high an authority, that nothing could pass without their consents; and it was presumed they were set on to it by the bishops, whose chaplains they were for the most part. Therefore they were by that act declared to have no right to vote."

From this some infer they were no other in England, and that they were only the bishops' assistants and council. But as the clause premonentes in the writ seems to make them a part of the parliament, so these petitions suppose that they sate in the house of commons anciently, where it cannot be imagined they could sit if they came only to be assistants to the bishops, for then they must have sate in the house of lords rather; as the judges, the masters of chancery, and the king's counsel do. Nor is it reasonable to think they had no voice for then their sitting in parliament had been so insignificant a thing, that it is not likely they would have used such endeavours to be restored to it, since their coming to parliament upon such an account must have been only a charge to them.

There is against this opinion an objection of great force, from the acts passed in the 21st year of Richard II.'s reign. In the second act of that parliament it is said, "that it was first prayed by the commons, and that the lords spiritual and the proctors of the clergy did assent to it, upon which the king, by the assent of all the lords and commons, did enact it." The 12th act of that parliament was a repeal of the whole parliament that was held in the 11th year of that reign; and concerning it, it is expressed, "That the lords spiritual and temporal, the proctors of the clergy, and the commons, being severally examined, did all