CHAP. long as his Lordship continued in the house. Which disIV. grace of the Bishop, he says, was imputed to his having lost his principal support, the Duke of Suffolk, and his two powerful friends at court, the Bishops Mullins and Ayscough. In this great council, which Gascoignet intimates was summoned by the King on our Bishop's account, several great Doctors of Divinity being there present, demanded of the Archbishop of Canterbury Bishop Pecock's works, that they might have them to examine, and that accordingly the Archbishop permitted them to have them. This demand was opposed by the Bishop, who desired and petitioned, that he might not be judged by their judgment, but by the judgment of his peers, or such as were equal to him in scholastic disputation. The Bishop likewise told the Archbishop, that he would bring before him all his books which he had made three years before that day, and for those books would be answerable; but as for the other books, which before that time had been published and dispersed, he could not answer for them, because those books were not corrected by him. Accordingly afterwards nine of our Bishop's books were brought before the Archbishop, which were found to be cancelled and rased in several places, and written anew by the Bishop. After the producing of these before his Grace, &c. the Bishop, we are told, went out of the King's council-chamber at Westminster.

18. The reasons why the lords temporal were so much set against our Bishop, we are told by the same writer, were, 1. That he wrote such profound matters in English, as were more likely to hurt the readers and hearers of them, than to do them good; for instance, that the law of nature is to be preferred above the written law, and even the sacred one; that a man is to adhere to his own reason; that the soul of Christ did not descend into hell;

Iste Pecock Episcopus, A. D. 1457, in sabbato infra octavas sanctissimi Martini Episcopi et Confessoris citatus et monitus per Archiepiscopum Cantuariensem, Thomam Bourcher. Dict. Theol. MS.

IV.

and that the Apostles did not make our common Creed, CHAP. &c. 2. That the Bishop had written a letter to Sir Thomas Cannynges, the Mayor of London, which letter the A. D. 1456. Mayor sent to the King, before whom and his lords it was read, and in it were found evidences, or conjectures, or probable persuasions, or suspicions of the changing or disturbance of the faith or religion, and of an insurrection in the kingdom, to the great disturbance of the people, and the scandal of the great lords of the kingdom, whom he represented in his letter as adhering to him and his English books. 3. That he had made a new and tedious creed of his own in English, and had changed our common Creed, which the Apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ had set forth, having denied several articles of it, both by word of mouth, and by his writings.

Dict. Theol.

19. The great Doctors likewise were of opinion, that Gascoigne, the books published by the Bishop, written in English and MS. Latin, deserved to be kept from the reading and hearing of all men, for these following reasons. 1. That in this book of Faith, he asserted and wrote, that this saying of St. Gregory, Faith hath no merit which is proved by human reason, is false; and that St. Gregory contradicts himself. 2. That in the same book he says, that the subtile Doctor was deceived in saying, that Christ's descent into hell is an article of faith, because it is placed in the Creed; and that in St. Augustine's time this article was not in the Creed, and therefore it is not true, that the Apostles put it there. 3. That in a letter of the Bishop's directed to Godard, a Doctor of the Order of the Friars Minorites or Franciscans, he called the modern preachers pulpit-bawlers. 4. That his Lordship preached at London at Paul's Cross, that Bishops paying to the Pope of Rome, before their admission by the Pope to be Bishops, 5000 marks, or a greater sum, do not sin on this account, nor do give any thing to the Pope by this payment, but only tender to him what is his own; as a bailiff does, when he accounts with his lord. 5. That he wrote, that no one is obliged to believe the determination of holy Church, but

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CHAP. that there is a catholic Church. 6. That he affirmed, that the goods of Churchmen, and the riches of Bishops, are not the goods of the poor; but are as much their property, as are the temporal estates of those who have them by inheritance. Such, it seems, were the Bishop's crimes, that so highly exasperated the King and his Lords, and so many of the inferior Clergy, and set them so much against him, as never to leave off prosecuting his Lordship, till they had got him deprived of his bishopric.

20. But whatever provocation these opinions of the Bishop might give the Clergy thus to treat his Lordship, it seems as if the King and his nobles were offended with him on another account, viz. his speaking so freely of the King and the war with France, as he had done in his Repressour, &c, a book published by his Lordship about seven years before. Here the Bishop observed, that this war had then been continued thirty-four years, and had occasioned much murder of blood and of souls on both the English and French side; on which occasion his Lordship thus expressed himself: "Wolde God, that the King of "Ynglond wolde sette so miche bisynes for to conquere " and reforme his londe of Ynglond from this seid wickid "scole, [the Wiclifists] and fro othere defautis, as miche "as he dooth about the conquest of his londe of Nor"mandi and of Fraunce; and peraventure he schulde then "have mo thanke and reward at his last comyng hoom "to the King of blisse, and more noble flavour of digne "fame among alle the princis of the world, and the wor"thi peeris of heven, then he schal have bi miche of his "labour and cost doon about the worldli conquest of "Fraunce." It is not improbable that the Bishop's enemies, who were glad of any opportunity of doing him an injury, might take advantage of these expressions of his, and represent his Lordship as intending by them to reflect on the King and his council, as not well affected to the Church, no wise zealous for its rights and privileges, and much more mindful of this world than of that which is to come.

21. However this be, we are told, that "our Bishop's CHAP. "opinions, which he had propagated among the common

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people, by publishing them in English, coming to the Acta Johan. 66 ears of those men, who were the more valiant champions stede, &c. "of the faith, and bolder soldiers of the ecclesiastical MS. "court, they resolved to nip this plague in the bud, and "provide themselves of such a remedy, as might effec"tually stop the mouth of him who uttered such perverse things, and cut off his hand, who wrote things not only "to be suspected, but which deserved to be burnt. That "going therefore to the Archbishop, the solid hinge and "stout pillar of the Church of England, they besought "him, that for the preservation of the ship of faith, now "in danger of being sunk, his Grace would cause the Bishop to be cited, and appoint him the day, hour, and place to appear before him, to answer those things "which should be objected to him in a cause of faith.”

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22. The Archbishop, to satisfy the importunity of these Doctors, &c. ordered the Bishop to be cited to appear before him, and to bring with him the books which he had written and published, against which exceptions had been taken, that so they might be examined, according to a decree made and promulged some time before. This decree was a constitution of Archbishop Arundel's, made A.D. Lyndwood, 1408; by which it was ordained, that no little book or 285. tract compiled by John Wiclif, or any one else in his time or since, or to be compiled hereafter, shall henceforth be read in the schools, halls, or inns, or in any other places whatsoever, within the province of Canterbury, &c. unless by the University of Oxford or Cambridge, or at least by twelve persons of each University chosen for the purpose, it be first examined, and being unanimously examined by the two Universities, be afterwards expressly approved by the Archbishop, &c. and in the name and by the authority of the University delivered to the stationers to be copied,

This was the way of publishing books before the invention of printing, or the introduction of it into England.

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CHAP. and a faithful collation being made of it, it be sold or given to those who desire to have it; the original for ever remaining in some chest of the University. Whoever acted otherwise was to be punished as a sower of schism and fautor of heresy, as the quality of the fault required. Lyndwood, The same Archbishop ordained, that nobody hereafter

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should by his own authority translate any text of holy Scripture into English, by way of a book, little book, or tract; and that he who acted otherwise should be punished as a fautor of heresy and error. This our canonist Lyndwood understood to mean the applying the text of holy Scripture, and translating it into English, in the compiling any treatise of the sayings of the Doctors, or their Now our Bishop's books being many of them written in English, and his Lordship having applied the text of holy Scripture to the several subjects which he treated, translating it into English, an advantage was given to his adversaries against him by these constitutions. For though Lyndwood understands by the words own authority, a man's private judgment, and intimates, that it is otherwise when any text of holy Scripture is so applied and translated into English by the authority of the Bishop, according to which interpretation our Bishop might possibly think himself secure, as being invested with that character; yet still his Lordship had not complied with the directions of the constitution, which ordained that no books should be published, till after they had been examined by twenty-four Doctors of both the Universities, &c.

23. This citation of our Bishop to appear before the Archbishop, and produce the books he had written, in order to their being examined as abovesaid, soon made a great noise; and it was presently published in the pulpits, by such of the Clergy as were prejudiced against the Bishop, at Paul's Cross and elsewhere, that his Lordship had written in the said books certain conclusions contrary to the orthodox faith, and did pertinaciously hold and defend them. Of this the Bishop seems to have complained to the Archbishop as very injurious to his state and good