the premises shall be adjudged high treason." There is too much reason to suppose that this Act was specially passed to destroy Bishop Fisher and Sir T. More (whose cases will be related below), who had refused to take the oath prescribed by the Succession Act. But whether this was so or no, the Act was a disgrace to English legislation, and was the source of gross and cruel oppression. § 34. By other Acts passed in this session the king was invested with a right to the first-fruits and tenths,1 which the clergy fondly hoped that they were delivered from when they were taken from the pope, and a provision was made for the appointment of suffragan bishops,3 a somewhat sorry substitute for Wolsey's grand scheme of erecting twenty new sees in England.

§ 35. Thus at the close of the year 1534 the papal power, so long intrusively dominant in England, had been legally repudiated by the constitutional acts of both clergy and laity. But in doing this the estates of the realm had invested the king with an unconstitutional and perilous authority, which, though overruled for good ends, was yet productive of great abuses, and has been the cause of no little scandal to the Church of England.

§ 36. In the last session of 1534 the Convocation of Canterbury was occupied in censuring certain books printed abroad. which it is said were full of heretical opinions, and it also unanimously petitioned the king to fulfil his promise of causing the Scriptures to be translated into the vulgar tongue by honest and learned men, with a view to their being delivered to the people.* During the year 1535 no important Act was passed in Parliament, but the last session of this remarkable Parliament, which commenced February 4, 1536, was rendered famous by the Act for the Suppression of the Lesser Monasteries. An account of this will be given in the chapter which treats of the Suppression.

126 Henry VIII. c. 3.

2 "At that time it had perhaps abated much of their heartiness if they had imagined that the duties should be still paid."-Burnet.

3 26 Henry III. c. 14.

4

Joyce's Sacred Synods, 380.

NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS.

henceforth, presume to attempt, allege, | same, that we will never, from henceclaim, or yet put in use, or to enact, pro- forth, enact, put in use, promulge, or mulge, or execute any canons, constitu- execute any NEW canons or constitutions tion, or ordinance provincial, or by any provincial, or any NEW ordinance, proother name whatsoever they may be vincial or synodal, in our Convocation or called in our Convocation in time coming, Synod in time coming (which Convocawhich Convocation is always, hath been, tior is always, hath been, and must be and must be, assembled only by your assembled only by your high commandroyal commandment or writ, unless your ment or writ), unless your Highness by Highness by your royal assent shall your royal assent shall license us to license us so to make, promulge, and assemble our Convocation, and to make, execute the same, and thereto give your promulge, and execute such constitutions most royal assent and authority. Secondly, and ordinances as shall be made in the that whereas divers constitutions and same; and thereto give your royal assent canons provincial, which have been here- and authority. Secondarily, that whereas tofore enacted, be thought to be not divers of the constitutions, ordinances, only much prejudicial to your preroga- and canons provincial or synodal, which tive royal, but also overmuch onerous hath been heretofore enacted, be thought to your Highness's subjects, your foresaid to be not only much prejudicial to your preclergy is contented it be submitted to the rogative royal, but also overmuch onerous examination and judgment of thirty-two to your Highness's subjects, your clergy persons, whereof sixteen to be of the aforesaid is contented, if it may stand Upper and Nether House of the Tempor- with your Highness's pleasure, that it be alty, and other sixteen of the clergy, all committed to the examination and judgto be chosen by your Highness. So that ment of your Grace, and of thirty-two finally, whichsoever of the said constitu- persons, whereof sixteen to be of the tions shall be thought and determined Upper and Nether House of the Temporby the most part of the said thirty-two alty, and other sixteen of the clergy, all persons worthy to be abrogated and to be chosen and appointed by your most annulled, the same to be afterwards noble Grace. So that, finally, whichsoever taken away by your most noble Grace and of the said constitutions, ordinances, or the clergy, and to be abolite as of no canons, provincial or synodal, shall be force nor strength. Thirdly, that all thought and determined by your Grace, other of the said constitutions or canons and by the most part of the said thirtybeing viewed and approbate by the said two persons, not to stand with God's thirty-two persons, which, by the most law and the laws of your realm, the part of their judgments, do stand with same to be abrogated and taken away by God's law and your Highness's to stand in your Grace and the clergy; and such of full strength and power, your Grace's them as shall be seen by your Grace, and most royal assent once impetrate and by the most part of the said thirty-two given to the same." (Collier, Records, persons, to stand with God's laws and No. xix.) with the laws of your realm, to stand in full strength and power, your Grace's most royal assent and authority once impetrate and fully given to the same."(Collier, Records, No. xx.)

2. The last submission of the clergy to Henry VIII., subscribed by the Upper House of Convocation, May 16, 1532.

"We, your most humble subjects, daily orators, and bedemen of your clergy of England, having our special trust and confidence in your excellent wisdom, your princely goodness and fervent zeal to the promotion of God's honour and Christian religion, and also in your learning far exceeding in our judgment the learning of all other kings and princes that we have read of, and doubting nothing but that the same shall still continue and increase in your Majesty First, do offer and promise, in verbo sacerdoti, here unto your Highness, submitting ourselves most humbly to the

[It will be seen that the only essential difference between the two forms is the introduction of the word new into the latter. By this the clergy retain the right of putting forth, and putting in use, all old canons not condemned, and ordered to be abolished. As the thirtytwo persons never did, in fact, complete their work, all the old canon law of the Church of England is now in force, except where it is contrariant to statute law. This has frequently been ruled to be the case by eminent judges of the common law.]

mer.

CHAPTER VI.

PROGRESS OF REFORMING OPINIONS.

1528-1536.

It attacks the Doctrine of Pur§ 4. Sir T. More invited by the § 5. His Supplication of Souls.

§ 1. The Supplication of Beggars. § 2. gatory. § 3. Sketch of its contents. Bishops to take up the controversy. § 6. Proclamation against heretical books. § 7. Form of exhortation against them. § 8. John Fryth. § 9. He answers the defences of Purgatory. § 10. Is arrested in England. § 11. Writes on the Eucharist. § 12. Is condemned to be burned. § 13. Fryth and Cran§ 14. Effect of his execution. § 15. Tyndale as a controversialist. § 16. More's Dialogue. § 17. Tyndale's reply. § 18. More's Confutation. § 19. More's controversy with Barnes. § 20. More did not use personal violence. § 21. Case of T. Phillips. § 22. Hugh Latimer. § 23. He is called before the Convocation, and recants. § 24. Crumwell's designs for influencing public opinion. § 25. King's circular to the Justices of the Peace. § 26. Cranmer's Book of Directions. § 27. The various parts of the spiritualty repudiate the pope's authority. § 28. The king checks the advance of reforming views. § 29. The first English Bible. § 30. The first reformed Primer. § 31. The queen's patronage favourable to the growth of reforming views.

§ 1. THE diffusion of the New Testament in English, and of various English reforming books printed abroad, greatly stimulated the growth of reforming opinions in England during the year 1527. In the year 1528 there was brought into England, and handed about from one to another, the most free-spoken and bitter attack upon the old superstitious doctrines which had yet appeared. This was the Supplication of Beggars, written by Simon Fish, a gentleman of Gray's Inn, who having incurred the anger of Cardinal Wolsey by taking part in a comedy which satirised him, had fled abroad and joined Tyndale in Germany. His pamphlet, printed abroad, was conveyed secretly into England, and (it is said) brought to the notice of Anne Boleyn, who showed it to the king. Whether that were so or not, it immediately attracted great attention, as by its bold and scurrilous language it was well calculated to do.

§ 2. The Supplication takes as the material for its satire the most grotesque and the most feebly supported of all the medieval doctrines-viz. that of purgatory. This was a point which in vited attack, as upon this doctrine the raison d'être of all the religious houses and establishments, monasteries, chantries, etc., rested. The swarming abundance of men in the garb of "reli

gious;" the absorption of so much valuable property to what seemed to many utterly worthless purposes; the constant solicitation for alms, not unmingled with threats of unpleasant consequences if the demand were refused,-must have been grievously exasperating to the mind of the laymen of England, especially when they had been brought in any way to doubt of the truth of the system which produced these effects. Fish, as a London lawyer conversant with the prevalence of this feeling, skilfully availed himself of it, and aimed a blow at the doctrine of purgatory, through the sides of those who so obtrusively and irritatingly clamoured and vexed the laymen on the ground which it furnished to them.

§ 3. The "Supplication" is in the form of a petition addressed to the king by "his poor bedemen, the wretched hideous monsters upon whom scarcely for horror any eye dare look, the foul unhappy sort of lepers and other sore people, needy, impotent, lame, sick, that live only by alms." These wretches are made to utter a piteous complaint against the absorption of all alms by the monks, friars, and mass priests, under pretence of delivering souls from purgatory-a doctrine which is merely a dream and a delusion, having no foundation in Scripture or truth. The beggars therefore demand "that these sturdy loobies (the monks and friars) be set abroad into the world, to get them wives of their own, to get their own living by the sweat of their faces according to the commandment of God, and if they be idle, ' tie them to the carts, to be whipped naked about every market town till they fall to labour.' Then shall the king be better obeyed, matrimony be better kept, the gospel be better preached, and none shall rob the poor of his alms." 1

§ 4. The dissemination of this and similar books in the country, and the avidity with which they were bought and read, naturally made the bishops very uneasy. Tonstal, Bishop of London, to whom, as to Wolsey, belongs the great praise of being unwilling to inflict capital punishment for heretical opinions, was yet very active in using all other means for suppressing them. With this view he pressed into the service Sir Thomas More, whose wit and power of writing were much admired in his day. More had not yet reached the high post of chancellor, but he had been Speaker of the House of Commons, had been employed in important diplo matic trusts, was distinguished both as a lawyer and a man of letters. In his controversial work against Luther he had utterly discarded all those milder sentiments which in his Utopia he had appeared to entertain for theological dissidents, and he seemed by Foxe's Acts and Monuments, i 229, sq.