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time known; and that they would be with the crown in those cases specially; and in all other cases which should be attempted against the crown, with all their power.

The archbishops, bishops, and prelates present in parliament,-making protestations that it was not in their mind to say, nor affirm, that the bishop of Rome might not excommunicate bishops, nor that he might make translation of prelates after the law of Holy Church,-severally answered, that if any executions of processes of the king's court be made by any, and censures of excommunication be made against bishops or others, for that they had made execution of such commandments; and that if any execution of translations be made of prelates who were profitable and necessary to the king; or that the sage people of his council, without his assent and against his will, be removed and carried out of the realm, so that the substance and treasure of the realm be consumed,-that the same is against the king and his crown.

The procurators, or proxies of the absent prelates, answered "that the lords spiritual would, and ought to be, with the king in these cases, in lawfully maintaining of his crown, and in all other cases touching his crown and regalty, as they be bound by their ligeance."

The statute concludes with an enactment imposing the penalties of præmunire on all who should purchase or pursue, in the court of Rome,-by any such translations, processes, and sentences of excommunication,-bulls, or other things whatever which touch the king, his crown, his regalty, or his realm, and upon all those who should bring them into the realm, receive them and execute them there.1

Few who read these almost dramatic proceedings will fail to admire the bold and patriotic conduct of the commons, the loyal answer of the peers, and to remark the cautious and conditional answer of the prelates, whose interests and whose prejudices, it is too apparent, inclined them to Rome in preference to their king and country.

116 Richard II., cap. 5, A.D. 1392.

Henry IV. was not behind his predecessors in resistance to the aggressions of the Pope. In his reign were passed several statutes of more brevity, but with equal point and spirit.

The first statute is directed against a new mode of annoyance proceeding from the Pope, that of exempting clerical persons from their obedience. It imposes the penalties of præmunire on such provisors as should accept the Pope's provision to exempt them from obedience regular, or obedience ordinary; or to have any office perpetual within houses of religion. In the next chapter of the same statute it combats a new grievance complained of by the commons-that the religious men of the Cistercian order, in England, had purchased bulls to be discharged from the payment of tithes of their lands, to the prejudice of the church to which the tithes belonged. It declared that the Cistercians should stand in the state they were before the bulls were purchased; and that they and all other persons who should put such bulls in execution, or purchase new bulls, should be liable to the penalties of præmunire. A few years later a statute was passed, that the farmers and occupiers of the lands of aliens should pay their tithes to the parsons and vicars of holy Church, notwithstanding that the lands were seized by the king, or prohibition made to the contrary.3

These statutes conclude with one in the ninth year of Henry IV., which declared that the elections of all archbishoprics, bishoprics, abbeys, priories, deaneries, and other dignities elective, be free, without being in anywise interrupted by the Pope, or by the commandment of the king. The king's prerogatives were, however, preserved.4 Between this time and the reign of Henry VII. there are several statutes to confirm the rights and privileges of the Church, but none which made any material alteration of the law.

From these statutes it is apparent that our ancestors, although Roman Catholics, were not Papists; that although

1 2 Hen. IV., c. 3, A.D. 1400.

2 Idem, cap. 4.

35 Hen. IV., c. 11, A.D. 1403. 4 9 Hen. IV., c. 9, A.D. 1407.

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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.)

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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."1 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.