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Clark Forklift CDP CGP 40 - 50 GEF 9620 Parts Manual 4370130 EN DE ES

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 Spes erat ampla quidem numerosâ prole Joanna
Henricum ut faceret regem facunda parentem.
Sed Superis aliter visum est, cruciatus acerbus
Distorsit vacuum lethali tormine ventrem.
Frigora crediderim temere contracta fuisse
In causâ, superat vis morbi: jamque salute
Desperatâ omni, nymphis hæc rettulit almis.
Non mihi mors curæ est, perituram agnosco creavit
Omnipotens—Moriar—terram tibi debeo terra:
At pius Elysiis animus spatiabitur hortis.
Deprecor hoc unum. Maturos filius annos
Exigat, et tandem regno det jura paterno.
Dixit et æternâ claudebat lumina nube.
Nulla dies pressit graviori clade Britannum.

Genethliacon Edwardi Principis.

[322] Rolls House MS., A 2, 30. I trace the report to within a month of Jane Seymour’s
death. Sanders therefore must be held acquitted of the charge of having invented it. The
circumstances of the death itself are so clear as to leave no trace of uncertainty. How many
of the interesting personal anecdotes of remarkable people, which have gained and which
retain the public confidence, are better founded than this? Prudence, instructed by
experience, enters a general caution against all anecdotes particularly striking.
[323] Rolls House MS. A 2, 30.
[324] Instructions for the Household of Edward Prince of Wales: Rolls House MS.
[325] State Papers, Vol. VIII. p. 2.
[326] Pole to the Bishop of Liège: Epist. Vol. II. p. 41.
[327] Nott’s Wyatt, p. 312.
[328] Nott’s Wyatt, p. 319.
[329] Ibid.
[330] Ibid. p. 322.
[331] Mary’s submission dates from the fall of Anne Boleyn. It was offered by her on the
instant, in three successive letters; two of which are printed in the State Papers, a third is in
MS. in the State Paper Office.
[332] “And here Sir Thomas Wyatt shall deliver unto the Emperor the letter written unto
him from the said Lady Mary, whereby it shall appear how she doth repent herself, and how
she would that he should repent, and take of her the tenour. Whereof it shall like him to
consider, it is not to be thought but it will acquit him therein, his Grace, nevertheless, being
so good a lord and father to her as he is, and undoubtedly will be.”—Instructions to Sir
Thomas Wyatt: Nott’s Wyatt, p. 314.
[333] Cromwell to Wyatt: Nott, p. 321.
[334] State Papers, Vol. VIII., p. 34.
[335] “My lord: this shall be to advertise you that the Imperials and Frenchmen have taken
a truce for ten months, which, as we think, be great news, and of great weight and
moment. Howbeit, my trust is, the King’s Highness knows what is the occasion of this
sudden turn, or else it will trouble my brain to think of it.”—Sir William Fitzwilliam to
Cromwell: MS. State Paper Office, second series, Vol. XI.
[336] Henry VIII. to Wyatt: Nott’s Wyatt.
[337] Cromwell to Wyatt, November 29, 1537: Nott’s Wyatt.
[338] Better known as Mary of Guise, mother of Mary Queen of Scots.
[339] Commission of Peter Mewtas to Madame de Longueville: State Papers, Vol. VIII. p.
10.
[340] Hutton to Sir Thomas Wriothesley: State Papers, Vol. VIII. p. 9.
[341] Henry VIII. to Sir Thomas Wyatt: Nott’s Wyatt.
[342] Same to the same: Ibid.
[343] State Papers, Vol. VIII. p. 17.
[344] Hutton to Cromwell: Ibid.
[345] A story passes current with popular historians, that the Duchess of Milan, when Henry
proposed for her, replied that she had but one head; if she had two, one should be at his
Majesty’s service. The less active imagination of contemporaries was contented with
reporting that she had said that the English ministers need not trouble themselves to make
the marriage; “they would lose their labours, for she minded not to fix her heart that way.”
Sir Thomas Wriothesley, who was then resident at Brussels, thought it worth his while to
ask her whether these words had really been used by her.
“M. Ambassador,” she replied, “I thank God He hath given me a better stay of myself than
to be of so light sort. I assure you, that neither those words that you have spoken, nor any
like to them, have passed at any time from my mouth: and so I pray you report for me.”
Wriothesley took courage upon this answer, and asked what was her real inclination in the
matter.
“At this she blushed exceedingly. ‘As for mine inclination,’ quoth she, ‘what should I say?
You know I am at the Emperor’s commandment.’—‘Yea, madam,’ quoth Wriothesley; ‘but
this matter is of such nature, that there must be a concurrence between his commandment
and your consent, or else you may percase repent it when it shall be too late. Your answer
is such as may serve both for your modesty and for my satisfaction; and yet, if it were a
little plainer, I could be the better contented.’ With that she smiled, and again said, ‘You
know I am the Emperor’s poor servant, and must follow his pleasure.’—‘Marry,’ quoth
Wriothesley, ‘then I may hope to be among the Englishmen that shall be first acquainted
with my new mistress, for the Emperor hath instantly desired it. Oh, madam!’ quoth he,
‘how happy shall you be if it be your chance to be matched with my master. If God send
you that hap, you shall be matched with the most gentle gentleman that liveth; his nature
so benign and pleasant, that I think till this day no man hath heard many angry words pass
his lips. As God shall help me, if he were no king, I think, and you saw him, you would say,
that for his virtue, gentleness, wisdom, experience, goodliness of person, and all other
qualities meet to be in a prince, he were worthy before all others to be made a king.’... She
smiled, and Wriothesley thought would have laughed out, had not her gravity forbidden
it.... She said she knew his Majesty was a good and noble prince. Her honest countenance,
he added, and the few words that she wisely spake, together with that which he knew by
her chamberers and servants, made him to think there could be no doubt of her.”—State
Papers, Vol. VIII. p. 146.
[346] “Mr. Wyatt, now handle this matter in such earnest sort with the Emperor, as the king,
who by your fair words hath conceived as certain to find assured friendship therein, be not
deceived. The Frenchmen affirm so constantly and boldly that nothing spoken by the
Emperor, either touching the principal contrahents or further alliance, hath any manner of
good faith, but such fraud and deceit, that I assure you, on my faith, it would make any
man to suspect his proceeding. Labour, Mr. Wyatt, to cause the Emperor, if it be possible, to
write.”—Cromwell to Wyatt: Nott’s Wyatt, p. 333.
[347] Wyatt’s Oration to the Judges: Nott’s Wyatt.
[348] “I have received three houses since I wrote last to your lordship, the which I think
would not a little have moved your lordship, if ye had known the order of them: some
sticking fast in windows, naked, going to drabs, so that the pillar was fain to be sawed, to
have him out; some being plucked from under drabs’ beds; some fighting, so that the knife
hath stuck in the bones; with such other pretty business, of the which I have too much.”—
Richard suffragan Bishop of Dover to Cromwell: Suppression of the Monasteries, p. 198.
[349] A finger of St. Andrew was pawned at Northampton for 40l.; “which we intend not,”
wrote a dry visitor, “to redeem of the price, except we be commanded so to do.”—Ibid. p.
172.
[350] Printed in Fuller’s Church History, Vol. III. p. 394.
[351] Fuller’s Church History, Vol. III. p. 398.
[352] “According to your commission, we have viewed a certain supposed relic, called the
blood of Hales, which was enclosed within a round beryll, garnished and bound on every
side with silver, which we caused to be opened in the presence of a great multitude of
people. And the said supposed relic we caused to be taken out of the said beryll, and have
viewed the same, being within a little glass, and also tried the same according to our
powers, by all means; and by force of the view and other trials, we judge the substance
and matters of the said supposed relic to be an unctuous gum, coloured, which, being in
the glass, appeared to be a glistening red, resembling partly the colour of blood. And after,
we did take out part of the said substance out of the glass, and then it was apparent yellow
colour, like amber or base gold, and doth cleave as gum or bird-lime. The matter and
feigned relic, with the glass containing the same, we have enclosed in red wax, and
consigned it, with our seals.”—Hugh Bishop of Worcester, with the other Commissioners, to
Cromwell: Latimer’s Remains, p. 407.
The Abbot of Hales subsequently applied for permission to destroy the case in which the
blood had been.
“It doth stand yet in the place where it was, so that I am afraid lest it should minister
occasion to any weak person looking thereupon to abuse his conscience therewith; and
therefore I beseech for license that I may put it down every stick and stone, so that no
manner of token or remembrance of that forged relict shall remain.”—Abbot of Hales to
Cromwell: MS. Tanner 105.
[353] Barlow to Cromwell: Suppression of the Monasteries, p. 183.
[354] Latimer to Cromwell: Remains, p. 395.
[355] Geoffrey Chambers to Cromwell: MS. State Paper Office, second series.
[356] Ibid.
[357] “Invisit aulam regis, regem ipsum novus hospes. Conglomerant ipsum risu aulico
barones duces marchiones comites. Agit ille, minatur oculis, aversatur ore, distorquet nares;
mittit deorsum caput, incurvat dorsum, annuit aut renuit. Rex ipse incertum gavisusne
magis ob patefactam imposturam an magis doluerit ex animo tot seculis miseræ plebi fuisse
impositum.”—Hooker to Bullinger: Original Letters on the Reformation.
[358] “He said that blessed man St. Thomas of Canterbury suffered death for the rights of
the Church; for there was a great man—meaning thereby King Harry the Second—which,
because St. Thomas of Canterbury would not grant him such things as he asked, contrary
to the liberties of the Church, first banished him out of this realm; and at his return he was
slain at his own church, for the right of Holy Church, as many holy fathers have suffered
now of late: as that holy father the Bishop of Rochester: and he doubteth not but their
souls be now in heaven.
“He saith and believeth that he ought to have a double obedience: first, to the King’s
Highness, by the law of God; and the second to the Bishop of Rome, by his rule and
profession.
“He confesseth that he used and practised to induce men in confession to hold and stick to
the old fashion of belief, that was used in the realm of long time past.”—Rolls House MS.
[359] “The Bishop of Worcester and I will be to-morrow with your lordship, to know your
pleasure concerning Friar Forest. For if we should proceed against him according to the
order of the law, there must be articles devised beforehand which must be ministered unto
him; and therefore it will be very well done that one draw them against our meeting.”—
Cranmer to Cromwell: Cranmer’s Works, Vol. I. p. 239.
[360] Rolls House MS. A 1, 7, fol. 213.
[361] Ellis Price to Cromwell: MS. Cotton. Cleopatra, E 4.
[362] MS. State Paper Office, second series, Vol. XXXIV.
[363] Latimer to Cromwell: MS. State Paper Office, second series, Vol. XLIX. Latimer’s
Letters, p. 391.
[364] Stow’s Chronicle, p. 575.
[365] Hall, p. 875, followed by Foxe.
[366] MS. State Paper Office, unarranged bundle. The command was obeyed so completely,
that only a single shrine now remains in England; and the preservation of this was not
owing to the forbearance of the government. The shrine of Edward the Confessor, which
stands in Westminster Abbey, was destroyed with the rest. But the stones were not taken
away. The supposed remains of St. Edward were in some way preserved; and the shrine
was reconstructed, and the dust replaced, by Abbot Feckenham, in the first year of Queen
Mary.—Oration of Abbot Feckenham in the Parliament House: MS. Rawlinson, Bodleian
Library.
[367] Cranmer to Cromwell: State Papers, Vol. I.
[368] “The abuses of Canterbury” are placed by the side of those of Boxley in one of the
official statements of the times.—Sir T. Wriothesley to Henry VIII., Nov. 20. 1538: State
Papers, Vol. VIII.
[369] Madame de Montreuil, though a Frenchwoman and a good Catholic, had caught the
infection of the prevailing unbelief in saints and saintly relics. “I showed her St. Thomas’s
shrine,” writes an attendant, “and all such other things worthy of sight, of the which she
was not little marvelled of the great riches thereof, saying it to be innumerable, and that if
she had not seen it all the men in the world could never have made her to believe it. Thus
overlooking and viewing more than an hour as well the shrine as St. Thomas’s head, being
at both set cushions to kneel, the prior, opening St. Thomas’s head, said to her three times,
this is St. Thomas’s head, and offered her to kiss it, but she neither kneeled nor would kiss
it, but (stood), still viewing the riches thereof.”—Penison to Cromwell: State Papers, Vol. I.
p. 583.
[370] These marks are still distinctly visible.
[371] Burnet’s Collectanea, p. 494. A story was current on the Continent, and so far
believed as to be alluded to in the great bull of Paul the Third, that an apparitor was sent to
Canterbury to serve a citation at Becket’s tomb, summoning “the late archbishop” to appear
and answer to a charge of high treason. Thirty days were allowed him. When these were
expired a proctor was charged with his defence. He was tried and condemned—his
property, consisting of the offerings at the shrine, was declared forfeited—and he himself
was sentenced to be exhumed and burnt. In the fact itself there is nothing absolutely
improbable, for the form said to have been observed was one which was usual in the
Church, when dead men, as sometimes happened, were prosecuted for heresy; and if I
express my belief that the story is without foundation, I do so with diffidence, because
negative evidence is generally of no value in the face of respectable positive assertion. All
contemporary English authorities, however, are totally silent on a subject which it is hard to
believe that they would not at least have mentioned. We hear generally of the destruction
of the shrine, but no word of the citation and trial. A long and close correspondence
between Cromwell and the Prior of Canterbury covers the period at which the process took
place, if it took place at all, and not a letter contains anything which could be construed into
an allusion to it.—Letters of the Prior of Canterbury to Cromwell: MS. State Paper Office,
second series.
So suspicious a silence justifies a close scrutiny of the authorities on the other side. There
exist two documents printed in Wilkins’s Concilia, Vol. III. p. 835, and taken from Pollini’s
History of the English Reformation, which profess to be the actual citation and actual
sentence issued on the occasion. If these are genuine, they decide the question; but,
unfortunately for their authenticity, the dates of the documents are, respectively, April and
May, 1538, and in both of them Henry is styled, among his official titles, Rex Hiberniæ. Now
Henry did not assume the title of Rex Hiberniæ till two years later. Dominus Hiberniæ, or
Lord of Ireland, is his invariable designation in every authentic document of the year to
which these are said to belong. This itself is conclusively discrediting. If further evidence is
required, it may be found in the word “Londini,” or London, as the date of both citation and
sentence. Official papers were never dated from London, but from Westminster, St. James’s,
Whitehall; or if in London, then from the particular place in London, as the Tower. Both
mistakes would have been avoided by an Englishman, but are exceedingly natural in a
foreign inventor.
[372] “We be daily instructed by our nobles and council to use short expelition in the
determination of our marriage, for to get more increase of issue, to the assurance of our
succession; and upon their oft admonition of age coming fast on, and (seeing) that the time
flyeth and slippeth marvellously away, we be minded no longer to lose time as we have
done, which is of all losses the most irrecuperable.”—Henry VIII. to Sir T. Wriothesley: State
Papers, Vol. VIII. p. 116.
“Unless his Highness bore a notable affection to the Emperor, and had a special
remembrance of their antient amity, his Majesty could never have endured to have been
kept thus long in balance, his years, and the daily suits of his nobles and council well
pondered.”—Wriothesley to Cromwell: ibid, p. 160.
[373] See the Wriothesley Correspondence: State Papers, Vol. VIII.
[374] Wriothesley to Henry VIII., November 20, 1538: Ibid.
[375] Bull of Paul III. against Henry VIII: printed in Burnet’s Collectanea.
[376] Wriothesley Correspondence: State Papers, Vol. VIII.
[377] Wriothesley to Cromwell: Ibid.
[378] Stephen Vaughan to Cromwell, Feb. 21, 1539: State Papers, Vol. VIII.
[379] “Of the evils which now menace Christendom those are held most grievous which are
threatened by the Sultan. He is thought most powerful to hurt: he must first be met in
arms. My words will bear little weight in this matter. I shall be thought to speak in my own
quarrel against my personal enemy. But, as God shall judge my heart, I say that, if we look
for victory in the East, we must assist first our fellow Christians, whom the adversary afflicts
at home. This victory only will ensure the other.”—Apol. ad Car. Quint.
[380] He speaks of Cromwell as “a certain man,” a “devil’s ambassador,” “the devil in the
human form”. He doubts whether he will defile his pages with his name. As great
highwaymen, however, murderers, parricides, and others, are named in history for
everlasting ignominy, as even the devils are named in Holy Scripture, so he will name
Cromwell.—Apol. ad Car. Quint.
[381] Ibid.
[382] Instructions to Reginald Pole: Epist. Vol. II. p. 279, &c. Pole’s admiring biographer
ventures to say that “he was declared a traitor for causes which do not seem to come
within the article of treason.”—Philips’s Life of Reginald Pole, p. 277.
[383] News which was sent from Rome unto the Cardinal Bishop of Seville: Rolls House MS.
[384] “There is much secret communication among the king’s subjects, and many of them
in the shires of Cornwall and Devonshire be in great fear and mistrust what the King’s
Highness and his council should mean, to give in commandment to the parsons and vicars
of every parish, that they should make a book wherein is to be specified the names of as
many as be wedded and buried and christened. Their mistrust is, that some charges more
than hath been in times past shall grow to them by this occasion of registering.”—Sir Piers
Edgecombe to Cromwell: State Papers, Vol. I. p. 612.
[385] “George Lascelles shewed me that a priest, which late was one of the friars at Bristol,
informed him that harness would yet be occupied, for he did know more than the king’s
council. For at the last council whereat the Emperor, the French king, and the Bishop of
Rome met, they made the King of Scots, by their counsel, Defensor fidei, and that the
Emperor raised a great army, saying it was to invade the Great Turk, which the said
Emperor meaned by our sovereign lord.”—John Babington to Cromwell: MS. State Paper
Office, second series, Vol. III.
[386] I attach specimens from time to time of the “informations” of
which the Record Office contains so many. They serve to keep the Renewed
temper of the country before the mind. The king had lately fallen agitation among
from his horse and broken one of his ribs. A farmer of Walden was the people.
accused of having wished that he had broken his neck, and “had
said further that he had a bow and two sheaves of arrows, and he would shoot them all
before the king’s laws should go forward.” An old woman at Aylesham, leaning over a shop-
window, was heard muttering a chant, that “there would be no good world till it fell
together by the ears, for with clubs and clouted shoon should the deed be done.” Sir
Thomas Arundel wrote from Cornwall, that “a very aged man” had been brought before him
with the reputation of a prophet, who had said that “the priests should rise against the
king, and make a field; and the priests should rule the realm three days and three nights,
and then the white falcon should come out of the north-west, and kill almost all the priests,
and they that should escape should be fain to hide their crowns with the filth of beasts,
because they would not be taken for priests.”—“A groom of Sir William Paget’s was dressing
his master’s horse one night in the stable in the White Horse in Cambridge,” when the ostler
came in and began “to enter into communication with him.” “The ostler said there is no
Pope, but a Bishop of Rome. And the groom said he knew well there was a Pope, and the
ostler, moreover, and whosoever held of his part, were strong heretics. Then the ostler
answered that the King’s Grace held of his part; and the groom said that he was one
heretic, and the king was another; and said, moreover, that this business had never been if
the king had not married Anne Boleyn. And therewith they multiplied words, and waxed so
hot, that the one called the other knave, and so fell together by the ears, and the groom
broke the ostler’s head with a faggot stick.”—Miscellaneous Depositions: MSS. State Paper
Office, and Rolls House.
[387] Her blood was thought even purer than Lord Exeter’s. A cloud of doubtful illegitimacy
darkened all the children of Edward IV.
[388] “At my lord marquis being in Exeter at the time of the rebellion he took direction that
all commissions for the second subsidy should stay the levy thereof for a time.”—Sir Piers
Edgecombe to Cromwell: MS. State Paper Office, second series, Vol. X.
[389] “‘The marquis was the man that should help and do them good’ (men said). See the
experience, how all those do prevail that were towards the marquis. Neither assizes, nisi
prius, nor bill of indictment put up against them could take effect; and, of the contrary part,
how it prevailed for them.”—Sir Thomas Willoughby to Cromwell: MS. Cotton. Titus, B 1,
386.
[390] Depositions relating to Lord Delaware: Rolls House MS. first series, 426.
[391] Depositions taken before Sir Henry Capel: Ibid. 1286.
[392] “A man named Howett, one of Exeter’s dependents, was heard to say, if the lord
marquis had been put to the Tower, at the commandment of the lord privy seal, he should
have been fetched out again, though the lord privy seal had said nay to it, and the best in
the realm besides; and he the said Howett and his company were fully agreed to have had
him out before they had come away.”—Rolls House MS. first series, 1286.
[393] Deposition of Geoffrey Pole: Rolls House MS.
[394] Jane Seymour was dead, and the king was not remarried: I am unable to explain the
introduction of the words, unless (as was perhaps the case) the application to the painter
was in the summer of 1537, and he delayed his information till the following year.
[395] Sir William Godolphin to Cromwell: MS. State Paper Office, second series, Vol. XIII.
[396] Ibid.
[397] Wriothesley to Sir Thos. Wyatt: Ellis, second series, Vol. II.
[398] Godolphin’s Correspondence: MS. State Paper Office, second series, Vol. XIII.
[399] Instructions by the King’s Highness to John Becket, Gentleman of his Grace’s
Chamber, and John Wroth, of the same: printed in the Archæologia.
[400] “Kendall and Quyntrell were as arrant traitors as any within the realm, leaning to and
favouring the advancement of that traitor Henry, Marquis of Exeter, nor letting nor sparing
to speak to a great number of the king’s subjects in those parts that the said Henry was
heir-apparent, and should be king, and would be king, if the King’s Highness proceeded to
marry the Lady Anne Boleyn, or else it should cost a thousand men’s lives. And for their
mischievous intent to take effect, they retained divers and a great number of the king’s
subjects in those parts, to be to the lord marquis in readiness within an hour’s warning.”—
Sir Thomas Willoughby to Cromwell: MS. Cotton. Titus, B 1.
[401] Deposition of Alice Paytchet: MS. State Paper Office, second series, Vol. XXXIX.
[402] Examination of Lord Montague and the Marquis of Exeter: Rolls House MS. first
series, 1262.
[403] “The Lord Darcy played the fool,” Montague said; “he went about to pluck the council.
He should first have begun with the head. But I beshrew him for leaving off so soon.”—
Baga de Secretis, pouch xi. bundle 2.
[404] “I am sorry the Lord Abergavenny is dead; for if he were alive, he were able to make
ten thousand men.”—Sayings of Lord Montague: Ibid.
[405] “On Monday, the fourth of this month, the Marquis of Exeter and Lord Montague were
committed to the Tower of London, being the King’s Majesty so grievously touched by
them, that albeit that his Grace hath upon his special favour borne towards them passed
over many accusations made against the same of late by their own domestics, thinking with
his clemency to conquer their cankeredness, yet his Grace was constrained, for avoiding of
such malice as was prepensed, both against his person royal and the surety of my Lord
Prince, to use the remedy of committing them to ward. The accusations made against them
be of great importance, and duly proved by substantial witnesses. And yet the King’s
Majesty loveth them so well, and of his great goodness is so loath to proceed against them,
that it is doubted what his Highness will do towards them.”—Wriothesley to Sir T. Wyatt:
Ellis, second series, Vol. II.
[406] Southampton to Cromwell: Ellis, second series, Vol. II. p. 110.
[407] Southampton to Cromwell: Ellis, second series, Vol. II. p. 114.
[408] Robert Warren to Lord Fitzwaters: MS. Cotton. Titus, B 1, 143.
[409] Burnet’s Collectanea, p. 494, &c.
[410] Hall, followed by the chroniclers, says that the executions were on the 9th of
January; but he was mistaken. In a MS. in the State Paper Office, dated the 16th of
December, 1538, Exeter is described as having suffered on the 9th of the same month. My
account of these trials is taken from the records in the Baga de Secretis: from the Act of
Attainder, 31 Henry VIII. cap. 15, not printed in the Statute Book, but extant on the Roll;
and from a number of scattered depositions, questions, and examinations in the Rolls
House and in the State Paper Office.
[411] The degrading of Henry Courtenay, late Marquis of Exeter, the 3d day of December,
and the same day convicted; and the 9th day of the said month beheaded at Tower Hill;
and the 16th day of the same month degraded at Windsor: MS. State Paper Office.
Unarranged bundle.
[412] Examination of Christopher Chator: Rolls House MS. first series.
[413] Gibbon professes himself especially scandalized at the persecution of Servetus by
men who themselves had stood in so deep need of toleration. The scandal is scarcely
reasonable, for neither Calvin nor any other Reformer of the sixteenth century desired a
“liberty of conscience” in its modern sense. The Council of Geneva, the General Assembly at
Edinburgh, the Smalcaldic League, the English Parliament, and the Spanish Inquisition held
the same opinions on the wickedness of heresy; they differed only in the definition of the
crime. The English and Scotch Protestants have been taunted with persecution. When
nations can grow to maturity in a single generation, when the child can rise from his first
grammar lesson a matured philosopher, individual men may clear themselves by a single
effort from mistakes which are embedded in the heart of their age. Let us listen to the
Landgrave of Hesse. He will teach us that Henry VIII. was no exceptional persecutor.
The Landgrave has heard that the errors of the Anabaptists are increasing in England. He
depicts in warning colours the insurrection at Münster: “If they grow to any multitude,” he
says, “their acts will surely declare their seditious minds and opinions. Surely this is true,
the devil, which is an homicide, carrieth men that are entangled in false opinions to
unlawful slaughters and the breach of society.... There are no rulers in Germany,” he
continues, “whether they be Popish or professors of the doctrines of the Gospel, that do
suffer these men, if they come into their hands. All men punish them grievously. We use a
just moderation, which God requireth of all good rulers. Whereas any of the sect is
apprehended, we call together divers learned men and good preachers, and command
them, the errors being confuted by the Word of God, to teach them rightlier, to heal them
that be sick, to deliver them that were bound; and by this way many that are astray are
come home again. These are not punished with any corporal pains, but are driven openly to
forsake their errours. If any do stubbornly defend the ungodly and wicked errours of that
sect, yielding nothing to such as can and do teach them truly, these are kept a good space
in prison, and sometimes sore punished there; yet in such sort are they handled, that death
is long deferred for hope of amendment; and, as long as any hope is, favour is shewed to
life. If there be no hope left, then the obstinate are put to death.” Warning Henry of the
snares of the devil, who labours continually to discredit the truth by grafting upon it heresy,
he concludes:—
“Wherefore, if that sect hath done any hurt there in your Grace’s realm, we doubt not but
your princely wisdom will so temper the matter, that both dangers be avoided, errours be
kept down, and yet a difference had between those that are good men, and mislike the
abuses of the Bishop of Rome’s baggages, and those that be Anabaptists. In many parts of
Germany where the Gospel is not preached, cruelty is exercised upon both sorts without
discretion. The magistrates which obey the Bishop of Rome (whereas severity is to be used
against the Anabaptists) slay good men utterly alien from their opinions. But your Majesty
will put a difference great enough between these two sorts, and serve Christ’s glory on the
one side, and save the innocent blood on the other.”—Landgrave of Hesse to Henry VIII.,
September 25, 1538: State Papers, Vol. VIII.
[414] “They have made a wondrous matter and report here of the shrines and of burning of
the idol at Canterbury; and, besides that, the King’s Highness and council be become
sacramentarians by reason of this embassy which the King of Saxony sent late into
England.”—Theobald to Cromwell, from Padua. October 22, 1538: Ellis, third series, Vol. III.
[415] The history of Lambert’s trial is taken from Foxe, Vol. V.
[416] Cromwell to Wyatt: Nott’s Wyatt, p. 326.
[417] Cromwell to Wriothesley: State Papers, Vol. VIII. p. 155.
[418] Christopher Mount writes: “This day (March 5) the Earl William a Furstenburg was at
dinner with the Duke of Saxe, which asked of him what news. He answered that there is
labour made for truce between the Emperor and the Turk. Then said the duke, to what
purpose should be all these preparations the Emperor maketh? The earl answered, that
other men should care for. Then said the duke, the bruit is here—it should be against the
King of England. Then said the earl, the King of England shall need to take heed to
himself.”—State Papers, Vol. I. p. 606.
[419] The negotiations for the marriages.
[420] Wriothesley to Cromwell: State Papers, Vol. VIII. p. 165.
[421] i.e., he was to marry the Princess Mary.
[422] Wriothesley to Cromwell: State Papers, Vol. VIII. p. 167.
[423] “Within these fourteen days, it shall surely break out what they do purpose to do; as
of three ways, one—Gueldres, Denmark, or England; notwithstanding, as I think, England is
without danger, because they know well that the King’s Grace hath prepared to receive
them if they come. There be in Holland 270 good ships prepared; but whither they shall go
no man can tell. Preparations of all manner of artillery doth daily go through Antwerp.
“All the spiritualty here be set for to pay an innumerable sum of money. Notwithstanding,
they will be very well content with giving the aforesaid money, if all things may be so
brought to pass as they hope it shall, and as it is promised them—and that is, that the
Pope’s quarrel may be avenged upon the King’s Grace of England.”—March 14, —— to
Cromwell; MS. State Paper Office, second series, Vol. XVI.
[424] William Ostrich to the worshipful Richard Ebbes, Merchant in London: MS. State Paper
Office, first series, Vol. II.
[425] Sir Ralph Sadler to Cromwell, from Dover, March 16: MS. State Paper Office, second
series, Vol. XXXVII.
[426] Hollinshed, Stow.
[427] Letters of Sir Thomas Cheyne to Cromwell, March and April, 1539: MS. State Paper
Office, second series.
[428] Cromwell to the King: MS. Cotton. Titus, B 1, 271.
[429] Philips’s Life of Pole. Four letters of Cardinal Alexander Farnese to Paul III.: Epist.
Reg. Pol. Vol. II. p. 281, &c.
[430] One of these, for instance, writes to him: “Vale amplissime Pole quem si in meis
auguriis aliquid veri est adhuc Regem Angliæ videbimus.” His answer may acquit him of
vulgar selfishness: “I know not where you found your augury. If you can divine the future,
divine only what I am to suffer for my country, or for the Church of God, which is in my
country.

eis oἰῶnos ὔristos ὐmύnesthai perὶ patrὴs.

For me, the heavier the load of my affliction for God and the Church, the higher do I mount
upon the ladder of felicity.”—Epist. Reg. Pol. Vol. III. pp. 37-39.
[431] Epist. Reg. Pol. Vol. II. p. 191, &c. The disappointment of the Roman ecclesiastics led
them so far as to anticipate a complete apostacy on the part of Charles. The fears of
Cardinal Contarini make the hopes so often expressed by Henry appear less unreasonable,
that Charles might eventually imitate the English example. On the 8th of July, 1539,
Contarini writes to Pole:—
“De rebus Germaniæ audio quod molestissime tuli, indictum videlicet esse conventum
Norimburgensem ad Kal. Octobris pro rebus Ecclesiæ componendis, ubi sunt conventuri
oratores Cæsaris et Regis Christianissimi; sex autem pro parte Lutheranorum et totidem pro
partibus Catholicorum, de rebus Fidei disputaturi; et hoc fieri ex decreto superiorum
mensium Conventûs Francford; in quo nulla mentio fit, nec de Pontifice, nec de aliquo qui
pro sede Apostolicâ interveniret. Vides credo quo ista tendunt. Utinam ego decipiar; sed hoc
prorsus judico; etsi præsentibus omnibus conatibus regis Angliæ maxime sit obstandum,
tamen non hunc esse qui maxime sedi Apostolicæ possit nocere; ego illum timeo quem
Cato ille in Republicâ Romanâ maxime timebat, qui sobrius accedit ad illam evertendam; vel
potius illos timeo (nec enim unus est hoc tempore) et nisi istis privatis conventibus cito
obviam eatur, ut non brevi major scissura in ecclesiâ cum majori detrimento autoritatis sedis
Apostolicæ oriatur, quam multis sæculis fuerit visa, non possum non maxime timere.
Scripsit ad me his de rebus primus nuncius ex Hispaniâ; et postea certiora de iisdem ex
Reverendissimo et Illustrissimo Farnesio cum huc transiret cognovi cui sententiam meam de
toto periculo exposui. Ego certe talem nunc video Ecclesiæ statum, ut si unquam dixi ullâ in
causâ cum Isaiâ, mitte me, nunc potius si rogarer dicerem cum Mose, Dominus mitte quem
missurus es.”—Epist. Reg. Pol. Vol. II. p. 158.
[432] Account of the Muster of the Citizens of London in the thirty-first Year of the Reign of
King Henry VIII., communicated (for the Archæologia), from the Records of the Corporation
of London, by Thomas Lott, Esq.
[433] Royal Proclamation: Rolls House MS. A 1, 10.
[434] In “Lusty Juventus” the Devil is introduced, saying,—

“Oh, oh! full well I know the cause

That my estimation doth thus decay:
The old people would believe still in my laws,
But the younger sort lead them a contrary way.
They will not believe, they plainly say,
In old traditions made by men;
But they will live as the Scripture teacheth them.”

Hawkins’s Old Plays, Vol. I. p. 152.

[435] “The king intended his loving subjects to use the commodity of the reading of the
Bible humbly, meekly, reverently, and obediently; and not that any of them should read the
said Bible with high and loud voices in time of the celebration of the mass, and other divine
services used in the Church; or that any of his lay subjects should take upon them any
common disputation, argument, or exposition of the mysteries therein contained.”—
Proclamation of the Use of the Bible: Burnet’s Collectanea, p. 138.
In a speech to the parliament Henry spoke also of the abuse of the Bible: “I am very sorry
to know and hear how unreverendly that most precious jewel, the Word of God, is disputed,
rhymed, sung, and jangled in every alehouse and tavern. I am even as much sorry that the
readers of the same follow it in doing so faintly and coldly.”—Hall, p. 866.
[436] The Bishop of Norwich wrote to Cromwell, informing him that he had preached a
sermon upon grace and free-will in his cathedral; “the next day,” he said, “one Robert
Watson very arrogantly and in great fume came to my lodgings for to reason with me in
that matter, affirming himself not a little to be offended with mine assertion of free will,
saying he would set his foot by mine, affirming to the death that there was no such free will
in man. Notwithstanding I had plainly declared it to be of no strength, but only when
holpen by the grace of God; by which his ungodly enterprise, perceived and known of
many, my estimation and credence concerning the sincere preaching of the truth was like to
decay.” The bishop went on to say that he had set Watson a day to answer for “his
temerarious opinions,” and was obliged to call in a number of the neighbouring county
magistrates to enable him to hold his court, “on account of the great number which then
assembled as Watson’s fautors.”—The Bishop of Norwich to Cromwell: MS. State Paper
Office, first series, Vol. X.
[437] For instance, in Watson’s case he seems to have rebuked the bishop. Ibid.
[438] Very many complaints of parishioners on this matter remain among the State Papers.
The difficulty is to determine the proportion of offenders (if they may be called such) to the
body of the spiritualty. The following petition to Cromwell, as coming from the collective
incumbents of a diocese, represents most curiously the perplexity of the clergy in the
interval between the alteration of the law and the inhibition of their previous indulgences.
The date is probably 1536. The petition was in connexion with the commission of inquiry
into the general morality of the religious orders:—
“May it please your mastership, that when of late we, your poor orators the clergy of the
diocese of Bangor, were visited by the king’s visitors and yours, in the which visitation many
of us (to knowledge the truth to your mastership) be detected of incontinency, as it
appeareth by the visitors’ books, and not unworthy, wherefore we humbly submit ourselves
unto your mastership’s mercy, heartily desiring of you remission, or at least wise of merciful
punishment and correction, and also to invent after your discreet wisdom some lawful and
godly way for us your aforesaid orators, that we may maintain and uphold such poor
hospitalities as we have done hitherto, most by provision of such women as we have
customably kept in our houses. For in case we be compelled to put away such women,
according to the injunctions lately given us by the foresaid visitors, then shall we be fain to
give up hospitality, to the utter undoing of such servants and families as we daily keep, and
to the great loss and harms of the king’s subjects, the poor people which were by us
relieved to the uttermost of our powers, and we ourselves shall be driven to seek our living
at alehouses and taverns, for mansions upon the benefices and vicarages we have none.
And as for gentlemen and substantial honest men, for fear of inconvenience, knowing our
frailty and accustomed liberty, they will in no wise board us in their houses.”—Petition of the
Clergy of Bangor to the Right Hon. Thomas Cromwell: MS. State Paper Office, second
series, Vol. XXXVI.
[439] This story rests on the evidence of eye-witnesses.—Foxe, Vol. V. p. 251, &c.
[440] The late parliament had become a byword among the Catholics and reactionaries.
Pole speaks of the “Conventus malignantium qui omnia illa decreta contra Ecclesiæ
unitatem fecit.”—Epist. Reg. Pol. Vol. II. p. 46.
[441] “For your Grace’s parliament I have appointed (for a crown borough) your Grace’s
servant Mr. Morison, to be one of them. No doubt he shall be able to answer or take up
such as should crack on far with literature of learning.”—Cromwell to Henry VIII.: State
Papers, Vol. I. p. 603.
[442] Letter to Secretary Cromwell on the Election of the Knights of the Shire for the
County of Huntingdon: Rolls House MS.
[443] Lady Blount to the King’s Secretary: Ibid.
[444] The Earl of Southampton to Cromwell: MS. Cotton. Cleopatra, E 4.
[445] The two persons whom Cromwell had previously named.
[446] Letters of the Mayor of Canterbury to Cromwell: MS. State Paper Office, second
series, Vol. V.
In the first edition this affair is referred to the election of 1539. We are left almost invariably
to internal evidence to fix the dates of letters, and finding the second of those written by
the Mayor of Canterbury, on this subject, addressed to Cromwell as Lord Privy Seal, I
supposed that it must refer to the only election conducted by him after he was raised to
that dignity. I have since ascertained that the first letter, the cover of which I did not see, is
addressed to Sir Thomas Cromwell, chief secretary, &c. It bears the date of the 20th of
May, and though the year is not given, the difference of the two styles fixes it to 1536. The
election was conducted while Cromwell was a commoner. He was made a peer and Privy
Seal immediately on the meeting of parliament on the 2d of July.
[447] Cromwell to Henry VIII.: State Papers, Vol. I. p. 693.
[448] “The King’s Highness desiring that such a unity might be established in all things
touching the doctrine of Christ’s religion, as the same so being established might be to the
honour of Almighty God, and consequently redound to the commonwealth of this his
Highness’s most noble realm, hath therefore caused his most High Court of Parliament to be
at this time summoned, and also a synod and convocation of all the archbishops, bishops,
and other learned men of the clergy of this his realm to be in like manner assembled.”—31
Henry VIII. cap. 14.
[449] “Post missarum solemnia, decenter ac devote celebrata, divinoque auxilio humillimi
implorato et invocato.”—Lords Journals, 31 Henry VIII.
[450] Lords Journals, 31 Henry VIII.
[451] A Device for extirpating Heresies among the People: Rolls House MS.
[452] “Nothing has yet been settled respecting the marriage of the clergy, although some
persons have very freely preached before the king upon the subject.”—John Butler to
Conrad Pellican, March 8, 1539: Original Letters on the Reformation, second series, p. 624.
[453] Lady Exeter was afterwards pardoned. Lady Salisbury’s offences, whatever they were,
seem to have been known to the world, even before Lord Southampton’s visit of inspection
to Warblington. The magistrates of Stockton in Sussex sent up an account of examinations
taken on the 13th of September, 1538, in which a woman is charged with having said, “If
so be that my Lady of Salisbury had been a young woman as she was an old woman, the
King’s Grace and his council had burnt her.”—MS. State Paper Office, second series, Vol.
XXXIX. The act of attainder has not been printed (31 Henry VIII. cap. 15: Rolls House MS.);
so much of it, therefore, as relates to these ladies is here inserted:—
“And where also Gertrude Courtenay, wife of the Lord Marquis of Exeter, hath traitorously,
falsely, and maliciously confederated herself to and with the abominable traitor Nicholas
Carew, knowing him to be a traitor and a common enemy to his Highness and the realm of
England; and hath not only aided and abetted the said Nicholas Carew in his abominable
treasons, but also hath herself committed and perpetrated divers and sundry detestable
and abominable treasons to the fearful peril of his Highness’s royal person, and the loss and
desolation of this realm of England, if God of his goodness had not in due time brought the
same treason to knowledge:
“And where also Margaret Pole, Countess of Salisbury, and Hugh Vaughan, late of Bekener,
in the county of Monmouth, yeoman, by instigation of the devil, putting apart the dread of
Almighty God, their duty of allegiance, and the excellent benefits received of his Highness,
have not only traitorously confederated themselves with the false and abominable traitors
Henry Pole, Lord Montague, and Reginald Pole, sons to the said countess, knowing them to
be false traitors, but also have maliciously aided, abetted, maintained, and comforted them
in their said false and abominable treason, to the most fearful peril of his Highness, the
commonwealth of this realm, &c., the said marchioness and the said countess be declared
attainted, and shall suffer the pains and penalties of high treason.” I find no account of
Vaughan, or of the countess’s connexion with him. He was probably one of the persons
employed to carry letters to and from the cardinal.
[454] “Immediate post Billæ lectionem Dominus Cromwell palam ostendit quandam tunicam
ex albo serico confectam inventam inter linteamina Comitissæ Sarum, in cujus parte
anteriore existebant sola arma Angliæ; in parte vero posteriore insignia illa quibus nuper
rebelles in aquilonari parte Angliæ in commotione suâ utebantur.”—Lords Journals, 31
Henry VIII.
[455] In quoting the preambles of acts of parliament I do not attach to them any peculiar
or exceptional authority. But they are contemporary statements of facts and intentions
carefully drawn, containing an explanation of the conduct of parliament and of the principal
events of the time. The explanation may be false, but it is at least possible that it may be
true; and my own conclusion is, that, on the whole, the account to be gathered from this
source is truer than any other at which we are likely to arrive; that the story of the
Reformation as read by the light of the statute book is more intelligible and consistent than
any other version of it, doing less violence to known principles of human nature, and
bringing the conduct of the principal actors within the compass of reason and probability. I
have to say, further, that the more carefully the enormous mass of contemporary evidence
of another kind is studied, documents, private and public letters, proclamations, council
records, state trials, and other authorities, the more they will be found to yield to these
preambles a steady support.
[456] 31 Henry VIII. cap. 8.
[457] The limitation which ought to have been made was in the time for which these
unusual powers should be continued; the bill, however, was repealed duly in connexion with
the treason acts and the other irregular measures in this reign, as soon as the crisis had
passed away, or when those who were at the head of the state could no longer be trusted
with dangerous weapons.—See 1 Edward VI. cap. 7. The temporary character of most of
Henry’s acts was felt, if it was not avowed. Sir Thomas Wyatt in an address to the Privy
Council, admitted to having said of the Act of Supremacy, “that it was a goodly act, the
King’s Majesty being so virtuous, so wise, so learned, and so good a prince; but if it should
fall unto an evil prince it were a sore rod:” and he added, “I suppose I have not mis-said in
that; for all powers, namely absolute, are sore rods when they fall into evil men’s hands.”—
Oration to the Council: Nott’s Wyatt, p. 304.
[458] The same expressions had been used of the Lollards a hundred and fifty years
before. The description applied absolutely to the Anabaptists; and Oliver Cromwell had the
same disposition to contend against among the Independents. The least irregular of the
Protestant sects were tainted more or less with anarchical opinions.
[459] A considerable part of this address is in Henry’s own handwriting See Strype’s
Memorials, Vol. II. p. 434.
[460] See Fuller, Vol. III. p. 411.
[461] 31 Henry VIII. cap. 9
[462] In some instances, if not in all, this was actually the case.—See the Correspondence
between Cromwell and the Prior of Christ Church at Canterbury: MS. State Paper Office,
second series.
[463] Oxford, Peterborough, Bristol, Gloucester, Chester, and Westminster.
[464] Canterbury, Winchester, Ely, Norwich, Worcester, Rochester, Durham, and Carlisle.
[465] “Per Dominum cancellarium declaratum est quod cum non solum proceres spirituales
verum etiam regia majestas ad unionem in precedentibus articulis conficiendam multipliciter
studuerunt et laboraverunt ita ut nunc unio in eisdem confecta sit regia igitur voluntatis
esse ut penale aliquod statutum efficeretur ad coercendum suos subditos, ne contra
determinationem in eisdem articulis confectam contradicerent, aut dissentirent, verum ejus
majestatem proceribus formam hujusmodi malefactorum hujusmodi committere. Itaque ex
eorum communi consensu concordatum est quod Archiepiscopus Cant., Episcopus Elien.,
Episcopus Menevensis et Doctor Peter, unam formam cujusdam actus, concernentem
Punitionem hujusmodi malefactorum dictarent et componerent similiterque quod Archiepisc.
Ebor., Episc. Dunelm., Episc. Winton et Doctor Tregonwell alteram ejusmodi effectus
dictitarent et componerent formam.”—Lords Journals, 31 Henry VIII.
[466] Foxe’s rhetoric might be suspected, but a letter of Melancthon to Henry VIII. is a
more trustworthy evidence: “Oh, cursed bishops!” he exclaims; “oh, wicked Winchester!”—
Melancthon to Henry VIII.: printed in Foxe, Vol. V.
[467] “The judge shall be bounden, if it be demanded of him, to deliver in writing to the
party called before him, the copy of the matter objected, and the names and depositions of
the witnesses ... and in such case, as the party called answereth and denyeth that that is
objected, and that no proof can be brought against him but the deposition of one witness
only, then and in that case, be that witness never of so great honesty and credit, the same
party so called shall be without longer delay absolved and discharged by the judge’s
sentence freely without further cost or molestation.”—The Six Articles Bill as drawn by the
King: Wilkins’s Consilia, Vol. III. p. 848.
[468] Act for Abolishing Diversity of Opinions: 31 Henry VIII. cap. 14.
[469] Printed in Strype’s Cranmer, Vol. II. p. 743.
[470] Philip Melancthon to Henry VIII., Foxe, Vol. V.
[471] Foxe, Vol. V. p. 265.
[472] Hall’s Chronicle, p. 828. Hall is a good evidence on this point. He was then a middle-
aged man, resident in London, with clear eyes and a shrewd, clear head, and was relating
not what others told him, but what he actually saw.
[473] In Latimer’s case, against Henry’s will, or without his knowledge. Cromwell, either
himself deceived or desiring to smooth the storm, told Latimer that the king advised his
resignation; “which his Majesty afterwards denied, and pitied his condition.”—State Papers,
Vol. I. p. 849.
[474] Hall.
[475] Notes of Erroneous Doctrines preached at Paul’s Cross by the Vicar of Stepney: MS.
Rolls House.
[476] Henry Dowes to Cromwell: Ellis, third series, Vol. III. p. 258.
[477] Richard Cromwell to Lord Cromwell: MS. State Paper Office, second series, Vol. VII. p.
188.
[478] More’s Utopia, Burnet’s translation, p. 13.
[479] Respectable authorities, as most of my readers are doubtless aware, inform us that
seventy-two thousand criminals were executed in England in the reign of Henry VIII.
Historians who are accustomed to examine their materials critically, have usually learnt that
no statements must be received with so much caution as those which relate to numbers.
Grotius gives, in a parallel instance, the number of heretics executed under Charles V. in the
Netherlands as a hundred thousand. The Prince of Orange gives them as fifty thousand.
The authorities are admirable, though sufficiently inconsistent, while the judicious Mr.
Prescott declares both estimates alike immeasurably beyond the truth. The entire number
of victims destroyed by Alva in the same provinces by the stake, by the gallows, and by
wholesale massacre, amount, when counted carefully in detail, to twenty thousand only.
The persecutions under Charles, in a serious form, were confined to the closing years of his
reign. Can we believe that wholesale butcheries were passed by comparatively unnoticed by
any one at the time of their perpetration, more than doubling the atrocities which startled
subsequently the whole world? Laxity of assertion in matters of number is so habitual as to
have lost the character of falsehood. Men not remarkably inaccurate will speak of
thousands, and, when cross-questioned, will rapidly reduce them to hundreds, while a
single cipher inserted by a printer’s mistake becomes at once a tenfold exaggeration.
Popular impressions on the character of the reign of Henry VIII. have, however, prevented
inquiry into any statement which reflects discredit upon this; the enormity of an accusation
has passed for an evidence of its truth. Notwithstanding that until the few last years of the
king’s life no felon who could read was within the grasp of the law, notwithstanding that
sanctuaries ceased finally to protect murderers six years only before his death, and that
felons of a lighter cast might use their shelter to the last,—even those considerable facts
have created no misgiving, and learned and ignorant historians alike have repeated the
story of the 72,000 with equal confidence.
I must be permitted to mention the evidence, the single evidence, on which it rests.
The first English witness is Harrison, the author of the Description of Britain prefixed to
Hollinshed’s Chronicle. Harrison, speaking of the manner in which thieves had multiplied in
England from laxity of discipline, looks back with a sigh to the golden days of King Hal, and
adds, “It appeareth by Cardan, who writeth it upon report of the Bishop of Lexovia, in the
geniture of King Edward the Sixth, that his father, executing his laws very severely against
great thieves, petty thieves, and rogues, did hang up three score and twelve thousand of
them.”
I am unable to discover “the Bishop of Lexovia;” but, referring to the Commentaries of
Jerome Cardan, p. 412, I find a calculation of the horoscope of Edward VI., containing, of
course, the marvellous legend of his birth, and after it this passage:—
“Having spoken of the son, we will add also the scheme of his father, wherein we chiefly
observe three points. He married six wives; he divorced two; he put two to death. Venus
being in conjunction with Cauda, Lampas partook of the nature of Mars; Luna in occiduo
cardine was among the dependencies of Mars; and Mars himself was in the ill-starred
constellation Virgo and in the quadrant of Jupiter Infelix. Moreover, he quarrelled with the
Pope, owing to the position of Venus and to influences emanating from her. He was affected
also by a constellation with schismatic properties, and by certain eclipses, and hence and
from other causes, arose a fact related to me by the Bishop of Lexovia, namely, that two
years before his death as many as seventy thousand persons were found to have perished
by the hand of the executioner in that one island during his reign.”
The words of some unknown foreign ecclesiastic discovered imbedded in the midst of this
abominable nonsense, and transmitted through a brain capable of conceiving and throwing
it into form, have been considered authority sufficient to cast a stigma over one of the most
remarkable periods in English history, while the contemporary English Records, the actual
reports of the judges on assize, which would have disposed effectually of Cardan and his
bishop, have been left unstudied in their dust.
[480] As we saw recently in the complaints of the Marquis of Exeter. But in this general
sketch I am giving the result of a body of correspondence too considerable to quote.
[481] In healthier times the Pope had interfered. A bull of Innocent VIII. permitted felons
repeating their crimes, or fraudulent creditors, to be taken forcibly out of sanctuary.—
Wilkins’s Concilia, Vol. III. p. 621.
[482] The Magistrates of Frome to Sir Henry Long: MS. Cotton. Titus, B 1, 102. Mr. Justice
Fitzjames to Cromwell: MS. State Paper Office, second series, Vol. XI. p. 43.
[483] The letter which I quote is addressed to Cromwell as “My Lord Privy Seal,” and dated
July 17. Cromwell was created privy seal on the 2d of July, 1536, and Earl of Essex on the
17th of April, 1540. There is no other guide to the date.
[484] The Magistrates of Chichester to my Lord Privy Seal: MS. State Paper Office, second
series, Vol. X.
[485] 23 Henry VIII. cap. 1.
[486] Humfrey Wingfield to my Lord Privy Seal: MS. State Paper Office, second series, Vol.
LI.
[487] Richard Layton to Cromwell: MS. State Paper Office, second series, Vol. XX.
[488] MS. State Paper Office, second series.
[489] Correspondence of the Warden and Council of the Welsh Marches with the Lord Privy
Seal: MS. State Paper Office, second series.
[490] MS. Rolls House, first series, 494.
[491] At the execution, Latimer’s chaplain, Doctor Tailor, preached a sermon. Among the
notes of the proceedings I find a certain Miles Denison called up for disrespectful language.
“The said Miles did say: The bishop sent one yesterday for to preach at the gallows, and
there stood upon the vicar’s colt and made a foolish sermon of the new learning, looking
over the gallows. I would the colt had winced and cast him down.”—“Also during the
sermon he did say, I would he were gone, and I were at my dinner.”—MS. State Paper
Office.
[492] Sir Thomas Willoughby to Cromwell: MS. Cotton. Titus, B 1, 386.
[493] The Sheriff of Hampshire to Cromwell: MS. State Paper Office, first series, Vol. IX.
[494] The traditions of severity connected with this reign are explained by these exceptional
efforts of rigour. The years of licence were forgotten; the seasons recurring at long
intervals, when the executions might be counted by hundreds, lived in recollection, and
when three or four generations had passed, became the measure of the whole period.
[495] “These three abbots had joined in a conspiracy to restore the Pope.”—Traherne to
Bullinger: Original Letters on the Reformation, second series, p. 316.
[496] “Yesterday I was with the Abbot of Colchester, who asked me how the Abbot of St.
Osith did as touching his house; for the bruit was the king would have it. To the which I
answered, that he did like an honest man, for he saith, I am the king’s subject, and I and
my house and all is the king’s; wherefore, if it be the king’s pleasure, I, as a true subject,
shall obey without grudge. To the which the abbot answered, the king shall never have my
house but against my will and against my heart; for I know, by my learning, he cannot take
it by right and law. Wherefore, in my conscience, I cannot be content; nor he shall never
have it with my heart and will. To the which I said beware of such learning; for if ye hold
such learning as ye learned in Oxenford when ye were young ye will be hanged; and ye are
worthy. But I will advise you to confirm yourself as a good subject, or else you shall hinder
your brethren and also yourself.”—Sir John St. Clair to the Lord Privy Seal: MS. State Paper
Office, second series, Vol. XXXVIII. The abbot did not take the advice, but ventured more
dangerous language.
“The Abbot of Colchester did say that the northern men were good men and mokell in the
mouth, and ‘great crackers’ and nothing worth in their deeds.” “Further, the said abbot said,
at the time of the insurrection, ‘I would to Christ that the rebels in the north had the Bishop
of Canterbury, the lord chancellor, and the lord privy seal amongst them, and then I trust
we should have a merry world again.’”—Deposition of Edmund ——: Rolls House MS.
second series, No. 27.
But the abbot must have committed himself more deeply, or have refused to retract and
make a submission; for I find words of similar purport sworn against other abbots, who
suffered no punishment.
[497] Lords Journals, 28 Henry VIII.
[498] “The Abbot of Glastonbury appeareth neither then nor now to have known God nor
his prince, nor any part of a good Christian man’s religion. They be all false, feigned,
flattering hypocrite knaves, as undoubtedly there is none other of that sort.”—Layton to
Cromwell: Ellis, third series, Vol. III. p. 247.
[499] Confession of the Abbot of Barlings: MS. Cotton. Cleopatra, E 4.
[500] “And for as much as experience teacheth that many of the heads of such houses,
notwithstanding their oaths, taken upon the holy evangelists, to present to such the King’s
Majesty’s commissioners as have been addressed unto them, true and perfect inventories of
all things belonging to their monasteries, many things have been left out, embezzled,
stolen, and purloined—many rich jewels, much rich plate, great store of precious
ornaments, and sundry other things of great value and estimation, to the damage of the
King’s Majesty, and the great peril and danger of their own souls, by reason of their wilful
and detestable perjury; the said commissioners shall not only at every such house examine
the head and convent substantially, of all such things so concealed or unlawfully alienated,
but also shall give charge to all the ministers and servants of the same houses, and such of
the neighbours dwelling near about them as they shall think meet, to detect and open all
such things as they have known or heard to have been that way misused, to the intent the
truth of all things may the better appear accordingly.”—Instructions to the Monastic
Commissioners: MS. Tanner, 105, Bodleian Library.
[501] Pollard, Moyle, and Layton to Cromwell: Burnet’s Collectanea, p. 499.
[502] Pollard, Moyle, and Layton to Cromwell: State Papers, Vol. I. p. 619.
[503] Ibid. 621.
[504] Butler, Elliot, and Traherne to Conrad Pellican: Original Letters, second series, p. 624.
[505] Thomas Perry to Ralph Vane: Ellis, second series, Vol. II. p. 140.
[506] I should have distrusted the evidence, on such a point, of excited Protestants (see
Original Letters on the Reformation, p. 626), who could invent and exaggerate as well as
their opponents; but the promise of these indulgences was certainly made, and Charles V.
prohibited the publication of the brief containing it in Spain or Flanders. “The Emperor,”
wrote Cromwell to Henry, “hath not consented that the Pope’s mandament should be
published neither in Spain, neither in any other his dominions, that Englishmen should be
destroyed in body, in goods, wheresoever they could be found, as the Pope would they
should be.”—State Papers, Vol. I. p. 608.
[507] MS. Cotton.
[508] Lord Russell to Cromwell: MS. Cotton. Cleopatra, E 4.
[509] Ibid.
[510] Pollard to Cromwell: Suppression of the Monasteries, p. 261.